Did Jesus Christ and Krishna preach the same message to different audiences? This comparative religions course explores the similarities and differences between Hindu and Christian theologies through a close reading of the Bhagavad Gita and the New Testament. The themes covered will include the nature of God, the world, the self, karma, free will, faith/reason, and redemption. The class will be an exercise in inter-religious ethics and comparative theology.

No class May 24.

This yearlong series explores the major religious ideas, movements, and figures prominent in the development of the traditions of Islam. Participants will be able to demonstrate understanding of the most important Muslim scriptures, the general outline of the historical evolution of Islam, and the diversity within Islam in terms of sectarian, regional, and historical developments.

This yearlong series explores the major religious ideas, movements, and figures prominent in the development of the traditions of Islam. Participants will be able to demonstrate understanding of the most important Muslim scriptures, the general outline of the historical evolution of Islam, and the diversity within Islam in terms of sectarian, regional, and historical developments.

This course provides a nuanced understanding of Middle Eastern history by examining a Jewish community situated in a world politically, economically, and culturally dominated by Muslims. We will consider intellectual, political, economic, and cultural aspects of the Jewish community living in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the 10th–12th centuries under the Fatimid Caliphate and its successor state, the Ayyubid Sultanate. By examining the everyday lives of medieval Egyptian Jews, the course will provide alternate lenses for understanding the complex interplay between Islam and Judaism. Please see the online syllabus for readings to be completed before the first class.

Hodgson’s Venture is a monumental and heretofore unmatched endeavor which introduced new methodological and historiographic approaches to the study of Islam. We will focus on institutions in government and society; on hemispheric world history - including contributions of Persianate, Turkic and Indic cultures and societies - in place of Arabocentricism and Eurocentric pre-commitments. In this second of three courses we will study the Middle Period - neglected in many books on Islam. An era of enormous vibrancy and expansion rather than disintegration and fragmentation despite the tumultuous impacts of the Crusaders, Saljuq Turks, Mongols and even the black death.

Note: No class January 20

Hodgson’s Venture is a monumental and heretofore unmatched endeavor which introduced new methodological and historiographic approaches to the study of Islam. We will focus on institutions in government and society; on hemispheric world history - including contributions of Persianate, Turkic and Indic cultures and societies - in place of Arabocentricism and Eurocentric pre-commitments. In this second of three courses we will study the Middle Period - neglected in many books on Islam. An era of enormous vibrancy and expansion rather than disintegration and fragmentation despite the tumultuous impacts of the Crusaders, Saljuq Turks, Mongols and even the black death.

In this third of three courses we will study the three so-called Gunpowder Empires: the Ottomans of Turkey, the Safavids of Iran, and the Moghuls of India. We will examine the impacts of European colonialism, 20th-century independence movements, and the rise of modern nation states. We will explore the efforts by Muslim thought leaders to map out directions for their communities and prescriptions for Muslims to deal with their modernities. Understanding reform and revival processes and the pernicious fragmentation internally and by external forces of the empires will facilitate perspectives of conflicts and instabilities which persist into our time.

No class April 14 and May 26.

This course surveys major texts associated with the Zen Buddhist tradition, from its roots in medieval China, through its development in Japan, and finally to its recent development in western countries. After a brief sketch of Zen history as well as Zen’s internally-constructed narrative about its own history, we will focus on three themes: doctrines of Buddhist thought emphasized by Zen texts; modes of meditation practice heavily associated with Zen; and practices associated with Zen monastic rituals and codes. We will also study the often ignored presence and role of women in Zen traditions of the past and today. Please see the online syllabus for readings to be completed before the first class.

In this course, we will study three ancient Indian romances in three different genres—poetry, prose and drama—in a language that some people often call “dead.” Reading these Sanskrit literatures in English translation, we will study Indian aesthetics, poetics, and dramaturgy to access what Indian theoreticians called the “science” of human emotions. In our discussions, we will refer to Aristotelian poetics and modern literary theory in order to illuminate the hidden dimensions of these texts.

