As I walked into Dr. Narayan Hegde's class, at SUNY Old Westbury, entitled "Sin and Sexuality," he quipped "Here comes my groupie, Dr. Greenberg." I answered jokingly and boldly, "I have taken your English Literature Course, your Asian Literature Course and your Shakespeare Course, I don't want to miss your course on "Smut." Actually, there is no smut involved.

The course is really an advanced level literature class for English Majors and others who want to participate in the classics. Dr. Hegde has screened through world literature and selected great romances, bawdy tales and intense stories of men and women caught in the web of sexual attraction.

But first and foremost, it is "literature" on the highest level. The class discussions are lively and pointed.

The students are in the 19- and 21-year age bracket. Their hormones are raging. They find great empathy for the star-crossed lovers. They laugh and cry at Tristan and Iseult, a tale of forbidden love and kinship in the English Isles of the Middle Ages. It is a tragic story, that was carried by the troubadors of Europe and passed along through the centuries.

Our trip to Dante's Inferno, caused much emotion. The young lovers, Paolo and Francesca, are destined to spend eternity in a wind tunnel because of their ill-fated romance.

Giovanni Boccaccio in his Decameron, introduces us to two unlucky naïve females who have flirted and consorted with members of the clergy.

Geoffrey Chaucer takes the reader and the class on a religious pilgrimage from London to Canterbury with a diverse group of people who tell their tales. The tales are funny, bawdy and give us a humanistic look into the Middle Ages.

Europe was coming out of the Dark Ages into the Renaissance and these stories show the rebellion of these authors. They do it with Sin and Sexuality.

We will also read and discuss The Scarlet Letter, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Lady Chatterley's Lover. I can hardly wait.

As a 70-year-old in a class of young men and women, I enjoy the class discussions immensely.

Dr. Hegde goes through these works, almost line-by-line. He emphasizes the author's meaning, but asks the class to comment. The class is extremely attentive, either due to the subject matter or Dr. Hegde's commentary or both. I look forward to the energetic class discussions.

I guess I do qualify as a "groupie" of Dr. Hegde!

He brings the class to life!