10:00 AM – 11:00 AM Courses

  • Lectures on Diverse Topics

    WWLL is fortunate to have access to distinguished people who volunteer their time and expertise to give lectures on an eclectic array of topics.

    Course Organizers: This course was organized by Ann Dolbear, Stephen Engler, Barbara Mason and Bruce Belason. The Zoom host is Bill Cohen.

    Below is a summary of dates, lecture titles, and speakers. For the entire lecture description and speaker bio, click on the “+” symbol to the right of the course title. To hide the information accessed, click again on either the lecture title or the “+” sign to the right of the title.

    • March 9

      For much of the American Revolution, Abigail Adams remained at the family farm in Massachusetts while her husband, John, was away from home serving the American cause.

      Adams shouldered the burden of financially supporting the household and raising four children, all while a war threatened the safety and security of her family and community. She regularly wrote to John, sharing the details of everyday life, wartime intelligence, and political views.

      Adams's law practice suffered because of his taking the case. Yet he later declared that “the part I took in the defense of Captain Preston and the soldiers procured me anxiety and obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly, and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country. Judgment of death against those soldiers would have been a foul stain upon this country…. As the evidence was, the verdict of the jury was exactly right.”

      This session explores the life of Adams during the American Revolution, highlighting wartime experiences on the home front, management of the farm, work supporting her family, and correspondence with John, including her famous letter in which she encouraged her husband to “Remember the Ladies” in the creation of the new United States.

      Speaker: Hilary Miller, Ph.D., (she/her) is Chief of Interpretation at Adams National Historical Park in Quincy, Massachusetts.

      She has served as a National Park Service park ranger at sites across Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts.

      She is a co-founder of Revolutionary Narratives, a collaborative organization of public historians developing projects focused on the U.S. Semiquincentennial.

      Miller received her Ph.D. in American Studies from Pennsylvania State University. Her dissertation focused on the cultural meanings of the National Road, a key trans-Appalachian transportation route in the nineteenth century and the first federally funded highway in the United States.

      She earned her MA in History with a Public History concentration from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a BA in History and English from Washington & Jefferson College.

    • March 16

      Sacagawea, also known as Sacajawea or Sakakawea, proved her worth as a significant contributor to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Despite the information recorded in the expedition journals, the details of her pre- and post-expedition life have been greatly contested.

      Historical records, oral histories, and contradictory accounts present different versions of nearly every feature of her entire life, including her tribal heritage, birth date, life experiences, marriages and children, and her death.

      Below is an article for the class that participants are invited to read beforehand.

      Burgess and Buckley, Sacajawea

      Speaker: Jay H. Buckley grew up on ranches in Bridger Valley, Wyoming, and in the Uinta Mountains.

      He received an MA in history from BYU before earning his PhD at the University of Nebraska.

      Buckley is an Associate Professor of History at Brigham Young University, where he teaches U.S., American West, and American Indian history courses and coordinates the American Indian Studies minor.

      He is the director of BYU's Charles Redd Center for Western Studies.

      Buckley served as president of the national Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation (2011-12), which provides leadership in scholarship, education, and conservation pertaining to the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail.

      Buckley is the author of the award-winning William Clark: Indian Diplomat and co-author of eleven other books, including By His Own Hand?: The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis; Zebulon Pike: Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West; and Great Plains Forts.

    • March 23

      Drawing on his recent book Boston and the Making of a Global City, Jim O'Connell's talk will trace Greater Boston's historical rise in the network of competitive global cities, from colonial times, when merchant ships traded with the far corners of the globe, up to the contemporary knowledge-based economy, which has been responsible for developing three life-saving COVID vaccines. The talk will examine the impacts of globalization on Boston and how current political actions are posing challenges to its ongoing vitality.

      The talk will cover how Boston has become a global leader in life sciences, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, 3-D printing, and climate/clean-tech. These factors have contributed to metropolitan Boston's GDP ranking of #13 in the world ($650 billion).

      The talk will also cover episodes when Boston attempted to present itself as a globally important city, such as the 1976 Bicentennial World's Fair and the 2024 Summer Olympics.

      Speakers: Jim O'Connell teaches in the City Planning-Urban Affairs Program at Boston University.

      Jim's books include The Hub's Metropolis: Boston's Suburban Development, From Railroad Suburbs to Smart Growth; Dining Out in Boston: A Culinary History; and Becoming Cape Cod: Creating a Seaside Resort. He has spoken at Weston-Wellesley Lifetime Learning on his earlier books.

      Jim has a Ph.D. in Urban History from the University of Chicago and a B.A. from Bates College.

      He lives with his wife, Ann Marie in Newton.