Presented in partnership with the National Hellenic Museum

How can family–and society–ever escape from the deadly cycle of betrayal, pain, and revenge?  A University of Chicago Instructor will engage students in lively discussions about these themes through Aeschylus’ trilogy The Oresteia.  This 5-week course will tackle the powerful story of Orestes, a tortured young man who believes he must kill his mother in order to avenge his father’s murder.   It can be argued, however, that his mother, Clytemnestra, had good reason for murdering her husband who had sacrificed their daughter’s life so he would be able to sail to the Trojan War safely.  Join us for this unique opportunity to delve into the depths of Orestes’ story which resonates to this day.

This course counts towards CPS educators CPDU’s (1 CPDU per contact hour). 

Book List: Aeschylus, The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides, Fagles translation, Penguin Classics, ISBN 978-0140443332. Book available at the Museum Store.

NO HOMEWORK IN ADVANCE OF FIRST CLASS

Class Schedule

Register for The Original Trial of Orestes on the National Hellenic Museum website.

Description for this course will be available by December 2013.

Note: No Class April 15

The Critique of Judgment is the third and last of Kant’s seminal critical works, and many consider it to be by far the most interesting. Here he takes up those areas of human life & cognitive experience that are not matters of pure reason or straightforward morality, but are grounded in the intersection of reason with the world and involve imagination and considerations of the beautiful and the sublime.  We will do as close a reading of the text as is possible within the 10 weeks available.

Seneca’s talents and influences are wide ranging.  He was the tutor of the young Emperor Nero, and helped govern the empire for what have been called the best five years of Rome’s history.  His literary corpus includes treatises on nature and science, tragedies, satire, letters and essays on philosophy. Early Christian writers like Boethius and Augustine were influenced by his Stoic philosophy, French and Elizabethan English dramatists (including Shakespeare) by his plays.  Readings for the class will include Thyestes, Medea, On Providence, On Anger, The Apocolocyntosis, On Earthquakes, and selected letters.

Note: No class April 15

Dostoevsky professed to be pleased to encounter those who thought The Idiot his best work.  As Joseph Frank writes, it “embodies his most intimate, cherished, and sacred convictions.”  As a counterpoint to The Idiot the course will include three shorter works, “White Nights,” “Notes From Underground,” and “The Meek Girl.”  If in The Idiot Dostoevsky depicts a perfectly beautiful man, in these stories he portrays two of his negative types.  Frank describes the narrator of “The Meek Girl” as a more refined portrait of the underground man character type; “White Nights” depicts the dreamer. 

In the four parts of this spectacular tetralogy, Mann re-imagines and astonishingly fleshes out the vivid but brief Genesis account of Joseph and the twelve sons of Jacob:  the arduous and complex saga of Jacob winning his beloved Rachel; the joyous eventual birth to her of Joseph; her crushing death in bearing Benjamin; Joseph’s peculiar chosen-ness, dream-gifts and enraging affect; his ten brothers’ murderous, then-enslaving treachery; his eventful and able career in Egypt; his heart-rousing reconciliation with family. Mann plumbs time, history, story; personality, psychology, meaning-construction and discovery; the intercourse of man and Godhead.  The characters and story-web are unforgettable. 

This is the second course of a two-quarter series; each quarter may be taken separately.

riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore…

In Finnegans Wake, Joyce challengingly and leadingly melds a realistic narrative of Dublin innkeeper H.C. Earwicker, his wife Anna Livia Plurabella, their twinned sons and much-loved daughter with the River Liffey, the river of life, uisquebaugh (whiskey), the water of life -with meditation and play on all that was, is, will be and may have been. In that effort, he enlists the reader to play upon the capacities of language and sound; the twining of history, mythology, deep meaning and gossip, music hall song; the hopes, longings, pains of the human heart - with great seriousness and play.

