Current Offerings

• Deliverance from Error by Al-Ghazali
• Hayy Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufayl

• On Evil by Thomas Aquinas

• Posterior Analytics by Aristotle

• The Shield of Achilles by W. H. Auden
• The Age of Anxiety by W. H. Auden
• For the Time Being by W. H. Auden

• Confessions by Augustine

• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

• Persuasion by Jane Austen

• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

The list of plays below is representative, but neither final nor exhaustive. The reading load will be light, in terms of page, though dense in content.

• Not I by Samuel Beckett
• Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett
• Endgame by Samuel Beckett
• Happy Days by Samuel Beckett
• Ohio Impromptu by Samuel Beckett
• Footfalls by Samuel Beckett
• Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

There are two sections of this group running this fall: this is the Tuesday section.

• Bhagavad Gita

There are two sections of this group running this fall: this is the Thursday section.

• Bhagavad Gita

• Book of Genesis
• Book of Job

• Book of Leviticus
• Book of Numbers

This group will meet in-person in Washington, DC.

• Book of Psalms
• Book of Job

This group intends to read and discuss the text in Russian.

• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

• Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke

• The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
• The Plague by Albert Camus

This group will read and discuss the text in Spanish.

• Balún Canán by Rosario Castellanos

• Youth and the Bright Medusa by Willa Cather

This group will meet in-person in Bloomington, Indiana.

• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

This group will meet in-person in Brooklyn, New York City.

• On Duties by Cicero

• Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

• Constitution of Medina
• Kouroukan Fouga
• Íslendingabók by Ari Þorgilsson
• Swiss Federal Charter
• Great Law of Peace

• The Complete Poems of Hart Crane by Hart Crane

This group will be reading selections from Democracy in America and will meet in-person in Santa Fe, New Mexico. THE MEETING TIME IS LISTED IN LOCAL TIME, MDT.

• Letters from an American Farmer by J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur
• Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

This group will meet in-person in Manhattan, New York City.

• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

• Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot

• Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson

• The Trojan Women by Euripides
• Andromache by Euripides
• Helen by Euripides
• Cyclops by Euripides

• Three Tales by Gustave Flaubert
• Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant
• The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

This group will meet in-person in Annapolis, Maryland.

• The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion by Ford Madox Ford

This group will be reading Part One of Faust.

• Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This group will meet in-person in Providence, Rhode Island. All texts that you purchase should be unabridged.

• The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
• Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
• Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

• Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Histories by Herodotus
• Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus
• The Suppliants by Aeschylus
• The Persians by Aeschylus

• Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

• The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

• Iliad by Homer

Please note: we will be reading the Iliad twice in this group, using a different translation for each reading.

• Iliad by Homer

This group will use the Hackett editions, which are reasonably priced and available from major retailers. In addition to the longer works identified below, we will read some short extracts and minor works that are included in the Hackett editions.

• An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume
• An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume
• Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume

• The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology by Edmund Husserl

• The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
• Washington Square by Henry James

• Pragmatism by William James

• Pragmatism and Other Works by William James

This group will meet in-person in Toronto, Ontario, near Bathurst Station.

• Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

• Answer to Job by Carl Jung
• Book of Job

• The Eve of St. Agnes by John Keats
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Michael by William Wordsworth
• Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came by Robert Browning
• Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

• The Broken Jug by Heinrich von Kleist
• Amphitryon by Heinrich von Kleist
• The Prince of Homburg by Heinrich von Kleist
• Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist
• The Marquise of O by Heinrich von Kleist
• Danton's Death by Georg Buchner
• Leonce and Lena by Georg Buchner
• Woyzeck by Georg Buchner
• Lenz by Georg Buchner

This group will read and discuss the text in Spanish.

• Nada by Carmen Laforet

This group will read Kenneth P. Winkler's abridgment of the text (published by Hackett).

• An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke

• Discourses on Livy by Niccolo Machiavelli
• The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

This will be a slow reading of the Mahabharata. We do not expect to get very far.

