Two Virtuoso Teaching Performances
— George Hyde
Professor Joseph Cillo
In his book, “Teaching as a Performance Art,” Professor Seymour Sarason portrays “teachers as actors, (using) the traditions of stage performance to inspire ways to foster connections (with) students.” I find this observation timely because OLLI-USF members were treated to a truly dynamic performance recently, when Saint Leo University Professor Joseph Cillo delivered his lecture “The Supreme Court: Myth and Reality.”
Cillo, a veteran attorney and Professor of Criminal Justice, delivered what one OLLI member described as “a virtuoso performance,” in helping us witness the interchanges between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson that led to one of the seminal cases in SCOTUS history, Marbury v. Madison. Chief Justice John Marshall’s decision in Marbury established the fundamental legitimacy of judicial review, noting that “a law repugnant to the Constitution is void.” Pretty dry stuff at first glance, but arguably the most important decision in Supreme Court history…and in the hands of a gifted lecturer, a living concept for more than two centuries.
Even the “bad” SCOTUS decisions came to life in Cillo’s lecture – you could feel the dismay of once-free Dred Scott as the Court decision rescinded his rights as an American citizen, or the anguish of American-by-birth Fred Korematsu as the Supreme Court legitimized FDR’s Executive Order on the internment of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War Two.
Pausing only for an occasional sip of water, Dr. Cillo used effective visuals and attention-getting variations in vocal expression and physical movement to bring attention to his most important points, engaging students in an enlightening conversation on what we know — and what we only think we know — about the third branch of our government. In the modern phraseology, Dr. Cillo brought his “A” Game!
Dr. Marc Pugliese
“It was like years of Divinity School distilled into a 90-minute presentation!” That was just one of the enthusiastic reviews offered by OLLI-USF members who attended yesterday’s “Modern Biblical Scholarship” presentation by Dr. Marc Pugliese. Dr. Pugliese, the Assistant Dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, and Allied Services at St. Leo University, addressed his remarks to about twenty OLLI-USF members on March 25th, in the latest in a series of cooperative programs involving OLLI-USF and SLU.
Engaging the audience in analyzing texts without fully understanding their origins, Dr. Pugliese noted that, in the modern study of the Bible, “Context is king!” and that the more we know about styles of expression and societal and linguistic nuances, the better we will understand the content and meaning of the most popular book ever published: The Bible!
Using varying treatments of the Flood story from multiple sources, as well as excerpts from each of the Gospel writers, Dr. Pugliese showed how Biblical scholars have analyzed nuances to support theories on authorship, noting, for example, the presence of more political detail in Luke’s writings, or Matthew’s consistent emphasis on perfection as an attribute of Jesus.
Watch your e-mail and social media for more news about upcoming programs in the OLLI-USF partnership with St. Leo University!
George Hyde MBA Brown University, is a veteran radio broadcaster who served as Executive VP, Radio Advertising Bureau; Vice Chairman, National Association of Broadcasters; and Florida Regional Vice President for a major radio group. George spent his career in radio, both on-air and behind the scenes. His passion for accurate information and critical thinking has led to the creation of many memorable OLLI courses.
Résistance
By Lise Bérubé
Languages are inventive wonders. American English, for example, spoken in the most powerful country on earth, is constantly churning out new words and expressions. It creates them to reflect a modern society that knows no rest from adopting new inventions and technologies, reexamining human experiences, and looking at social interactions and norms from different perspectives.
Inside the American sphere of influence, other languages exist and must face that linguistic wave. On a daily basis, speakers of French, for example, must decide, as individuals and as a group, how to incorporate those English words and expressions into their own language, using a variety of approaches.
Of course, the easiest way is to accept foreign words and expressions into the language as is. “No-shows” (people who don’t honor restaurant reservations) remain “no-shows”, in the French and Canadian press. Other expressions exist, though, but are longer and have less punch: “réservations-fantômes” (ghost reservations) or “réservations non honorées”.
Now, if such words and expressions are derived from Latin, and were introduced into the English lexicon through the French-speaking Norman conquerors, they easily become familiar to the French speakers with a few spelling changes. For example, an influencer becomes “un/une influenceur/influenceuse”, a carbon bomb is “une bombe carbonique”, artificial intelligence is obviously “intelligence artificielle”, empowerment becomes “empouvoirement”, digital detox is “détox digitale”, to misgender is “mégenrer”, etc.
English words with other etymologies can also be “francized” (if you’re wondering, it’s a Canadianism) through spelling. For example, the suffix “er” is added to an English verbal form and voilà, you have created a French verb: to ghost becomes “ghoster”, to zap is “zapper”, to blacklist becomes “blacklister”, and to overbook is “surbooker”. For nouns, oftentimes the suffixes “eur” and “euse” do the trick: a TikTok user is a “un/une tictokeur/tictokeuse”, a troll is a “un/une trolleur/trolleuse”, a hacker is “un/une hackeur/hackeuse” etc.
But where the French language is the most inventive is when it draws from the huge resources of its own vocabulary. Among other weapons, it creates portmanteau words, (“mot-valise” in French, meaning word and suitcase) who answer the call of duty to repel the English invasion. Consider, for example, how forcefully the word “divulgâcher”, from the verbs “divulguer”(to divulge) and “gâcher” (to ruin) convey the displeasure of having the ending of a movie or a book revealed too soon. In the same vein, the portmanteau “traumavertissement” from “trauma” and “avertissement” although a bit long, seems stronger than trigger warning.