This is the fifth quarter of a five-quarter series; each quarter may be taken separately.

Extra session on Friday 7 March from 1:30 to 4:30 PM.

Note: No Class January 20

Writers gladly share that they have been influenced by Franz Kafka (1883-1924) and/or Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). Readers who like Kafka tend to like Borges as well, despite the differences in the two authors’ thematic and stylistic treatment of the existential and epistemological questions that interest all of us. Through a parallel reading of Kafka’s and Borges’ most popular short stories (about a dozen by each author), we will explore the kinship between these two artists whose works have shaped the idiosyncrasy of twentieth-century fiction. Prepare for a ten-week feast for the imagination and vigorous workout for the mind.

No class May 15.

Among the last of Plato’s dialogues, the Laws presents Plato’s thinking concerning a possible human community in contrast to the abstract Republic, which appears not to have been intended as a concrete model for an actual community.  The absence of Socrates from the dialogue and the numerous drafts of legislation involve the reader in problems about the standing of the dialogue, its relation to the Republic, and the meaning and effect of the laws that will govern the community.

This is the third course of a three-quarter series; each quarter may be taken separately.

Note: No class April 14 & May 26

Among the last of Plato’s dialogues, the Laws presents Plato’s thinking concerning a possible human community in contrast to the abstract Republic, which appears not to have been intended as a concrete model for an actual community.  The absence of Socrates from the dialogue and the numerous drafts of legislation involve the reader in problems about the standing of the dialogue, its relation to the Republic, and the meaning and effect of the laws that will govern the community.

This is the second course of a three-quarter series; each quarter may be taken separately.

Note: No Class January 20

Aiming to build on the foundational reading of the Republic made in the Basic Program, we will consider the relation of the form of the dialogue to the question of justice and the relative value of a just vs. tyrannical life; wrestle seriously with Socrates’ doubts about the question posed and the arguments he is making; explore the relations between “city in speech” and real politics; take up Socrates’ expulsion of the poets and simultaneous reliance on poetry and myth, and in general attempt a careful reading that addresses as many of the nuances of the text as time allows.  Please reread Book I for the first class.

The work of Samuel Beckett has been variously described as absurdist, dour, pessimistic, bald, bleak.  Yet, he was passionately and actively engaged with life, people, causes:  James Joyce, visual artists, actors, his wife Suzanne, lovers, his mother and brother, the French Resistance, charities.  In opening ourselves to reading and viewing Beckett, we shall invite ourselves to slow down and open up, to broaden our availability to and apprehension of the glory, horror, comedy, grief, concreteness and delicacy of life lived, and art formed.  Possible selections include Waiting for Godot, Krapp's Last Tape, Happy Days and Rockaby. 

Percy Shelley's claim in his "Defense of Poetry" that poets are "the unacknowledged legislators of the world" is rarely considered in the context of Shelley's careful argument about the relationship of poetry with mind and society. This course will rethink Shelley's essay in the light of poets whose work has made important contributions to politics, including Percy and Mary Shelley, Pablo Neruda, Victor Jara, Adrienne Rich, and Gary Snyder. We will pay particular attention to the place of poetry in "American" pragmatism (Robert Frost and Gertrude Stein) and Chinese politics (from the Shijing to Mao Zedong and Liu Xiaobo).

In this course, we will read all the plays of William Shakespeare – whether comedies, tragedies, or histories – in what is generally recognized to be the order in which they were written.

This is the third course of a three-quarter series; each quarter may be taken separately.

Note: No class April 14 and May 26

In this course, we will read all the plays of William Shakespeare – whether comedies, tragedies, or histories – in what is generally recognized to be the order in which they were written.

This is the second course of a three-quarter series; each quarter may be taken separately

Note: No Class January 20. 

