Outreach
Annapolis, Continuing Education and Fine Arts Program
Community Seminars - Spring 2010
A community seminar is composed of approximately 15 students and one tutor engaged in the study of a single book, work, problem, or theme. Each meeting begins with a question posed by the tutor based on the assigned reading; the question is meant to begin the conversation, not to elicit a correct answer. The conversation is characterized by openness, reason, clarity, and civility. Every seminar member is encouraged to take part, to candidly state his or her views, and to be attentive to others.
The Poetry of William Butler Yeats [Filled]
Tutor: David Townsend
April 10 and 11
Mellon Hall, Room 101
Tuition $135, includes brunch on Sunday
William Butler Yeats is a poet of terrible beauty, a master craftsman, and a romantic visionary, whom T.S. Eliot called “the greatest poet of our time.” His poems are often exquisite songs on love, nature, art, and destiny. His beautifully expressed philosophical reflections are profound and compelling. Yeats wears the masks of poet, mystic, philosopher, minstrel, and revolutionary politician. He is at once an embodiment of the enchantment of Ireland and a universal writer. As he says in his autobiography, “All my life I have been haunted with the idea that the poet should know all classes of men as one of themselves, that he should combine the greatest possible personal realization with the greatest possible knowledge of the speech and circumstances of the world.” Join us as we read several of the poems of this wonderful Irish poet.
Assignments: First session: “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “When You Are Old,” “The Song of Wandering Aengus,” “Down by the Salley Gardens.” Second session: “The Second Coming,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” “Leda and the Swan,” “In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz.” Third session: “Lapis Lazuli,” “The Circus Animals’ Desertion” and “Under Ben Bulben.”
Three Short Stories of Flannery O’Connor
Tutor: David Townsend
May 22 and 23
Hodson Room, Mellon Hall
Tuition $135, includes brunch on Sunday
Flannery O'Connor's southern gothic stories have the power, character, and plot of Greek tragedy. In these stories, which are poignant, often hilarious, and always disturbing, her characters have life-changing experiences that raise profound questions about grace, trust, and the nature of the good. O'Connor is sensitive to the appearance of spirit in the world as she pursues the meaning of life, love, and destiny. Join us in reading three stories by this singular writer, as she searches the recesses of the human heart. (Warning: “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” should not be read alone, late at night!)
Assignments: “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, “Good Country People”, and “The Artificial Nigger”
Milton: Paradise Lost
Tutor: Michael Brogan
June 26 and 27
Hodson, Room, Mellon Hall
Tuition $135, includes brunch on Sunday
Milton’s great epic reimagines the Fall of Man against the backdrop of cosmic warfare between God and Satan’s army of rebel angels. Bitter over his defeat yet relishing his supremacy over his new domain (“Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in heav’n”), Satan plots to infect the newly created earth with sin and death by tempting the first human beings into defying the will of their maker—a plan that meets with more success than his attempt to take Heaven by force. The poem invites reflection on such themes as pride, authority, human freedom and divine power.
Suggested translation: any edition with line numbers is fine.
Reading assignments: Paradise Lost, Books I-V; VI Argument only; VII Argument, 1-39; VIII; IX-X; XI to 428; XII 446 to end
The Death of Socrates
Tutor: William Pastille
June 26 and 27
Mellon Hall, Room 101
Tuition $135, includes lunch on Sunday
Plato's mentor, Socrates, possibly the most influential figure in the history of philosophy, was condemned to death and executed by his fellow Athenians for corrupting the youth and religious heresy. Plato dramatized the last days of Socrates in three dialogues: the Apology, an account of Socrates' defense speech in court; the Crito, a conversation on whether Socrates should flee the city rather than accept execution; and the Phaedo, Socrates' last discussion before drinking the hemlock that would end his life. While reading these dialogues we will see Socrates continuing, despite impending doom, to practice philosophy: the topics of these conversations range from the best life for a human being to what a citizen owes to his country to whether or not the soul is immortal.
Assignments: First session: Apology; Second session: Crito; Third session: Phaedo.