The depth and beauty of the great books reveal themselves when we slow down to give them the time they deserve...

New Seminars begin in April!

Rousseau, First and Second Discourses - Sundays

Sundays, 10:00-11:20 am ET | April 5 to June 28, 2026

Has the progress of civilization made us better or worse? In his First Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, Rousseau argues that the arts and sciences corrupt morality rather than improve it. In the Second Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality, he traces how natural human freedom was lost to society, property, and political power. Together these texts form one of the most radical and searching critiques of modern civilization ever written. We'll read about 12 pages a week, allowing us time to work through important passages line by line. No background in philosophy is necessary. Beginners are welcome.

Texts: Rousseau, The Major Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, translated and edited by John T. Scott (University of Chicago Press)

Reading load: 10-15 pages/week

Seminar Leader: Jess Joseph is a graduate of the University of Chicago and has led great books reading groups on Plato's Theaetetus, George Eliot's Middlemarch, and Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed.

Shakespeare, Reading the Sonnets Aloud - Mondays (6 weeks)

Mondays, 3:20-4:50 pm ET | May 4-June 15, 2026

Join the free session on April 20

Description

Texts: Shakespeare, Sonnets

Reading load: 1-2 pages/week

Seminar Leader: Reynaldo Miranda-Zúñiga and Tim Pabon. Reynaldo is an alumnus of St. John’s College, Annapolis, and past president of the large Northern California Alumni Chapter. Tim is a classically trained stage actor and voice actor, having worked with the Folger Shakespeare in DC.

Xenophon, Symposium - Mondays (6 weeks)

Mondays, 5:30-6:45 pm ET | April 6 to April 27, 2026

Xenophon's Symposium is noticeably different from Plato's, especially as it is so lighthearted, with an utterly charming ending. Socrates and other guests attend a drinking party (a symposium) and take turns saying what each prides himself on: comedy ensues. This seminar offers an easy introduction to Socratic philosophy and how to read carefully. We'll read a few pages a week and note details that are easy to overlook. No background in philosophy is necessary. Beginners are not only welcome, but encouraged.

Texts: Xenophon, Symposium (trans. Robert C. Bartlett), in The Shorter Socratic Writings, ed. Robert C. Bartlett.

Reading load: 8 pages/week

Seminar Leader: Jason Happel is a visiting professor in ethics and political philosophy at Framingham State University.

Borges, Poems - Tuesdays 

Tuesdays, 5:30-7:00 pm ET | April 7 to June 30, 2026

Description

Texts:

Leaders: Reynaldo Miranda-Zúñiga and Miryam Bujanda. Reynaldo is an alumnus of St. John’s College, Annapolis, and past president of the large Northern California Alumni Chapter. Miryam is a social justice advocate and teaches at St. Mary’s University on civic and social engagement and is a Macondo Writer’s Workshop alumna.

e.e. cummings, poems - Tuesdays 

Tuesdays, TBA pm ET | May to June, 2026

Description

Text: ee cummings works (details soon)

Reading Load:  1-2 pp/week

Leader: JJ Patton is a poetry lover and published poet.

Henry Adams, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres - Tuesdays

Tuesdays, 5:30-7:00 pm ET | April 7 to June 30, 2026

After his wife’s suicide in 1885, Henry Adams tried to think through the topsy-turvy contemporary world and his own life in Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1913). He views the Middle Ages as a civilization that had built and nurtured a transcendental unity as he leads the reader on a pilgrimage back in time, through a veiled confession to a homecoming. Adams introduced Americans to a half-forgotten past. This seminar is a prelude to The Education of Henry Adams (your grandparents may have it on their bookshelf) which will be offered in the summer.

Text: Adams, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres: A Study of Thirteenth-Century Unity, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982, 402 pp., paperback ISBN 9780691003351

Reading Load:  25-30 pp./week.

Leader: Reynaldo Miranda-Zúñiga is an alumnus of St. John’s College, Annapolis, and past president of the large Northern California Alumni Chapter.  He has led seminars with Symposium for 20 years and with other organizations.   

Plato, Meno (with Klein Commentary) - Tuesdays

Tuesdays, 8:50-10:20 pm ET | April 7 to June 30, 2026

Plato's Meno is a short Socratic dialogue about... well, more than its topic. It makes a good introduction to Plato's works and Socratic inquiry in general. Together, we will join the textual conversation to explore the question: what is virtue, or human excellence? After a close reading, we will turn to one of the most famous commentaries on the Meno and on Platonic dialogues in general -- sometimes a "secondary" work is almost as great as the original, especially if it is also a work of philosophy.