Shakespeare’s history plays are his own “game of thrones” in which ambition, power plays, and bloody revenge abound. These are at once family dramas—replete with love, jealousy, and betrayal among parents, children, and siblings—and political sagas in which Shakespeare shows us usurpers who themselves are threatened with usurpation. As Henry IV observes, “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” In this class, we will read all of the history plays in the order of the reigns of the monarchs rather than the order in which Shakespeare wrote them.

Note: No class April 26 & May 24

Hosted by the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. Lectures take place in the Claudia Cassidy Theater of the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street).

Space is limited; registration is recommended.  Your registration also allows us to stay in touch for future Graham School events.

Shakespeare On The Respect Due To Fathers
April 4, 2014

Cynthia Rutz, Basic Program Instructor

Two Transformations: Isak Dinesen/Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast, And W. B. Yeats’ “Among School Children"
May 2, 2014

Claudia Traudt, Basic Program Instructor

Building The Modern State: Hobbes’ Project In Leviathan
June 6, 2014

Joseph Alulis, Basic Program Instructor

Some Reflections On Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War
August 1, 2014

Raymond Ciacci, Basic Program Instructor

“It Can’t Happen Here”? A (Frightening) Look At American Dystopias
September 5, 2014

Adam Rose, Basic Program Instructor

Register for individual First Friday Lectures.

Hosted by the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. Lectures take place in the Claudia Cassidy Theater of the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street).

Register for other First Friday Lectures.

Hosted by the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. Lectures take place in the Claudia Cassidy Theater of the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street).

Register for other First Friday Lectures.

Hosted by the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. Lectures take place in the Claudia Cassidy Theater of the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street).        

Register for other First Friday Lectures.

Hosted by the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. Lectures take place in the Claudia Cassidy Theater of the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street).

Register for other First Friday Lectures.

Hosted by the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults. Lectures take place in the Claudia Cassidy Theater of the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street). 

Register for other First Friday Lectures.

Learn more about the Basic Program through a sample classroom discussion at one of our information sessions. The 90-minute sessions begin with a description and Q & A about the program, followed by a discussion of a text from the curriculum selected by one of our instructors.

Learn more about the Basic Program through a sample classroom discussion at one of our information sessions. The 90-minute sessions begin with a description and Q & A about the program, followed by a discussion of a text from the curriculum selected by one of our instructors.

Our discussion of Dostoevsky’s masterpiece will be enhanced and challenged by selections from Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics by Mikhail Bakhtin, one of the most original Russian thinkers of the 20th century. Bakhtin invites us to pay special attention to the truths that emerge in the dialogical interaction between characters, events, ideas, and images in Dostoevsky’s work. Following Bakhtin’s insights on the polyphonic structure of The Brothers Karamazov, we will explore the dialogical nature of Dostoevsky’s creativity and of literary creativity in general. Along with the novel’s internal dialogue, we will consider its conversation with other works of literature and philosophy. For our first meeting, please read Books 1 and 2 of Part One.

Family legacies often have unintended consequences.  Through the close reading and discussion of fiction and non-fiction works and the consideration of two films,  this course will explore the types and consequences of family legacies and consider the ways in which such legacies can be designed to help and not hurt.  Texts will include: Hughes’s Family Wealth, Hausner and Freeman’s The Legacy Family, Williams and Preisser’s Philanthropy, Heirs and Values and Condon and Condon’s Beyond the Grave as well as Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons, Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and William Shakespeare’s King Lear.  

This is the third course of a three-quarter series; each quarter may be taken separately.

This course is open to all.

Note: No Class April 15

Writers gladly share that they have been influenced by Franz Kafka (1883-1924) and/or Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). Readers who like Kafka tend to like Borges as well, despite the differences in the two authors’ thematic and stylistic treatment of the existential and epistemological questions that interest all of us. Through a parallel reading of Kafka’s and Borges’ most popular short stories (about a dozen by each author), we will explore the kinship between these two artists whose works have shaped the idiosyncrasy of twentieth-century fiction. Prepare for a ten-week feast for the imagination and vigorous workout for the mind.

