The Loft Cinema

Course Description

In this course, we will learn a little of the Klingon language, from the (unfortunately fictional) Star Trek universe.  We will also learn about the principles Marc Okrand used to create the Klingon language, including how he made it in some ways like a human language, and in others different from a typical or even possible human language.  We will learn some Klingon pronunciation and grammar and a little bit of introduction to linguistics, and then we'll see how much we can understand of some of the Klingon language used in Star Trek.  We'll also learn a few good insults in Klingon, like how to say "Your ship is a garbage scow," as well as useful phrases like "Where do you keep the chocolate?"  We'll also explore how learners of Klingon here on Earth have taken the language further, for example by translating pop songs and Shakespeare into Klingon.  Join us and prepare for your next vacation on Qo'noS, the Klingon homeworld. Qapla'! (Success!) 

Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Star Trek: Discovery are all registered trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. No copyright infringement is intended through the display of content on this site. All copyrighted material is included under “fair use” principles. Star Trek Minutiae is not endorsed, sponsored or affiliated with CBS Studios Inc. or the Star Trek franchise.

Course Format

Registered community members will meet with Professor Warner for five in-person sessions on the following Mondays from 5:30 to 7:30 PM: March 7,14, 21, 28 and April 4.

Registration

Online registration for this course opens on Monday, December 6, 2021, at 10 a.m. After registration, participants will receive instructions about how to access the course online.

Refunds

Refunds are available and need to be requested before the second class meeting (March14). To drop a class, please contact Stephanie Noriega at 520-626-0626 or sbs-communitymatters@email.arizona.edu.  A $25 administrative fee for each cancellation will apply.

Location & Parking

This class will be held in person at the Loft Cinema.

Superheroes are not an exclusive American experience. In many places around the world, these cultural icons usually embody popular notions of justice, patriotism, solidarity, and protection. In Mexico, fantastic heroes are not new, for they have represented people’s aspirations, fears, and hopes in different times and historical contexts.  In five weeks, Professor Coronado Guel will demonstrate the connection between history, society, and wrestlers. Students will remember many of these icons by enjoying popular and mass culture fragments, such as music, film, comics, and television shows. Each 2-hour class will include viewings of clips and shorter films, lectures, some discussion, and a lot of joyful memories.

Registration

Register online starting Monday, August 19, 2019, at 10 a.m.

Refunds are available and need to be requested BEFORE the second class meeting (October 2). To drop a class, please contact Kerstin Miller at 520-621-5111 or sbs-communitymatters@email.arizona.edu. A $25 administrative fee for each cancellation will apply.

Location & Parking

The class meets at The Loft Cinema, Screen 3 (3233 E. Speedway Blvd.) Screen 3 is fully accessible and has a Hearing Loop Induction service.

The Loft Cinema features several dedicated parking lots next to the building, with parking available at no cost.

This course will provide a chance to study with one of the leading experts on US gun politics.  In this six week course, Professor Jennifer Carlson will trace the profound changes in gun culture and gun law in recent decades. In 2000, Gallup asked Americans whether they thought having a gun made their homes safer or more dangerous. More than half saw a gun as dangerous, and only a third saw guns making a home safer. Within a decade and a half, though, those numbers dramatically reversed: by 2014, 63% of respondents said that guns make homes safer. As annual deaths from gunshot wounds in the US hover just under 40,000, these survey data point to a profound shift in the social life of guns in America. This course will explore the historical, criminological, political, legal, sociological, and cultural perspectives that can help make sense of the contemporary views of guns as tools of safety versus objects of danger. 

Join us for Professor Carlson’s examinations of the relationship between gun rights and gun rules, between crime and self-defense, and between the past and present politics of guns.

Just 15 years after the birth of the moving image, the first film was shot in Tucson. Sunshine, railroad access, and exotic flora, fauna, and faces made Tucson an ideal movie location. Images of the frontier, the Old West, and the New West have been shaped in the public imagination by our celluloid desert. This course will look at some of the many iterations of film in Tucson, including early silent films; Hollywood westerns, melodramas, and mysteries; television series; commercials; and homemade films about the region. Professor Jenkins’ course will give a thorough background of Tucson’s rich cinematic history, building up to the incredible array of local film activity that will occur in Tucson during the month of October.

Science fiction at its best confronts us with situations so new and outside our ordinary ways of thinking about the world that it is a natural source of puzzlement and questioning. In this course, we will wrangle with a range of philosophical questions prompted by both classic and recent stories from Star Trek. Can artificial beings (like Data, or Voyager’s Doctor) really count as people in the same way that biological beings (like humans, Vulcans, and Klingons) are? When Riker gets split in a transporter accident, which of the two resulting people – or neither – is really Riker? When Picard is assimilated into the Borg as Locutus, is he still also Picard? Is Kirk right to insist that he – that we – need pain and struggle in our lives? And is Spock right to claim that “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”? Join us to discuss these philosophical queries and more!

This news-literacy course will help you make sense of a world that is fast overheating, figuratively and literally. Lectures will examine how the media cover conflicts in different parts of the world.  As tower of babble with a catchall label, the news media can confuse us as much as it informs. While delivery systems are evolving at an accelerating rate, the essence has not changed since Caesar’s letters from Gaul. What matters is the message. Despite wondrous new ways to disseminate information, we often get it wrong at the speed of light. 

Video clips will be included to show exemplary televised reportage, and our class lectures will include lively discussion. We will also have guest appearances—in person or via Skype—of seasoned reporters working abroad as well as talks with unsung, underpaid “locals” who risk their lives to get the story straight.