William Pastille
January 18—19
$160.00

Marilynne Robinson’s novels Gilead and Home have established her reputation as a fiction writer, but she also writes incisive essays about the advantages and disadvantages of contemporary life. We will discuss three essays from her 2012 collection When I Was a Child I Read Books.

Recommended edition: Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012). ISBN-13: 9781250024053

Reading assignments for the weekend:

1. Imagination and Community
2. When I Was a Child
3. The Human Spirit and the Good Society

Tom May
January 25–26
$160.00

Written in less than a month of passionate inspiration in 44 BCE, Cicero’s De Officiis (On Duties or& On Obligations) addresses the questions of what is honorable, what is expedient, and what is virtuous in a time of political corruption and turbulence, as Rome is being transformed from a republic into an empire. Voltaire said of this book, “No one will ever write anything more wise.”

Recommended edition: On Obligations: De Officiis (Oxford World Classics) Cicero, P.G. Walsh, trans., 2000, 2008. ISBN-13: 978-0199540716.

Reading assignments for the weekend:

The entire book should be read before the weekend.

1. Book 1
2. Book 2
3. Book 3

Loren Rotner
February 1–2​​​
$160.00

On his deathbed, Thomas Jefferson despaired that the principles he helped bring forth were being undermined by “the unwise and unworthy passions” of the rising generation. In this seminar, we will examine how Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass redeemed the promise of America in the application of its principle to the problem of slavery.

Recommended editions:

• Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, ed. Basler. ISBN: 0306810751.
• The Speeches of Frederick Douglass: A Critical Edition, ed. McKivigan, Husband, Kaufman. ISBN: 9780300192179.

Reading assignments for the weekend:

1. Abraham Lincoln

   • “To the People of Sangamo County”

   • “Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions”

   • “Temperance Address”

   • “Eulogy on Henry Clay”

   • “Handbill on Religious Infidelity”

2. Abraham Lincoln

   • “The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the Propriety of Its Restoration”

   • “The Dred Scott Decision”

   • “Speech in Reply to Douglas at Chicago, July 10, 1858”

   • “A House Divided”

   • “Address at Cooper Institute”

   • “Address in Independence Hall”

3. Frederick Douglass

   • “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

   • “The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery?”

   • “Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, aka the Freedman’s Monument to Abraham Lincoln”

Erica Beall
February 8–9
$160.00

The consummate dark humorist, Irish writer Samuel Beckett is one of the central figures of the absurdist movement that upended the post-World War II literary world. This seminar will examine three of Beckett’s finest plays, which epitomize the experiments with form and content that characterize his work. Often a study in contradictions, these plays explore the darkest and most uplifting aspects of human life, offering both intellectual depth and shameless entertainment.

Reading assignments for the weekend:

1. Waiting for Godot—recommended edition: Grove Press; I edition (May 17, 2011), ISBN 978-0802144423.
2. Endgame—recommended edition: Grove Press (June 16, 2009), ISBN 978-0802144393.
3. Happy Days—recommended edition: Grove Press, Preprint edition (July 16, 2013), ISBN 978-0802144409.

William Pastille
February 22–23
$160.00
This session is FULL (to be added to the wait list, send an email to torii.campbell(at)sjc.edu)

In the Meno, the Gorgias, and the first book of The Republic, Plato discusses in strikingly similar ways many issues surrounding the single question that Socrates considers the most important of all: What is the best way to live our lives?

Recommended edition: Any edition is acceptable.

Reading assignments for the weekend:

1. Plato, Meno
2. Plato, Gorgias
3. Plato, The Republic, Book I

Erica Beall
March 14–15
$160.00
This session is FULL (to be added to the wait list, send an email to torii.campbell(at)sjc.edu)

Lush prose meets profound metaphysical questions in these three short works by Jorge Luis Borges. Drawing from classical mythology, modern mathematical ideas, and fundamental human experiences, Borges is one of the great masters of the craft of short fiction and arguably the greatest Spanish-language writer of the modern era.

Recommended edition: Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths (a collection of stories) contains all of the readings, but any translation is acceptable. ISBN: 978-0811216999.

Reading assignments for the weekend:

1. The Library of Babel
2. The Garden of Forking Paths
3. The House of Asterion

Tom May
March 21–22
$160.00
This seminar has been CANCELLED

What do we expect and hope as we set out on a first voyage? What happens to our ideals in the face of disappointment and disaster? What enables us to trust others and ourselves? These are among the questions that arise for Conrad’s unforgettable and elusive figure Charles Marlow as he recounts his catastrophic first voyage to the East in Youth and his later voyage up the Congo River in Heart of Darkness. We might well learn much from these two contrasting narratives of youth and experience.

Recommended edition: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness and Other Tales. Oxford World Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-953601-6.

Reading assignments for the weekend:

1. Youth
2. Heart of Darkness I & II
3. Heart of Darkness III

Louis Petrich
March 28–29
$160.00
This seminar has been CANCELLED

The synoptic Gospels of Matthew and Luke will be read, freshly as narrative and dramatic literature. The questions any intelligent, curious reader might ask will be entertained. Thus, the Socratic-minded reader meets (as if for the first time) the Nazarene, Jesus.

Recommended edition: any edition is acceptable.

Reading assignments for the weekend:

1. Matthew, Ch. 1–17
2. Matthew, Ch. 17–28; Luke, Ch. 1–6
3. Luke, Ch. 7–24

David Townsend
April 25–26
$160.00
This seminar has been CANCELLED

Vladimir Nabokov fled Bolshevik Russia at the age of 20 and settled in America at age 41. Lolita is the most famous work of this fine prose writer and translator. An unreliable professor, who claims to be Humbert Humbert, recounts his obsession with twelve-year old Lolita. We will try to separate truth from erotic madness in this finely written classic, made into film by Stanley Kubrick (1962) and Adrian Lyne (1997). Lolita is on Time’s list of 100 best novels and Le Monde’s list of 100 best books of the twentieth century.

Recommended edition: Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita. 2d Vintage Pb. ISBN 679-72316-1.

Reading assignments for the weekend:

1. First third
2. Second third
3. Whole book​​​

David Townsend
May 2–3
$160.00
This seminar has been CANCELLED

Vladimir Nabokov fled Bolshevik Russia at the age of 20 and settled in America at age 41. Lolita is the most famous work of this fine prose writer and translator. An unreliable professor, who claims to be Humbert Humbert, recounts his obsession with twelve-year old Lolita. We will try to separate truth from erotic madness in this finely written classic, made into film by Stanley Kubrick (1962) and Adrian Lyne (1997). Lolita is on Time’s list of 100 best novels and Le Monde’s list of 100 best books of the twentieth century.

Recommended edition: Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita. 2d Vintage Pb. ISBN 679-72316-1.

Reading assignments for the weekend:

1. First third
2. Second third
3. Whole book​​​