Alumni

Spring Newsletter 2009

Warning! Some alumni have found Piraeus “positively habit-forming.”

Count Elsa Blum (SF68) as one of the college’s big fans of Piraeus, a continuing education program for alumni, now in its third year. Blum has returned to Santa Fe for two seminars: on Don Quixote this past January and on The Brothers Karamazov the year before.

“Such a treat it has been to fully devote myself to these stunning books with the companionship of others equally committed to our endeavor,” Blum says. “Of course everything starts in November, with pledges to finish a first reading by Christmas, and then culminates in a flurry of late nights in January to finish up.  How did we ever read these books in two weeks in my dimly recalled youth?”

Blum has come to view these weekends as “a meeting of loving minds.”

“How enriching and enlarging it is, and how unlikely elsewhere, in so many settings, to approach a common project with love and openness! So beneficial to the psyche, so heartening to the spirit!” And, she adds, “such great eating goes on, too.”

Blum admits that by Sunday afternoon she is in a state of “happy exhaustion” after seminars, meals and get-togethers with other Piraeus participants. 

“Since there were several of us who returned this year for a second Piraeus session,” she says, “I suspect I’m not the only one who could find this long winter weekend experience in Santa Fe positively habit-forming.”

There are three more chances to participate in Piraeus this year including an opportunity to study Shakespeare with Annapolis tutors Louis Petrich and Jonathan Tuck, on the stage, in conjunction with Washington’s renowned Shakespeare Theatre. Don’t just talk about King Lear’s anguish: try out his dramatic speeches for yourself.