Ancients (Aristophanes, Ovid) and Moderns (Twain, Everett)

Over Winter 2025, I’ll be offering three private online courses. Two are devoted to ancient classics, one featuring Aristophanes’s comedies and one featuring selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The third juxtaposes a modern classic (Twain’s Huckleberry Finn) with an even more modern reply (Percival Everett’s James). The courses can be taken individually or as a series. ◊ More →

Totalitarianism and Existentialism

This autumn I’ll be offering three private online courses on works by some of the intellectual giants of the mid-twentieth century: George Orwell, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus. The courses can be taken individually or as a series. ◊ More →

How to Read and Discuss Great Books

On Monday, 3 September 2024, 6:00–7:30p CT, I will be teaching a free private online course about “close reading” that is suitable for novices and veterans alike. ◊ More →

2024 is #ZMM50 #ZMM50th!

2024 is the 50th anniversary (#ZMM50 #ZMM50th) of the publication of Robert Pirsig’s modern classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. As part of the nationwide commemoration of this milestone, this summer I will be teaching two related online courses that can be taken independently or together. ◊ More →

On Friday, 2 December 2022 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture online. My topic will be:

Great Books and Big Lies
(“Theirs” and “Ours”)

The lecture is free and open to the public.

  ◊ More →

On Friday, 2 July 2021 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture online. My topic will be:

Home Front, War Front:
“Mrs. Miniver” and “Scarlett O’Hara” as the Interpretive Keys to Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun

The lecture is free and open to the public.

  ◊ More →

On Friday, 2 August 2018 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets). My topic will be:

The White Man’s Peril:
Heart of Darkness as
Conrad’s Reply to Kipling

The lecture is free and open to the public. ◊ More →

On Friday, 7 September 2018 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets). My topic will be:

The Use and Abuse of Gustavus Vassa; Or, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano on Its Own Terms

The lecture is free and open to the public.

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On Thursday, 16 August 2018 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving a Lunchtime Lecture at the University of Chicago Gleacher Center (450 N Cityfront Plaza Dr). My topic will be:

The True Value of Money:
Retail Investing as a Gateway to Wisdom

The lecture is free and open to the public. ◊ More →

On Friday, 5 January 2018 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets). My topic will be:

Flaunting It:
The Logic of “Conspicuous Consumption” in
Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class

The lecture is free and open to the public.
◊ More →

On Friday, 1 September  2017 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets). My topic will be:

The Content of Our Character:
Lessons from Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Volume One

The lecture is free and open to the public.
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On Thursday, 23 March 2017 7:00–8:15 pm, I will be giving a lecture and facilitating a discussion as part of a Discussion Series at Kibbitznest (2212 N. Clybourn Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60614), a new partner of the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults at the University of Chicago. My topic will be:

“A Rich Man Who Dies Rich Dies in Disgrace”:  Andrew Carnegie and “The Gospel of Wealth”

The event is open to the public. Registration information is available from Kibbitznest.
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On Friday, 6 January 2017 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets). My topic will be:

Epic of Id, Epic of Superego:
A Freudian Reading of
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey

The lecture is free and open to the public.
◊ More →

On Thursday, 17 November  2016, I will be giving a short lecture on the history of the Basic Program as part of the Basic Program 70th Anniversary Celebration at the University of Chicago Gleacher Center (450 N Cityfront Plaza Drive).

My topic will be:

Only in Chicago, Only at the University of Chicago:
The Basic Program at 70

The lecture is free and open to the public, but advance registration is required.
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On Friday, 2 September  2016 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets). My topic will be:

Group Therapy with Great Books:
On the Remaking of Adults through
Lifelong Liberal Re-Education

The lecture is free and open to the public.
◊ More →

On Thursday, 31 March  2016 2:30–3:30 pm, I will be speaking at the Center for Life and Learning at the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago (126 E. Chestnut St., just off North Michigan Avenue). My topic will be:

“The Holy Trible”: The Hebrew Bible, New Testament and Qur’an as an Abrahamic Trilogy

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On Friday, 6 November  2015 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets). My topic will be:

“The Great Conversation” at Chicago:
The First 125 Years

The lecture is free and open to the public.
◊ More →

Great Discourses℠ has just announced it’s online Great Books discussion courses for July 2015, along with the launch of a new and improved website. Check it out!

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On Saturday, 25 April 2015, I will be giving a lecture as part of the Basic Program’s Spring Weekend Retreat on Homer’s Odyssey to be held Abbey Resort in Fontana Wisconsin. My topic will be:

Bringing the Heroic Home:
The Odyssey as Homer’s Guide to
Being a Mensch

The retreat is open to the public but not free. ◊ More →

On Friday, 6 March 2015 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets). My topic will be:

“We Must Not Be Afraid To Be Free”:
The Trials of George Anastaplo

The lecture is free and open to the public.
◊ More →

On Saturday, 17 January 2015, I will be participating in a panel discussion at the Edgewater branch of the Chicago Public Library. The topic will be:

The Great Books Idea:
Differing Perspectives

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On Sunday, 14 December 2014, I will be giving a lecture at a St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church in Chicago. My topic will be:

From the Ashes of the Second Temple: The Co-Evolution of Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity

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Along with other faculty members of Great Discourses℠, I will be teaching Great Book Socratic Method courses online at GreatDiscourses.com during the term that begins November 2014. Great Discourses℠ is a new venture of mine to make high quality adult liberal education available to as many people as possible. We use innovative web-conferencing software to facilitate live, interactive discussion courses online that operate on the same principles as the traditional, in person discussion courses that I have long taught.