• Mahabharata

• Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

• Billy Budd by Herman Melville
• The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville

• Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

• Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

We will work through the Introduction and Part One (roughly the first half of the text) with the possibility of continuing on to Parts Two and Three in the Spring.

This group will meet in-person in Boston, Massachusetts.

• The Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty

• Paradise Lost by John Milton

• Paradise Lost by John Milton

Readers will be asked to read the entire text before the first meeting so we can spend our time together rereading.

• "Apology for Raymond Sebond" by Michel de Montaigne

• Utopia by Thomas More

• The Confusions of Young Torless by Robert Musil
• Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser
• Correction by Thomas Bernhard

This group will meet in-person in Manhattan, New York City.

• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

• Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
• Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

• The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche
• On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life by Friedrich Nietzsche
• Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks by Friedrich Nietzsche

• Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

• Apology of Socrates by Plato
• Crito by Plato
• Meno by Plato
• Phaedo by Plato
• Euthyphro by Plato

• Gorgias by Plato

• Phaedo by Plato
• Parmenides by Plato

This group will meet in-person in Manhattan, New York City.

• Sophist by Plato

This group will meet in-person in Austin, Texas.

• Symposium by Plato
• Phaedrus by Plato

• Timaeus by Plato

• Apology of Socrates by Plato
• Crito by Plato
• Phaedo by Plato

This group will read selections from Parallel Lives.

• Parallel Lives by Plutarch

• An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope

• In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Marcel Proust

• The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust

Presented in partnership with the Princeton Public Library's Public Humanities Initiative, this monthly book discussion series examines fundamental texts in philosophy, political theory and literature, focusing on the theme of revolution. There are 10 seats available to online readers and 10 seats in person.

Please note that there are two sections of this group: one meeting weekly and one meeting monthly. This is the monthly group.

• Recollections by Alexis de Tocqueville
• The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx
• World Revolution by C. L. R. James
• On Revolution by Hannah Arendt

Presented in partnership with the Princeton Public Library's Public Humanities Initiative, this monthly book discussion series examines fundamental texts in philosophy, political theory and literature, focusing on the theme of revolution. There are 10 seats available to online readers and 10 seats in person (Princeton, New Jersey).

Please note that there are two sections of this group: one meeting weekly and one meeting monthly. This is the weekly group.

• Recollections by Alexis de Tocqueville
• The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx
• World Revolution by C. L. R. James
• On Revolution by Hannah Arendt

• Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

• Death and the Dervish by Meša Selimović

• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare

This group will meet in-person in Baltimore, Maryland.

• Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
• Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
• Coriolanus by William Shakespeare
• Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare

• The Tempest by William Shakespeare
• A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

• The Tempest by William Shakespeare
• The Sea and the Mirror by W. H. Auden

• Antigone by Sophocles
• Ajax by Sophocles
• Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles
• Electra by Sophocles
• Philoctetes by Sophocles
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Women of Trachis by Sophocles

• Antigone by Sophocles
• Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles

This nine-week reading group will focus (6-7 weeks) on selected poems of Wallace Stevens. In the final 2-3 weeks we will read poems of poets influenced by Stevens (John Ashberry, Frank O'Hara, James Merrill).

• The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens

This group will be reading selections from Democracy in America.

• Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

• Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

• Erec and Enide by Chretien de Troyes
• Yvain, the Knight of the Lion by Chretien de Troyes

All 12 books of the Aeneid will be read at a rate of around 2 books a week for the first 6 weeks. The reading load can be revised to a smaller amount if needed. Then the plan is to work through the first 10 books of Livy's History of Rome at about 1 -2 books a week depending on the pacing of the readers.

• Aeneid by Virgil
• History of Rome by Livy

• Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil

• The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
• The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty

We will be reading the 1892 edition of Leaves of Grass.

• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
• An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

• The Waves by Virginia Woolf

• Apology of Socrates to the Jury by Xenophon
• Apology of Socrates by Plato
• Symposium by Xenophon
• Symposium by Plato

• Education of Cyrus by Xenophon
• Anabasis by Xenophon

This is a reading group on film: rather than assigned writing, there is assigned viewing, which is completed in private prior to seminar. Readers are responsible for acquiring access to the assigned films (all are available by subscribing to the Criterion Channel). Please note: two of the assigned films are 3-4 hours in duration. The rest are approximately 2 hours long.

• A Brighter Summer Day by Edward Yang
• Taipei Story by Edward Yang
• Yi Yi by Edward Yang
• A Confucian Confusion by Edward Yang
• Mahjong by Edward Yang

We are reading the seven inner chapters of Zhuangzi, one chapter a week, for seven weeks.

There are two sections of this group running this fall: this is the Thursday section.

• Zhuangzi

We are reading the seven inner chapters of Zhuangzi, one chapter a week, for seven weeks.

There are two sections of this group running this fall: this is the Tuesday section.

• Zhuangzi

• Metaphysics by Aristotle

Writing assignments are: a one page analysis of the argument of each essay (sessions one and two), and a three to five page critical reflection on both essays (session three). The first two sessions will be normal seminar discussions of each essay (Kant then Foucault), while the third session will be additional discussion time using the readers' critical reflections.

• "What is Enlightenment?" by Michel Foucault
• "What Is Enlightenment?" by Immanuel Kant

Readers will be expected to share 1-2 page written reflections each week.

• Iliad by Homer
• Odyssey by Homer

In addition to the texts listed below, this group will be reading selections from: Plato, Republic; Aristotle, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Physics, and Metaphysics; Euclid, Elements; Theodosius, Spherics; Archimedes, On Spirals; Apollonius, Conics; Ptolemy, Almagest; and mathematical fragments from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Note on workload: Readers should plan for about 30 pages per week for Hesiod, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Plato, and Ptolemy; and about 10 dense pages per week for Aristotle and the mathematical texts. Readers will sometimes be asked to present proofs from the mathematical texts, in place of writing papers for those weeks.

• Works and Days by Hesiod
• Fragments by Parmenides
• Meno by Plato
• Fragments by Heraclitus

We will work through the Introduction and Part One (roughly the first half of the text) over the course of 10 weeks. We intend to offer a group on Parts Two and Three in the Spring. Short response papers (250-400 words) will be submitted to the group before that start of discussion. Late response papers must be submitted before the next group.

• The Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Since this is an intensive reading group, participants will commit to 1-2 pages of reflective writing per week in addition to the reading.

• King Lear by William Shakespeare

Instead of writing weekly reflection papers, readers will be asked to commit to memorizing at least one sonnet per week from our shared reading. We hope that adopting (or struggling with) this shared practice will help us to reflect deeply on the poems we read, as well as on the relationship between our reading and our thinking. We will read Dante's Vita Nuova (around 90 pages in most translations) for our first meeting, and after that we will read 5–10 sonnets per week, all in English and all from The Penguin Book of the Sonnet. We will focus on one poet per week, to include (probably) Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, Wroth, Shakespeare, Donne, Wordsworth, Browning, Hopkins, Millay, Berryman, and Brooks, with flexibility based on readers' interest.

• The New Life by Dante
• The Penguin Book of the Sonnet

Classical Arabic is the language of the Qur’an and most Arabic literature before the 20th century, and the foundation of Modern Standard Arabic. The course will begin with the script; no prior knowledge is required. Arabic is not an easy language, so those with no prior experience studying a foreign language should be prepared to spend more time than usual at the beginning. If participants are interested, there will be an extra grammar hour each week. We anticipate offering Part 2 in the spring, at the end of which participants will have a solid foundation.

• Arabic Through the Qur'an by Alan Jones

The hope is for this to be a first course in Classical Chinese for absolute beginners. We will assume no knowledge of Chinese. After the initial introductions and Lesson 1, we plan to cover one lesson a week for about ~20-25 words per week.

