Teaching OLLI

I have been asked to teach a course at the university through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in the Spring of 2018. I have taught courses through the institute before and though it doesn't pay anything I continue to do it for a few important reasons. First is that the constuency of the course is retired people-often times retired professors. This is great because I come away from these thing having learned a grew deal. The other reason I do them is that I get to choose the topic. The course only lasts six weeks, so it's compressed. The first course I taught for OLLI was on protest music. Given a few years and a great deal of thought I have decided that this is a terribly difficult topic. It's difficult because, well, there aren't that many "protest songs" and most of them are awful. The stuff that is great doesn't really fall into the category of protest. Songs like Jimmy Webb's Galveston or John Fogerty's Fortunate Son. The stuff like Eve of Destruction or even a great song like For What it's Worth are either so obvious that there is nothing to talk about or so misunderstood that they associated with Vietnam when they shouldn't be. So, this time around I am looking harder for both songs and a textbook that fit the definition or purpose if not the genre. It will be a fun ride.