About Summer Classics
What Participants Are Saying About Summer Classics
An utter joy in every way: seminars, Santa Fe setting (with its opera, chamber music, choral group, rare opportunity, sun and low humidity, general beauty), the rare opportunity to be with people who love great books the way we do and share our love for classical music and good conversation. We’ve made wonderful lasting friendships here over the years that make each new year like the best kind of family reunion.”
A great way to make time for oneself and to explore something in greater depth and have conversations that are focused—an experience not readily or often created outside of St. John’s College.”
Conversation with a roomful of interested adults who have read the same great work and who want to figure out together what it means. An absolutely joyful experience, probably like no other you have in your ordinary day to day.”
Intellectually rewarding, community-based discussions of some of the best and most important written works that are available to us.”
Summer Classics is like a nice cold drink on a hot summer day, it refreshes and reinvigorates your mind. It is the opportunity to discuss important themes and topics with other curious individuals across a spectrum of ages and life experience.”
Challenging and engaging conversations with a diverse group of life-long learners, facilitated by expert St. John's tutors, in a spectacular and interesting setting. What more could you ask for in a summer activity?”
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The Summer Classics History
In 1990, 11 people met at St. John’s College to read and discuss Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War. The following year, an expanded selection of classes employing the same rigorous discussion format was offered to the public, with six seminars featuring the work of Dante, Heidegger, Homer, Nietzsche, Plato, and Shakespeare. Since that time, we have gathered for 601 seminars, exploring the work of more than 300 authors whose enduring perspectives have engaged Summer Classics participants and sparked conversation for the past 30 years—and will continue to do so for the next 30, and beyond.
179 tutors led seminars over 33 years
305 authors as our primary teachers since 1991
512 teacher tuition assistance grants awarded since 1991
601 seminars offered so far with 32 planned for 2024!
Most read authors: Shakespeare (30), Plato (24), Dostoevsky (19), Mozart (16), Dante (15), Homer (13)