• Classical Chinese for Everyone: A Guide for Absolute Beginners by Bryan W. Van Norden

• An Introduction to Ancient Greek: 2 Volumes by Alfred Mollin and Robert Williamson

This will be a translation course of the Greek text of the first book of Aristotle's Metaphysics. We expect to read about 50 lines of Greek per week.

• Metaphysics, Book A by Aristotle

The weekly assignment will be 40 hexameters from Book V of the Odyssey. In the recommended edition of Geoffrey Steadman, this amounts to 4 pages (each page including 10 lines of Homer, supplemented with glosses and grammatical notes) per session.

• Odyssey, Book V by Homer

We will be translating roughly 2-3 Oxford Classical Texts pages per week.

• Apology of Socrates by Plato

The pace is approximately 120 lines per week. Participants are expected to attempt all of the Greek each week in advance of the meeting, and to have identified where their difficulties lie. There will be no explicit grammar instruction built into the translation schedule, but issues will be addressed as they arise in translation.

• Helen by Euripides

This subject tutorial will meet every Saturday from 10 am to 12:30 pm EST with a 15 min break. We will read in full Theocritus' first Idyll and the remaining lines of the so-called Tattoo Elegy. Our weekly meeting will include epigrams by Leonidas of Tarentum. We will have a week off once a month. Last session may be earlier than December 19th. Since this is an "advanced" subject tutorial, the expectations will be to prepare all the Greek listed for a given meeting, in advance of that meeting, and to volunteer to translate in every session.

• Idyll 1 by Theocritus
• Pastoral epigrams by Leonidas of Tarentum
• Tattoo Elegy

We will read four chapters of Ad Alpes: A Tale of Roman Life by H.C. Nutting per week. Readers will be asked to write weekly summaries of chapters or topics in Latin and encouraged to share their work. Reading and discussion will take place almost entirely in Latin.

• Ad Alpes: A Tale of Roman Life by H.C. Nutting

Readers will write one short proof, about a page long at most, each week.

• How to Solve It by George Polya
• Proofs: A Long-Form Mathematics Textbook by Jay Cummings

This tutorial will use high school algebra as an invitation to serious mathematical thinking. Every week, readers will share a written solution to a problem of their choosing with the group. A couple participants each week will be asked to present their solutions as a way to practice sharing their thought processes and any insights they had while doing the problem. The discussion will be centered around about 10 pages of text a week as the discussion over each chapter can go quite deep and math rewards slow, careful consideration.

This tutorial meets in-person in Manhattan, New York City.

• Algebra by Israel M. Gelfand and Alexander Shen

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Fragments by Parmenides
• Oedipus the King by Sophocles
• Meno by Plato
• Physics by Aristotle
• Almagest by Ptolemy
• On the Nature of Things by Lucretius
• Meditations by René Descartes
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

• Iliad by Homer
• Odyssey by Homer

• Iliad by Homer
• Odyssey by Homer

• Iliad by Homer
• Odyssey by Homer

This seminar will meet in-person in Boston, Massachusetts.

• Iliad by Homer
• Odyssey by Homer

• Iliad by Homer
• Odyssey by Homer

• Iliad by Homer
• Odyssey by Homer

• Iliad by Homer
• Odyssey by Homer

• Iliad by Homer
• Odyssey by Homer

• Iliad by Homer
• Odyssey by Homer

• Republic by Plato

• Republic by Plato

• Republic by Plato

There will be no meeting September 29. We request that readers choose between two translations: Allan Bloom (ISBN-13 = 9780465094080) or Joe Sachs (ISBN-13 = 9781585102617).

• Republic by Plato

• Republic by Plato

• Republic by Plato

• Republic by Plato

• On the Soul by Aristotle

• On the Soul by Aristotle

• On the Soul by Aristotle

• On the Soul by Aristotle