Category Archives: Courses

Arts of Affluence [3]: Families and Inheritance (Planning)

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COURSES > LIFELONG

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. Continue reading →

God’s Gadfly: A Socratic Method Seminar on Socrates

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COURSES > ONLINE [→ ONLINE ARCHIVE MATERIAL]

Because Socrates called his practice “philosophy” (love of wisdom) and because philosophy is nowadays widely considered to be a “secular” enterprise, Socrates is often assumed to have been a secular figure. According to Plato’s famous Socrates’ Defense (or Apology), however, nothing could be further from the truth. In this short Socratic Method seminar, participants will carefully read and discuss passages from Plato’s text in a collaborative effort to meet Socrates on, and in, his own terms: as an annoying gadfly on a divine mission to educate Athens; as a gift from God whose death would hurt the Athenians more than it would hurt him. No prior knowledge or experience of any kind is required. All reading and discussion will be in English. Continue reading →

On Human Excellence [1]: Plato’s Meno as ‘Philosophical Drama’

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COURSES > ONLINE

“Can you tell me, Socrates — is virtue something that can be taught? Or does it come by practice? Or is it neither teaching nor practice that gives it to a man but natural aptitude or something else?” With this provocative four-part question begins one of the most compact meditations on human excellence ever composed: Plato’s Meno, a “dialogue” (mostly) between the great philosopher Socrates and his acquaintance Meno. This course will be devoted to a close reading and analysis of Plato’s short text in order to understand both the work’s philosophical elements and its dramatic elements — as well as the interaction between the two — as we seek to comprehend Plato’s ultimate response to Meno’s initial question. No prior knowledge or experience of any kind is required. Continue reading →

On Human Excellence [2]: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as ‘Practical Wisdom’

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COURSES > ONLINE

“We are not conducting this inquiry in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, else there would be no advantage in studying it.” With this statement near the beginning of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle boldly declares his thesis that philosophy can make one a better person and improve one’s quality of life — a thesis that in the rest his book of Aristotle seeks to articulate and demonstrate. Through close reading and analysis of the text, participants in this course will seek to understand and assess one of the most famous and influential philosophical treatises ever produced. No prior knowledge or experience of any kind is required, although the preceding course in the “On Human Excellence” series is a useful precursor. All readings and discussions will be in English. Continue reading →

Arts of Affluence [2]: (Passive) Investing on Wall Street

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COURSES > LIFELONG | COURSES > ONLINE

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. Continue reading →

Arts of Affluence [1]: Wealth and the American Dream

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COURSES > LIFELONG | COURSES > ONLINE

For better or worse, one version of the American Dream has long equated “success” with “material wealth”. This course will explore that equation through the close reading and discussion of important fiction and non-fiction works from America’s Gilded Age and the consideration of two films on wealth in America (Citizen Kane by Orson Welles and Born Rich by Jamie Johnson). Texts will include: Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick, Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby as well as Andrew Carnegie’s “The Gospel of Wealth”, and Thorsten Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class. Continue reading →

Sweet Homer, Chicago: A Summer Reading of the Iliad

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COURSES > LIFELONG

Homer’s Iliad has inspired audiences for nearly 3,000 years. This course will provide students with a rigorous but relaxed opportunity to study this seminal epic through close reading and discussion. Students will better understand the work itself, the culture that produced it, and the Iliad’s role as the “starting point” for all that came after. Continue reading →

Delivered from Destruction: The Bible’s Exodus and Virgil’s Aeneid

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COURSES > LIFELONG | COURSES > ONLINE

Origin or foundation epics are common to many cultures. In this course we will examine two such epics side-by-side: the Exodus epic (Exodus-Joshua) from the Bible, in which the Israelites are transformed from slaves in Egypt into masters in Canaan, and Virgil’s Aeneid, in which the vanquished at Troy are transformed into the victors at (what will become) Rome. Through careful consideration of both stories we will seek to better understand each epic in its own right as well as what the two stories have in common and what makes each story unique. Continue reading →

Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice as Christian Comedy

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COURSES > LIFELONG | COURSES > CONGREGATION | COURSES > ONLINE

Although modern interpretations of The Merchant of Venice often focus on the play’s characterization and treatment of the Jewish moneylender Shylock, both the play’s title and plot suggest that Shakespeare’s focus was on the Christian merchant Antonio. Through a careful reading and discussion of Shakespeare’s play in conjunction with selections both from Christopher Marlowe’s roughly contemporaneous The Jew of Malta and from the New Testament, this course will explore Shakespeare’s exaltation of “graceful Christianity” in both the major and minor plot threads of one of Shakespeare’s most controversial plays. Continue reading →

Book of Mormon

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Teaching > Congregation

Even with Mormon Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy and Tony Awards for the musical, “The Book of Mormon,” the Mormon faith remains a subject about which admittedly many people know relatively little. This class will read and discuss selections from the Book of Mormon. By the end of the course participants will have a better appreciation for the foundational scripture of what is sometimes called a fourth Abrahamic faith. Continue reading →