Courses
Choose what you want to read.
Each course stands on its own. Come live and be part of the conversation, or listen later. Every lecture is recorded.
This November
What we are reading
Choose the book or question that draws you. Courses run for about a month, and every lecture is added to the library, so you can come live or listen on your own schedule.
12 p.m. Pacific
(2 p.m. Central, 3 p.m. Eastern)
Macbeth
The witches tell Macbeth what he wants to hear, and he turns it into a murder, a crown, and a kingdom that cannot sleep.
12 p.m. Pacific
(2 p.m. Central, 3 p.m. Eastern)
The Odyssey, Revisited
What does glory cost, and what does it cost to come home? We read the Odyssey again, with the Iliad beside it.
12 p.m. Pacific
(2 p.m. Central, 3 p.m. Eastern)
The Inferno
Halfway through his life, Dante wakes in a dark wood, lost. Then he goes down. We go with him, one circle at a time, and ask what each sinner could not see.
3:30 p.m. Pacific
(5:30 p.m. Central, 6:30 p.m. Eastern)
Building a reading practice
How to read deeply. Each week takes one way of reading and tries it on a real text: three lines read slowly, a poem, a scene, a book you are lost in.
A free master class opens the course on Monday, November 2.
Not sure what draws you? Read Three Ways Down, an essay on how the Odyssey, the Inferno, and Macbeth meet.
Come and see
Come read with us. These events are free.
Monday, November 2
The Art of Reading: A Master Class
5:30–6:30 p.m. Pacific · 7:30 p.m. Central · 8:30 p.m. Eastern
A master class on how to read deeply, and an introduction to the program.
Thursday, November 5
The first Dante class
12–1 p.m. Pacific · 2 p.m. Central · 3 p.m. Eastern
We begin the Inferno at the beginning, with its famous opening: someone lost in a dark wood. Read or listen ahead if you like, or come and read it with us.
Thursday, November 12
Thursday Night Live
5:30–6:30 p.m. Pacific · 7:30 p.m. Central · 8:30 p.m. Eastern
Live poetry, sometimes with a guest. The reading is recorded; the discussion after it is not.
Weekend
Weekend seminars
Four hours each: November 14–15, December 12 (one day), January 16–17.
1–3 p.m. Pacific
(3–5 p.m. Central, 4–6 p.m. Eastern)
Dante’s Inferno and Alice in Wonderland
Dante begins in a dark wood, and Alice begins by falling down a rabbit hole. Over two afternoons we read the opening of the Inferno alongside Alice in Wonderland, and ask what it means to descend into a strange world, and how a reader finds a way through it. Live lecture and questions, with the lecture recordings and a reading guide.
10 a.m.–12 p.m. and 1–3 p.m. Pacific
(12–2 and 3–5 p.m. Central, 1–3 and 4–6 p.m. Eastern)
The Tao Te Ching
The Tao Te Ching is a short book of eighty-one poems. We read it slowly, a few chapters at a time, and listen for how it holds opposites together: action and rest, strength and softness, taking part and letting go. Live lecture and questions, with the lecture recordings and a reading guide.
1–3 p.m. Pacific
(3–5 p.m. Central, 4–6 p.m. Eastern)
Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and Audre Lorde’s “Poetry Is Not a Luxury”
A young man sent Rilke his poems and asked whether they were any good. Rilke’s answer was to go into himself and ask whether he must write. Audre Lorde argues that poetry is how we give a name to what we feel, so that we can act on it. We read Rilke’s letters beside Lorde’s essay, and ask what a poem has to carry, and why we need it. Live lecture and questions, with the lecture recordings and a reading guide.
Ready when you are
Take a course, or make a year of it.
Take one course on its own, or become a member and keep every course, seminar, Reading Group, and the library open to you across the year.