This course is open to all.

Note: No class April 15 and May 13.

Modern financial research suggests that investing success is generally unrelated to investing skill—and therefore that the best way to “win” the investing “game” is not to “play” it at all. This course will examine the “passive investing thesis” through the close reading and discussion of contemporary investing classics alongside a consideration of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities and Oliver Stone’s Wall Street. Texts will include: Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, Burton Malkiel’s A Random Walk down Wall Street, and William Bernstein’s The Four Pillars of Investing.

James’s depiction of the search for meaning in American modern life is unrivaled in its accuracy and complexity.  His protagonists are intelligent, naïve, thoughtful, and curious about the world; when they arrive in Europe they are alternately drawn to and repelled by Old World traditions.  As they travel they emerge from their cocoon of innocence and struggle to integrate cherished ideals of freedom, happiness, and moral understanding with their new awareness of the ambiguities and compromises of adult life.  We will explore two of James’s masterpieces, considering the high costs of growing up and of refusing to do so. 

For the first class please read Chapters 1-10 of The Portrait of a Lady.

This course is open to all.

Prague Spring has become the unconscious paradigm for every social movement that has shaken a political establishment anywhere in the early twenty-first century, regularly invoked in popular discourse by appending "Spring" to the name of any place where a political tremor is noticed by the Press. But it is rarely considered in its connection with the Velvet Revolution as philosophical work that reshaped the politics of Europe and the world at the end of the 20th century. This course is a careful reading of that philosophical work, with particular attention to Jan Patočka, Václav Havel, and Ivan Jirous.

This course is open to all.

Per Plato’s Symposium, the same eros or desire that leads us to love persons—“that which drives us toward that which draws us”—leads us to create, take in, and respond to works of art. In reading, loving, hungering to know, do we not perceive, register, and respond attentively, presently? Does not our intercourse with visual and performing arts engage us similarly? As with Basic Program texts, in this class we will address the works themselves: a rich selection of the Art Institute’s—and possibly other venues’—holdings, trusting our acuity, focus, and openness. New and returning students welcome. Although this course has been designed for alumni of The Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults, it is open to all. The first class meets at Gleacher Center; the remaining courses will meet in museums throughout the city.

This course is open to all.

Note: Admission fees to off-site locations are not included in tuition.

The Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf has long been considered the foundation text of the English literary canon. It’s also a terrific poem, its seemingly alien elements building to a genuinely poignant pitch. Seamus Heaney’s translation is a landmark in the modern reception of the text. For complex and fascinating reasons, he has an especially intimate relation to both its language and its ethos. We will supplement our reading with several additional Anglo-Saxon poems and several Heaney poems in an effort to understand both epic and translation in context. For the first class please read Beowulf (including the Introduction) through line 331 plus “Caedmon’s Hymn” (in The Anglo-Saxon World) and “Digging” (in Opened Ground).

Per Plato's Symposium, the same eros or desire that leads us to love persons – “that which drives us toward that which draws us” – leads us to create, take in and respond to works of art.  In reading, loving, hungering to know, do we not perceive, register and respond attentively, presently?  Does not our intercourse with visual and performing arts engage us similarly? As with Basic Program texts, in this class we will address the works themselves: a rich selection of the Art Institute's - and possibly other venues' – holdings, trusting our acuity, focus, openness.  New and returning students welcome.

This course is open to all.

Note: Admission fees to off-site locations are not included in tuition.

Opera is alive and well in the 21st century.  One of the oldest, complicated, most exacting, and expensive art forms of Western Civilization, it continues to envelop all who love music and dramatic action, whether comedy or tragedy.  To better understand our love of opera, we will journey from ancient Greece to the present using the best examples available on video. Subtleties and relationships between composers past and present will be examined from the earliest compositions to the newest. In the spring Quarter, we will examine the operas of Strauss, Puccini, Britten, Bernstein, and Stravinsky.

