OLLI at Night
Enjoy a night out with OLLI at Tufts
All OLLI members are welcome to join our community for these special events, featuring; authors, academics, artists, performers and more! Be sure to check your member weekly digest for more details on upcoming events.
Upcoming Events
The Anthropology of Ha! with David Misch
Ripped from the pages of his award-eligible “Funny: The Book / Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Comedy,” David Misch (“Mork and Mindy,” “The Muppets Take Manhattan,” “Saturday Night Live”) looks at laughter: what it is, where it comes from and what it means, including…
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Why most laughter doesn’t come from anything funny
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How monkey urine proves that chimpanzees have a sense of humor
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Laughter’s relationship to danger
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Exciting job opportunities in the field of rat-tickling (yes, there’s video)
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Why Artificial Intelligence fails at humor, and…
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How to achieve transcendence through fart jokes
With video clips ranging from Charlie Chaplin to Richard Pryor, “The Anthropology of Ha!” will reveal the cultural sources of your every chortle. Full event details and the link to RSVP are available to current members in the Tufts OLLI Weekly Digest.
In addition to screenwriting and authoring, David is also a playwright, songwriter, blogger, teacher and recovered stand-up comic, and has spoken at the Smithsonian, Yale, Co-lumbia, American Film Institute, Oxford, University of Sydney, Trinity College Dublin, VIEW Cinema Conference (Torino, Italy), Raindance Film Festival (London), Austin Film Festival, Burbank Comedy Festival, USC, UCLA, Lucasfilm.
Two Women, Ten Flutes: An hour of Classical and Native American Flute Music
Elke Jahns-Harms and Weronika Balewski, Flutes
What makes a flute a flute? You may be surprised! Hosted with our community partner Brookhaven at Lexington, please join us for an evening concert full of melodious and sprightly duets, haunting Native American flute solos, and other gems from the Baroque era to today.
About the performers: Elke and Weronika are both professional musicians with Master’s degrees in flute performance. Weronika is a founding member of two chamber ensembles, Marvento Duo and Emissary Quartet, and teaches group classes and private lessons for all ages in Waltham, Concord and Brookline. Elke currently teaches International Development Aid at Tufts’ Fletcher School and courses on music at Tufts’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. She previously taught Music and Social Change at the New England Conservatory. Both women are passionate about sharing the arts with broader audiences and using the power of music to connect and heal.
Full event details and the link to RSVP are available to current members in the Tufts OLLI Weekly Digest.
Past Speakers and Performers
| Tufts' Beelzebubs | National Renowned A Cappella Group |
| Elizabeth Stanley | Tony-Nominated Star of Broadway & Television |
| Diane Taraz | Folk and Traditional Singer and Songwriter |
| Richard Bell | Author and Professor of History, University of Maryland |
| Phil Van Tee | Comedy Magician, Los Angeles |
| Anthony Everett | Emmy-Award Winning TV Anchor |
| Carol Hay | Author and Associate Professor of Philosophy, U. Mass Lowell |
| Jo Marchant | NYT Bestselling Author and Speaker |
| Robert Rotberg | President Emeritus, World Peace Foundation |
| Richard Hoskin | Author and Historian |
| Jonathan Biggane | Author, Associate Professor of Management, California State University |
| Samantha Power | Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former US Ambassador to the UN |
| David Sinclair | Biologist, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School |
| Stephen Kurkjian | Investigative Reporter, Founding Member of the Boston Globe Spotlight Team |
| Richard Bell | Scholar, Writer, Teacher, Professor of History University of Maryland |
| Judge Charles Schudson | Wisconsin Reserve Judge Emeritus and Author |
| Moon Duchin | Founder of the Metric Geometry & Gerrymandering, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Tufts University |
| Jonathan Garlick | Leading Stem Cell Researcher; Professor of Oral Pathology, Tufts University |
| Mitchell Weiss | Public Entrepreneurship Scholar; Professor of Management Practice, Harvard Business School |
| Nathan Carterette | Virtuoso Pianist |
| “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” | Presented by The Classic Repertory Company of New Rep Theatre |
| “Sinatra at the Sands” | Presented by The Wally’s Jazz Orchestra |
| "A Night of Magic" | Presented by Magician Kayla Drescher |
| Shakespeare’s “Othello” | Presented by The Classic Repertory Company of New Rep Theatre |
| Michael Shermer | Acclaimed Skeptic & Science Writer |
| Anthony Brooks | Award-Winning Public Radio Journalist |
| Daniel C. Dennett | Celebrated Philosopher & Cognitive Scientist, Tufts University |
| “The Scarlet Letter” | Presented by The Classic Repertory Company of New Rep Theatre |
| Steven Hancoff | American Guitarist, Writer and Arranger |
| “Historic Showstoppers” | Presented by Opera On Tap of Boston |
| Louis Menand | Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historian & Essayist |
| Tod Machover | Award-Winning Composer & Inventor |
| Walter Willett | World-Renowned Nutrition Expert |