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On Sunday, 2 November 2014, I will be giving a lecture at a St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church in Chicago. My topic will be:

Universal Monotheism and Its Others in the Late Second Temple Period

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Along with other faculty members of Great Discourses℠, I will be teaching Great Book Socratic Method courses online at GreatDiscourses.com during the term that begins September 2014. Great Discourses℠ is a new venture of mine to make high quality adult liberal education available to as many people as possible. We use innovative web-conferencing software to facilitate live, interactive discussion courses online that operate on the same principles as the traditional, in person discussion courses that I have long taught.

◊ More →

On Friday, 5 November 2014 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets). My topic will be:

“It Can’t Happen Here”?
A (Frightening) Look at American Dystopias

The lecture is free and open to the public.
◊ More →

On Sunday, 11 May 2014, I will be giving a lecture at a St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church in Chicago. My topic will be:

The Gospel According to Muhammad:
The Qur’an’s Account of Jesus as a Non-Canonical Gospel

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On Sunday, 4 May 2014, I will be giving a lecture at a St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church in Chicago. My topic will be:

Online Socratic Method Seminars in Adult Congregation Education:
A Look at Today’s Realities and Possibilities

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On Sunday, 30 March 2014, I will be giving a lecture at a St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church in Chicago. My topic will be:

“For He Shall Save His People from Their Sins”:
The Gospel According to Matthew as Jewish Literature

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I will be a guest instructor online at LibertasU.com during its March-April 2014 and May-June 2014 semesters. LibertasU is a new “independent and nonsectarian private institution, devoted to making high quality, liberal arts courses available to as many people as possible” through a unique, virtual-reality educational environment that supports highly-interactive, real-time Socratic Method seminars — for participants situated anywhere in the world.

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On Friday, 1 November 2013 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets). My topic will be:

“A Rich Man Who Dies Rich Dies in Disgrace”:  Andrew Carnegie and “The Gospel of Wealth”

The lecture is free and open to the public.
◊ More →

On Sunday, 27 October 2013, I will be giving a lecture at a St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church in Chicago. My topic will be:

You Say “Yahweh”, I Say “The LORD”;
Or, Why God by Any Other Name Ain’t

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On Saturday, 26 October 2013, I will be giving a lecture as part of the Basic Program’s daylong Autumn Symposium on Beowulf to be held at the Gordon Center on the University of Chicago Hyde Park campus. My topic will be:

On the Transvaluation of Viking Values:
Nietzsche Reads Beowulf

The symposium is open to the public but not free. ◊ More →

Bewteen 13 July – 24 August 2013 I will be teaching a seven-week summer course on Homer’s Iliad at the new National Hellenic Museum (NHM), located in Chicago’s “Greektown”. The course is part of a new series of collaborations between the museum and the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults at the University of Chicago’s Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies.

The course is open to students ages 18+ and costs $330 per student.

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From 9-14 June 2013, I will be participating in the inaugural Artesian Bough Symposium at the Fountain Point Inn & Club (formerly: Fountain Point Resort) in Leelanau, Michigan. Courses will consist of four half-day sessions, Monday-Thursday, and will be supplemented by additional educational, recreational and social activities.

During the symposium I will be teaching intensive versions of two courses:

• The Holy Trible:
  Coordinated Readings from the Hebrew Bible, New Testament and Qur’an
• The Arts of Affluence: Wealth and the American Dream

The symposium is open to the public but not free. ◊ More →

On Friday, 7 June 2013 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets). My topic will be:

Aeneas Gets an Epic:
Virgil’s Aeneid and the Invention of the “Greco-Roman” World

The lecture is free and open to the public. ◊ More →

On Sunday, 11 November 2012, I will be giving a lecture at a St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church in Chicago. My topic will be:

Of Hanukkah and Holy War:
The Clash of Hellenism and Judaism
in 1 & 2 Maccabees
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On Saturday, 27 October 2012, I will be giving a lecture as part of the Basic Program’s daylong Autumn Symposium on Statesmanship and Crisis: Pericles, Lincoln, and Churchill to be held at the Gordon Center on the University of Chicago Hyde Park campus. My topic will be:

Words at War:
Rhetoric as a Weapon of Mass Destruction

The symposium is open to the public but not free. ◊ More →

On Friday, 7 September 2012 12:15–1:15 pm, I will be giving the Basic Program First Friday Lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center (Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets). My topic will be:

Fighting Theater with Theater:
Plato’s Dialogues as
Philosophical Dramas

The lecture is free and open to the public. ◊ More →