This is the third course of a three-quarter series; each quarter may be taken separately.

This course is open to all.

Opera is alive and well in the 21st century. One of the oldest, most complicated, most exacting, and most expensive art forms of Western civilization, it continues to envelop all who love music and dramatic action, whether comedy or tragedy. To better understand our love of opera, we will journey from ancient Greece to the present using the best examples available on video. Subtleties and relationships between composers past and present will be examined from the earliest compositions to the newest. In the Autumn Quarter, we will examine the operas of Monteverdi, Mozart, Beethoven, and Rossini. In the Winter Quarter, we will examine the operas of Verdi, Wagner, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Bizet, and Gounod. Parts 1 (Autumn) and 2 (Winter) are two of a three-quarter sequence; each quarter may be taken separately.

Often cited as the supreme example of a realist novel, Anna Karenina is famous for its richly detailed portrayal of family, friendship, courtship, marriage, and adultery. Branching out from two central relationships—Anna, Vronsky, and Karenin on one hand, and Kitty and Levin on the other—the novel expands to include an entire society, from train stations to ballrooms to open country fields. This course will pair the spontaneous thoughts and hidden feelings in Tolstoy’s stream of consciousness narration with readings from Freud, whose groundbreaking works on the human psyche still influence our understanding of relationships, desire, and the unconscious. For the first class please read Part 1 of Anna Karenina, and “The Unconscious,” pages 572–584 in The Freud Reader.

Mikhail Bulgakov’s savage satire of modern bureaucracy alternates between scenes of Stalinist Russia and ancient Jerusalem. Bulgakov literally unleashes the powers of Hell by having the Devil and his entourage—including a vodka-drinking cat, a poet, and Pontius Pilate—visit contemporary Moscow. The ensuing chaos includes a Satanic ball, vampire attacks, and a revisiting of the trial of Jesus before Pilate. Among the themes Bulgakov touches on are guilt, forgiveness, and to what extent we control our own fate.

For the first class, please read Book One, chapters 1–6.

This class will do a close reading of selected parts of Buddhist philosopher and patriarch Nagarjuna’s work, Exegesis on the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, which takes up, through story and argument, the “six perfections” of Buddhism: Giving, Moral Virtue, Patience, Effort, Meditation, and Wisdom. Focusing especially on Buddhism’s ethical aspects, the class can serve as both a high-level introduction to Buddhism and as a deep reading for ongoing students. We will consider both stories and explanations related to each perfection, and may supplement our readings with other brief materials.

Just before the civil war that destroyed the Roman Republic and ushered in the Empire, Cicero wrote two philosophical works on political justice. Using Plato’s dialogues as a model, the Republic and the Laws offer a plea for a just political system and set out an ideal code based on natural law. Please read Cicero’s Republic, Books 1 and 2 (pp. 4–59), for the first class.

No class July 3.

An essay is an invitation to enter the mind of a writer as he comes to know himself and understand his world. The topic is less important than the journey—one of the pleasures of reading a good essay is the feeling that you and the writer are discovering something together. This course will consider the analytic, versatile, and highly personal genre of the essay, reading works by Montaigne, Brillat-Savarin, Thoreau, Twain, T. S. Eliot, Orwell, James Baldwin, Junichiro Tanizaki,

Borges, M. F. K. Fisher, E. B. White, Bart Giamatti, Chinua Achebe, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, David Sedaris, and others. For the first class, please read the first 130 pages of The Best American Essays of the Century, through Edmund Wilson’s essay “The Old Stone House.”

We live in a world in which we are able to examine great opera performances from the perspective of great conductors. These world-renowned conductors were instrumental in getting the best artists, directors, and recording companies to capture their work. This course will examine operas by composers from Monteverdi to Britten, and the conductors who have provided us with exemplary performances. Arturo Toscanini, Georg Solti, Herbert von Karajan, Carlos Kleiber, and Riccardo Muti are some of the conductors whose operatic works we will examine.