    • March 30

      We will cover the fierce political debates over the size and use of military forces in the United States during the Civil War era—including how prominent political figures interacted with the professional army and how those same leaders misunderstood the value of regular soldiers fighting to reunify the fractured nation.

      Speaker: Cecily N. Zander is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wyoming and a Senior Fellow at Southern Methodist University's Center for Presidential History.

      Her first book, The Army Under Fire: Antimilitarism in the Civil War Era, was published by Louisiana State University Press in February 2024.

      Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Huntington Library, the University of Oklahoma's Western History Collections, and the United States Army Center for Military History. She has published essays on the Civil War and the American West in numerous edited collections, scholarly journals, and popular magazines.

    • April 6

      AI is no longer just a novelty that writes poems—it has become a "reasoning" partner and an active agent in our daily lives. In this third installment of our series, Robin Johnson returns to provide a clear-eyed look at how Artificial Intelligence has matured as of early 2026. We will look beyond the hype to explore the "Reasoning Revolution", where AI now pauses to think through complex problems, and the rise of "Agentic AI"—tools that don't just talk, but can actually complete tasks like booking travel or managing household logistics.

      However, with greater power comes greater complexity. This session provides a critically balanced perspective, weighing the incredible benefits for healthy aging against the rising risks of "truth decay," sophisticated voice-cloning scams, and the erosion of digital privacy.

      Speaker: Robin R. Johnson is a seasoned innovator at the intersection of AI, creativity, and daily life.

      With a career spanning some of the world's most influential tech and media companies—including Meta, Disney, EA, and Dreamworks—Robin has spent decades building tools that shape how we tell our stories.

      He currently leads AI innovation at Mixbook, the world's top-rated photobook platform, where he focuses on using "Reasoning AI" to preserve human memories.

      A resident of Wellesley and a father of two, Robin is dedicated to helping his neighbors navigate the rapidly evolving digital landscape with confidence, safety, and a healthy sense of perspective.

    • April 13

      We will explore the theological foundation for combating racism through the Quranic lens and examples of Prophet Muhammad.

      Speaker: Shaheen Akhtar is an educator, presenter, and founder of many interfaith book clubs and discussion groups. She is an interfaith liaison for the Muslim community at large. Shaheen has spent over a quarter of a century of her life building bridges among people of all faith traditions and races. She is a community builder, works with several groups, and holds community forums.

      Shaheen offers courses on Islam and lectures at churches, interfaith groups, schools, and colleges. She holds ongoing interfaith conversations with Lutherans, Latter Day Saints, Methodists, and several other groups. She mentors and supports others who want to initiate interfaith dialogue in their communities. Shaheen is committed to nurturing the pluralistic values embedded in Islam.

    • April 27

      When we think of the American Revolution, we often picture a parochial drama: thirteen colonies squaring off against the British Crown in a spirited bid for independence. But this version of the story is only half the truth—and perhaps not even the most interesting half. In this riveting program, historian and author Richard Bell invites audiences to rediscover the Revolution as a world war that unleashed chaos, opportunity, and transformation across six continents. From the sugar fields of the Caribbean to the court of the King of Mysore, from refugee camps on the Canadian frontier to political uprisings in Sierra Leone and Peru, the war that gave birth to the United States was never simply America's own. It was a seismic global event that redrew maps, toppled hierarchies, catalyzed migration, and accelerated new movements for liberty—and for empire.

      In this program, Bell traces the far-flung reverberations of the war through the lives of the people it displaced, empowered, or destroyed. Participants will encounter a Native matriarch struggling to preserve a transatlantic military alliance, a Prussian officer reinventing himself in a foreign army, and a Boston schoolteacher shipwrecked thousands of miles from home. Along the way, Bell explores how the Revolution stirred a transoceanic refugee crisis, ignited antislavery activism, and inspired uprisings from Ireland to India. The program offers a bold new framework for understanding the Revolutionary War not as a tidy founding moment but as a sprawling, high-stakes struggle fought on land and sea, shaped by commerce, diplomacy, propaganda, and contingency. This is the American Revolution as you've never seen it before: complex, global, and astonishingly relevant to the modern world.

      Speaker: Richard Bell is Professor of History at the University of Maryland and author of the book Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize and the Harriet Tubman Prize.

      He has held major research fellowships at Yale, Cambridge, and the Library of Congress and is the recipient of the National Endowment of the Humanities Public Scholar award and the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.

      His new book, The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, was published by Penguin in November 2025.

      He maintains a list of upcoming events at Richard-Bell.com.

    • May 4

      It is one thing to follow the Supreme Court from a comfortable distance, reading its opinions and following its rulings. It is another to appear in front of the 9 justices. Unless you are one of the Supreme Court "regulars" who practice frequently in that court, the experience is a rare opportunity that requires the highest level of preparation and rigor.