From Québec, we have “courriel” for e-mail, created from “courrier” (mail) and “électronique”, although the French preferred “mail”, pronounced “mél”. Junk mail is “pourriel”, since those “courriels” go into the “poubelle”, that is, the garbage can. To translate online chatting, the words for keyboard, “clavier” and for chatting, “bavardage” are fused to form “clavardage”.
Social movements, such as #MeToo, have received much attention; there is yet no consensus on how to translate it. In the French press, it is referred to as “le mouvement #MeToo”, in Québec it’s “#Moi Aussi”. But it was also more crudely rendered by the expression “#balance ton porc”, that is, denounce your pig.
Some English expressions acquire a slightly different meaning when entering a new cultural area. Selfie, for example, a somewhat cutesy word, becomes “Ego portrait”, adding a touch of formality and narcissism. Fast fashion gets more negative and realistic when translated as
“mode jetable” . throw-away fashion, or “mode éphémère”, short-lived fashion. When dealing with mansplaining, French speakers get a bit more crude, rejecting the usual word for man, “homme” but using the word for “guy” plus the word “expliquer”, for explain, to get “mecspliquer” which also is pronounced like “m’expliquer” that is, explain to me. Some go further and use “pénispliquer” – no commentary needed here.
Beside those examples, there are multiple other ways by which a language, in this case French, deals with a powerful linguistic invasion. To survive and to remain relevant, French depends on the love, the vigilance, and the inventiveness of its millions of speakers.
Lise Bérubé graduated from the Université du Québec with a BA in French literature and education. She followed her husband, an American, to Tampa; she had met him on Christmas Eve in a vacation resort in Mexico and it was a “coup de foudre”. She received Masters Degree in Education and French at USF. She was a teacher of French and Latin and a language department head for 29 years in Hillsborough County. With OLLI-USF she leads the French conversation SIG which meets twice monthly on zoom. When not traveling with her husband, she enjoys reading, cooking, gardening, and pampering her two cats, Jeff and Minette.
When Lady Liberty Steps Off Her Pedestal
— Victoria Dym
She shakes her statuesque pose, sheds her patina
walks a line towards the ferry from Ellis Island
to the Big Apple—finally
after staring at its shimmering glow for centuries
first thing, she exchanges her toga robes for jeans
exchanges her flat sandals for mid-heel
and buys her first bra, a push-up
she uses the torch as a night light— reading lamp
the Declaration of Independance on her nightstand-
one-room studio for a female
the first few nights she falls asleep still wearing her crown
later stowing it on the top shelf of the closet
along with the broken chains that had adorned her feet
a secret nod to slavery
day by day she misses the adoration of the tired, the poor
the huddled masses
instead she becomes them
her arm sore from holding the torch for so long
begins to throb
when she learns that the vote for the first female president had failed
in 2016
learns that it was so close
learns about who had defeated her
she writes in her journal
“all men are created equal”
then scratches out the word
men
From Spontaneous, selected by Northwest Poet Laureate Katherine Nelson-Born as the winner of the 2021 Poem-A-Day Chapbook Challenge Contest, published by the West Florida Literary Federation (Emerald Coast Writers), 2022, member CLMP, p.10. (ISBN 979-8-42477-303-7)
Everybody is the Same, the Same as You and Me
— 58-year-old poem revised by John Carleo
“God has spared most of us blindness yet at times we fail to see
Everybody is the same, the same as you and me.
When Republican women give birth to their babies, they willingly bare the pain.
When Democrat women give birth to their babies, they bare them the same way.
Their babies grow to adulthood, many dawn our country’s uniform.
And parents of both political parties’ fear, when to war their babies have gone.
They know the enemy doesn’t care what political party their babies are in,
He is trained to kill them, they’re both American.
Republican Soldiers fear gunfire, Democrat soldiers fear the same,
All soldiers fear gunfire and when hit, all feel the pain.
Bullets have found soldiers, of both parties they’ve fallen side by side,
Their blood flowed red upon the ground, together Democrats and Republicans,
have died.
For us, Democrats and Republicans have died.
And when news reached their loved ones, all they could do was cry,
And Democrats and Republicans cry the same, tears roll down from their eyes.
Yes, God has spared most of us blindness, yet at times we fail to see,
“Everybody is the same, the same as you and me.”
John Carleo co-owned a fitness studio with his wife, Gail, that included dance instruction along with their wellness program. You may remember John from his Total Gym infomercial with Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley.
A Cartoon by Art Henrikson
— Diane Henrikson Russell, Curator
The Berlin Wall’s fall began on November 9, 1989 during the Peaceful Revolution. Communists in East Berlin did nothing to repair the first cracks in the wall, and thousands of people hastened its destruction. Communist rule in East Germany ended, and in August 1991, the USSR disintegrated. This cartoon’s layout was determined by the nursery rhyme’s cadence as follows: 1. My dad drew the first panel to match the rhyme’s first phrase by drawing a Communist official sitting precariously on the Berlin Wall. 2. He drew the second panel to match the rhyme’s second phrase by drawing the alarmed Communist official falling off the wall. 3. In the third panel, my dad modified the nursery rhyme to describe the fall of Communism. The cartoon shows the completely broken Communist official at the foot of the wall.
Art’s career spanned over fifty years. For a deeper view of his work, visit the Art Henrikson website.
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