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Santa Fe Community Calendar Online
March/April 2010
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SEMINARS
Community Seminars are special opportunities for community members to read and discuss seminal works in the same unique manner as our students. Seminars are discussion-based and small in size in order to ensure spirited dialogue. There are topics to pique every interest, and for many participants the discussion-based learning model is an entirely new experience.
The Community Seminar Series will be offered as four- to six-week seminars meeting one day a week. Weekend seminars meet Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday afternoon, and will be accompanied by light refreshments.
Please call 505-984-6117 to register for any of the seminars. Teachers with proof of employment can enroll in a Community Seminar at a 50-percent discount. Community Seminars are free to 11th and 12th grade high school students (limited spaces available).
Copolla, Francis Ford: Apocalypse Now
Tutor: David Carl
Apocalypse Now is part war film, part psychological investigation, part spiritual journey. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is a film about war on multiple levels: political, personal, spiritual, and psychological. Based on Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness and set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War in the 1960’s, Coppola’s film is one of the most shocking, disturbing, and moving portraits of the tolls of war on the human spirit to have come out of America’s experience in Vietnam.
Dates: March 5 – 7 (Weekend Seminar)
Time: Friday, 5:30 p.m. -7:30 p.m. ; Saturday and Sunday, 1 – 3 p.m.
Cost: $180
Seminar Title: The Heretical Theology of Meister Eckhart
Tutor: Michael Wolfe
Condemned as a heretic at the end of his life in the 14th century, Meister Eckhart has been reevaluated and celebrated in recent decades as one Christianity’s most subtle and creative thinkers. He is both thoroughly committed to the Christian tradition and daringly original in his understanding of that tradition. Exploring such stages of the path as detachment from images, the birth of the Son in the soul, and the breakthrough of the soul to Godhead, Eckhart’s discourse is both dark and fruitful, stretching human language to the bursting point in a paradoxical effort to give voice to the unsayable.
Dates: March 12th – March 14th (Weekend)
Time: Friday, 6:00 p.m – 8:00 p.m. ; Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Cost: $180
Faulkner, William: Absalom, Absalom!
Tutor: Keri Ames
Thomas Sutpen is a haunting, disturbing, yet captivating character, particularly for Quentin Compson: “the two separate Quentin’s now talking to one another in the long silence of not people in not language, like this: it seems that this demon—his name was Sutpen…” We will undertake a close reading of this challenging novel, asking what heroism might mean in the world of Sutpen.
Dates: April 3rd – May 1st (5 Saturdays)
Time: 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Cost: $150
Dostoevesky, Fyodor: Demons
Tutor: David Starr
The Demons may be Dostoevsky’s best novel; it is the most tightly-plotted of his “Great Novels,” as the five major works of his maturity are called. It is a remarkably prescient depiction, more than forty years before the 1917/1918 Russian civil war, of a brilliantly anarchic revolutionary thinker and his circle. Dostoevsky’s vision proved a shockingly accurate portrayal of the events of the early 20th century. This political novel at the peak of his psychological and literary powers is perhaps his darkest, most ironic work.
Dates: April 6th – May 18th (7 Tuesdays)
Time: 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Cost: $210
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Tutor: Laurence Nee
Please join us for this conversation about Elizabeth and Darcy, who arguably embody Jane Austin’s ideal presentation of human love. In addition to examining the pride and prejudice that pose obstacles to their love, we will also consider the other couples depicted in Pride and Prejudice in order to deepen our understanding of the pitfalls which Elizabeth and Darcy avoid. Special attention will be paid to Austin’s unique style of writing, which ironically reveals the depth of human nature amid humorous and elevating prose.
Dates: April 9th – April 11th (Weekend Seminar)
Times: Friday, 5:30 p.m. -7:30 p.m. ; Saturday and Sunday, 1 – 3 p.m.
Cost: $180
Plato: Hipparchus; Minos; Alcibiades 1
Seminar Title: The Beginning of Philosophy in Three Short Platonic Dialogues
Tutor: Lise Van Boxel
In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates seems repeatedly to suggest that by nature every human being yearns for the good life. On the other hand, he repeatedly fails to convince the people with whom he speaks to do what is required to lead such a life. How can both of these things be true? In these three short works, Plato shows us what aspect of human nature leads us toward a philosophic life, and what aspects of our education and our character hinder us from truly seeking and living the best way of life. Surprisingly perhaps, the very yearnings that incline toward a higher way of life also seem to be partly responsible for dragging us away from it. In this seminar, we will try to understand this apparent contradiction with a view to overcoming it in our own lives.
Dates: April 16th – April 18th (Weekend)
Times: Friday, 5:30 p.m. -7:30 p.m. ; Saturday and Sunday, 1 – 3 p.m.
Cost: $180