Endless Grounds: Coffee's Social, Economic, and Cultural Life (OOL)

Endless Grounds: Coffee's Social, Economic, and Cultural Life (OOL)

Osher Online | Available (Membership Required)

U of A Fayetteville, AR 72701 United States
Online Through Zoom
Open to OLLI Members Only
Thursday, July 9, 2026-Thursday, August 13, 2026
10:00 AM-11:30 AM on Th
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$55.00

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Endless Grounds: Coffee's Social, Economic, and Cultural Life (OOL)

Osher Online | Available (Membership Required)

Coffee will provide a lively lens on major past and present issues, including climate change, social life, health, global North–South differences, social and economic justice, tourism, and slavery. We will begin “from the ground up,” tracing coffee from planting and processing through shipping and, ultimately, the beverage in our cups - part of nearly two billion cups consumed daily worldwide. We will explore coffee’s global history and its shift from an elite drink to an everyday staple. Drawing on current research, we will examine coffee and health, as well as practical questions such as how more income might reach farmers and how coffee production might adapt to a changing climate. The instructor will share firsthand experiences from coffee farms around the world, discuss a range of brewing methods, and demonstrate how coffee is brewed. Sessions will be interactive, with time for questions throughout.

Class schedule: Live lectures will take place on Thursdays via ZOOM 

JULY 9 THROUGH AUGUST 13; 10am CT
Each live session is 90 minutes
Thursday, July 9
Thursday, July 16
T hursday, July 23
Thursday, July 30
Thursday, August 6
T hursday, August 13

  • As this class is delivered by the National Resource Center for OLLIs (NRC) at Northwestern University, you will receive a welcome email from osheronline@northwestern.edu.  The email will include your credentials (username & password) as well as a hyperlink to the Osher Online Website through which you will access your course website. Please save the link once you receive it. Multi-session courses will use this same link each week.

     

Thurston, Robert
Robert Thurston

Robert Thurston, PhD, is Emeritus Professor of History at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio). He earned a BA in History from Northwestern University and a PhD in modern Russian history from the University of Michigan. His writing spans twentieth-century Russian/Soviet history, witch hunts (Europe and Salem), the body in the Anglosphere (1880–1920), and coffee as an economic and social force. A devoted coffee educator, he has opened a roastery and coffee shop and has visited coffee farms from Asia to South America.