Texts: Plato, Meno, and Klein, A Commentary on Plato's Meno

Leaders: Reynaldo Miranda-Zúñiga and Jason Happel. Reynaldo is an alumnus of St. John’s College, Annapolis, and past president of the large Northern California Alumni Chapter. Jason is a visiting professor in ethics and political philosophy at Framingham State University.

Shakespeare, Henry the Sixth, Part I - Wednesday

Wednesdays, 2:00-3:30 pm ET | April 15 to July 1, 2026

The King is dead! Long live the King... Fifty years of conflict, blood, treachery: the Wars of the Roses, the Hundred Years’ War, and the problem of hereditary succession with a line doubtfully descended from a usurpation only twenty-five years past and you have mayhem, mendacity, and enough moral murk to turn glory into miasma. The Henry VI plays give us a rich crop of character -- Joan of Arc (Henry VI, Part 1), Cade’s Rebellion (Henry VI, Part 2), and the reign of King Edward IV (Henry VI, Part 3) -- which we will explore over the next three quarters. If you've read the other Henries (and Richards) but haven't quite found time to tackle Henry VI, now is a rare opportunity to read it with other Shakespeare super-fans.  

Reading load: several pages/week

Seminar Leader: Eric Stull holds degrees in Liberal Arts, Eastern Classics, Greek and Latin. He has taught high-school history and English, and writing and literature in nine colleges and universities for past 20 years.

Joyce, Ulysses - Wednesdays

Wednesdays, 7:00-8:30 pm ET | April 7 to June 24, 2026

Ulysses has a reputation for being difficult. And, at times, it can be -- especially if you are doing it by yourself. In this seminar, we’ll move step by step through Joyce’s account of a single day in Dublin, paying close attention to voice, structure, humor, and character. Rather than trying to “solve” the novel, we’ll aim to understand how it works and why it still matters. Along the way, we’ll lightly explore some of the book’s key literary connections, including Homer’s Odyssey, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and Dante’s Inferno. These parallels will help orient us without overwhelming the primary task: reading Ulysses.  This course is designed for both first-time readers and those returning to the novel. The goal is simple: to make steady, thoughtful progress through one of the most important works of modern literature.

Reading load: multiple pages/week

Seminar Leader: Randy Wootton has a BS in English from the Naval Academy, an MALA from St John's College, and an MBA from Harvard. He has taught at both university and high school levels while doing time in the Corporate Sector. He is now going back to his roots to explore great books with great people!

An Introduction to Eastern Thought - Thursdays

Thursdays, 7:10-8:40 pm ET | April 8 to June 25, 2026

Description

Reading load: a few pages/week

Seminar Leader: Chad Keutzinger studied Eastern Classics.

Gospel of Mark - Thursdays

Thursdays, 8:50-10:20 pm ET | April 8 to June 25, 2026

This seminar is part of a continuing series on Jewish and Christian texts: we alternate each quarter. Anyone who is interested in a pluralistic, serious (with some playfulness), conversational approach to religious texts, read for the purpose of personal understanding is invited to join each quarter. We like to think we are contributing to interfaith dialogue by not adopting a theory of interfaith dialogue, but by just doing it.

Leaders: Reynaldo Miranda-Zúñiga and Jason Happel. Reynaldo is an alumnus of St. John’s College, Annapolis, and past president of the large Northern California Alumni Chapter. Jason is a visiting professor in ethics and political philosophy at Framingham State University.

Tolstoy, War and Peace - Friday

Fridays, 3:20-4:50 pm ET | April 3 to June 30, 2026

We have a Russian novel that begins in French and is about a war against the French; a novel that the author claimed wasn’t a novel at all; a 1460-page book with two nouns of seemingly equal weight in the title, yet unequal in their accounts. What sort of book is War and Peace? Why, the sort one has to read to find out. One might suppose that the only way to get through a very long book is to read it as quickly as possible. But what would be the point of just getting through the battle of Borodino, the burning of Moscow, the conversations, the swirl of dancing, the lives of Natasha, Prince Andrei, and others? If life is for the living, then a book is for the reading, which we will do at the slow-and-savor rate.

Reading load: about 40 pages a week. War and Peace is divided into four Books and an Epilogue, each into Parts, and so on into Chapters.

Text: any good translation (Dunnigan, Maude; Maude, Briggs, Pevear; Volokhonsky)

Seminar Leaders: Eric Stull and Linda McConnell.

(P.S. This is not to be confused with the biography, "Leo Tolstoy" by Warren Pease.)