      Using PowerPoint and audio clips, the presenter will describe his experience in 1994 representing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts before the "Rehnquist/Scalia Supreme Court" in West Lynn Creamery v. Healey. In that case, West Lynn Creamery challenged a state rule that taxed purchases of milk in Massachusetts to generate a revenue stream dedicated to preserving Massachusetts dairy farms.

      He will also discuss how his experience 30 years ago compares with litigation today in the "Roberts Court."

      Speaker: Doug Wilkins recently retired as a judge of the Massachusetts Superior Court, where he served from 2010 to 2023. In retirement, he has taught Wellesley-Weston Lifetime Learning classes on the Supreme Court decisions of 2023, 2024, and 2025.

      From 1983 to 1999, he held various positions with the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, where he argued more than 80 appeals at all levels of the state and federal courts, including numerous briefs and one argument in the U.S. Supreme Court.

      After receiving his J.D. in 1978, Wilkins clerked in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, was an associate in the Boston law firm of Palmer & Dodge, and, in the 2000s, became a partner at the Cambridge law firm of Anderson & Kreiger LLP.

    • May 11

      We will cover the World War II-era Emergency Shipbuilding Program critical to winning the war, focusing on the rapid construction of America's Liberty ships through the partnership of President Roosevelt and industrialist Henry Kaiser.

      This massive effort resulted in 13,000 ships over four years, transforming shipbuilding from a years-long process into a matter of weeks and days, with a diverse workforce of men and women, and ultimately leading to innovations such as workplace healthcare programs like Kaiser Permanente, all while defeating the threat of German U-boats.

      Speaker: Doug Most, a Needham resident, is the author of “Launching Liberty: The Epic Race to Build the Ships That Took America to War.” A lifelong journalist and author, his career has spanned newspapers, magazines, and universities, with stops in Washington, DC; South Carolina; New Jersey; and Boston. He was named Journalist of the Year in New Jersey for his coverage of a tragic story about two teens charged with killing their newborn, a story he turned into a true-crime book titled “Always in Our Hearts”.

      He worked for 15 years at The Boston Globe, as the Sunday Magazine editor, and deputy managing editor/special projects. His 2014 nonfiction book, “The Race Underground”, told the story about the birth of subways in America in the late 1800s and was adapted into a PBS/American Experience documentary. The New York Times called the book “a sweeping narrative of late-19th-century intrigue”.

      He works now as the Executive Editor and an Assistant Vice President at Boston University.

    • May 18

      America was founded on the principle of liberty, yet, as citizens, we are sometimes called upon to sacrifice for the government. Public Health mandates individual behaviors to benefit the population. In 1918, the United States prepared to enter World War I (the War to End All Wars) just as history's most devastating influenza pandemic began its spread. How did Americans respond? What priorities did the government have?

      We will explore culture, mandates, and details of what played out to put both government and public health into perspective.

      Speaker: B. Dale Magee is a retired physician whose career has included public health and public policy as well as clinical practice. He has maintained a career-long interest in the history of medicine and in 2025 began the New England History of Medicine Society with the aim of providing interesting content for both clinicians and the interested public. You are welcome to join the New England History of Medicine Society!

      He has served as Commissioner of Public Health for the City of Worcester, chair of the Worcester Infant Mortality Reduction Task Force, Chair of the Massachusetts Medical Society's health policy committee, and president of both the Massachusetts and Worcester Medical Societies. He was also elected to four terms on the Shrewsbury School Committee, bringing a physician's perspective to this school system.

  • Poetry for the People

    Seven weeks. March 30 - May 18. The theme of identity and self in poetry explores the ways in which individuals understand, express, and define themselves. Poetry with this theme often examines questions like: Who am I? How do I fit in with the world? What makes me unique? As with other Poetry for the People classes, every member is encouraged to contribute to class discussion sharing their views, ideas, and insights.

    Teacher: Charles Kamar has a bachelor's degree from Boston State and a master's degree from Boston University. He has taught all secondary grade levels and spent 20 years at Newton North High School. In 1998, he won the Paul E. Elicker Award for Excellence in Teaching.

  • Wollen Sie Deutsch Sprechen?

    An hour of conversation for students of German and for German speakers. Basic knowledge of the German language is necessary. The group is peer-led, with some members suggesting stories, articles, poems, and multimedia to discuss (auf Deutsch). Participants also write a few sentences on group-selected topics, through which we become more acquainted with each other as well as the Deutsche Sprache. Talents represented in the group make for a lively class.

    Teacher: Peer-Led class.