Osher Lifelong Learning Institute - UC San Diego

Dissecting King Lear
Friday 10:00 a.m.
Classroom 129
Michael Caldwell, Ph.D.
Shakespeare’s Lear
May 17
Fathers and Daughters
King Lear is rightly regarded as Shakespeare’s
signature meditation on aging. The play works
through the fraught territory of changing relations
between parents and children. In this lecture, Dr.
Caldwell will focus on the play’s first three acts
and, in particular, on the relationship between Lear
and his children.
May 31
Fathers and Sons
Shakespeare’s play is also perhaps the most
profound engagement in English with the question
of love and how (or whether) it is to be earned. In
this lecture, Dr. Caldwell will focus primarily on the
character of Edmund. In both lectures, Dr. Caldwell
will be apt to move through the entire play, but in
this lecture he will give more attention to the play’s
final two acts.
June 14
Professor William Mobley
A Neurologist Examines Lear
In this presentation, Dr. Mobley will use the Lear
story as a jumping-off point to discuss current
research and treatment strategies of dementia
and will discuss Shakespeare’s Lear in the light of
contemporary research in neurology.
William C. Mobley is a distinguished professor and
chair of the Department of Neurosciences at UCSD.
He also serves as executive director of UCSD’s Down
Syndrome Center for Research and Treatment. He
earned his Ph.D. in neuro- and behavioral science
from Stanford in 1974 and an M.D., also from
Stanford, in 1976. Dr. Mobley has an international
reputation for his research on degenerative diseases
of the central nervous system and is a leader in
translational medicine, bridging clinical and basic
science in various areas.
Michael Caldwell is a frequent speaker at Osher,
having given lecture series on Homer, Milton, Jane
Austen, Faulkner and Shakespeare. He holds a
doctorate from the University of Chicago and was
for many years the assistant director of the Revelle
Humanities Program at UCSD.
37