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Coming Online and Onsite Events

Become a subscriber in the Community of Lifelong Learners for $40 per month for unlimited attendance at on-site and online events, or $25 per month for only ONLINE events. Subscribers are responsible for ordering their own books. One-day ONSITE seminar tuition is $125 per person for non-subscribers. Special events have differing tuition. Scholarships are available for teachers and students. Please inquire via email here.

Online Weekly Intensives

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Online Seminar Series - NOW MEETING

Drinking from The Fount:
Divine Union in the Carmelite Tradition

 

Wednesday Evenings - July 9 - September 3, 2025

 

What does it mean to seek the face of God, to live in His presence in silent meditation and contemplation? Each Carmelite mystic experienced God in their own unique way, lighting the way for contemporary seekers of all traditions in their search for divine union. Like Dante, these explorers attempted to describe their own journeys up Mount Carmel to the peak of divine union.

 

Carmelite spirituality is one of many in the Christian tradition. Over 800 years ago, hermits gathered to live in solitary cells on Mount Carmel near the prophet Elijah’s spring, meditating day and night on scripture, and establishing a rule of life. Following in their footsteps, subsequent Carmelites have sought to also stand in silence, waiting for God to pass by.

 

Taking time to read and discuss together their experiences of the divine, we will together enter into their journeys for a while, meditating on their words, perhaps drinking from the same fount that slaked Elijah’s thirst.

  

Online seminars in this series will take place on Wednesday evening, 5:30-7:00PM Pacific Time. Attendees will be sent the anthology of readings, The Carmelite Tradition by Steven Payne on Amazon, ISBN: ‎ 978-0-8146-1912-4. Sessions will be facilitated by Clare McGrath-Merkle. Groups will be limited to 16 participants and no prior knowledge is required. Teachers will be offered 2 CEU credits for participating. This eight-week series is $425. Community of Lifelong Learner subscribers receive a discount of $50 through a refund. Payment options are available. 

Click here for full details.

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Online Seminar Series - NOW MEETING

Anton Chekhov: The Major Plays

 

Tuesday Evenings - August 5 - September 2, 2025

 

“What Chekhov saw in our failure to communicate,” English writer V.S. Pritchett claimed of the Russian short story writer and dramatist, “was something positive and precious: the private silence in which we live, and which enables us to endure our own solitude.”  

 

Seven years after working in the short story genre, Chekhov turned to the stage as the natural evolution of his aesthetic, one radically opposed to the conventional melodramas of his era.  After mixed success with his first projects (Ivanov and The Wood Demon) Chekhov found a sympathetic director in Constantin Stanislavsky; their collaboration would not only revolutionize Russian theater but Western theater more broadly.

 

We will read five major plays in chronological order from the early Ivanov (1889) and The Seagull (1895) to the later works penned for Stanislavsky’s Moscow Art Theatre, Uncle Vanya (1896) and The Three Sisters (1900) and conclude with the 1903 masterpiece The Cherry Orchard.  Discussion will focus not just on Chekhov’s themes in each play but also his evolving refinement of dramatic technique in characterization, symbolism, and plot development.

 

“What happens on stage,” Chekhov wrote in a letter to his publisher, “should be just as complicated and yet just as simple as things are in life.  People are having dinner, that's all--but at the same time their happiness is being decided, or their lives are being destroyed.”

  

Online seminars in this series will take place on Tuesday evenings, 5:30-7:00PM Pacific Time. Attendees will be sent the anthology of readings, The Plays of Anton Chekhov by Paul Schmidt, ISBN: ‎ 978-0060928759. Sessions will be facilitated by Jordan Hoffman. Groups will be limited to 16 participants and no prior knowledge is required. Teachers will be offered1 CEU credit for participating. This five-week series is $325. Community of Lifelong Learner subscribers receive a discount of $25 through a refund.

Click here for full details.

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Online Seminar Series - NOW ENROLLING

Jane Austen - All Six

 

Friday Evenings - DATE CHANGE: Beginning September 19, 2025

 

Has anyone observed character and manners in language more crisp than Jane Austen has?  Has anyone made prose fiction more precise?  Part of her great artistry must surely be in making her characters not less, but more, lively and real for their ability to converse in accents as bright as those in which she writes.  Somehow her characters can sound like Jane Austen and still be themselves.  Can anyone ever have spoken like this?  Can anyone reading her care, so long as they get to hear more of it?  Like some reading Desdemona, we “devour up (her) discourse.”  In her treatment of the real work of human happiness as taking place on the ground where the sexes meet, she must be almost unmatched in coupling charming drollery of speech with the moral drama of composing soul-bursting passion into ardor’s fulfilled articulation.  

Won’t you come and converse with Jane?  She's good company -- on a Friday night, or any night.  Come for one, two, several, or all.  Pick the ones you like, but don’t count out the ones you don’t know.  Richness and beauty fill them all. 

 

Online seminars in this series will take place on Friday evenings, 5:30-7:00PM Pacific Time. Attendees purchase their own books. Sessions will be facilitated by Eric Stull. Groups will be limited to 16 participants and no prior knowledge is required. Teachers will be offered CEU credits for participating. Each book in the online series is offered as stand-alone or can be grouped into a set for a discount.

Click here for full details.

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Online Seminar Series - NOW ENROLLING

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

 

Thursday Evenings - September 4 - December 18, 2025

 

Anna Karenina was first published in book form in 1878. Tolstoy called it his first true novel. It was initially released in serial installments from 1875 to 1877, all but the last part appearing in the periodical The Russian Messenger. The novel explore the themes of hypocrisy, jealousy, faith, fidelity, family, marriage, society, progress, and passion, as well as the Russian Spirit and the rural connection to land in contrast to the cosmopolitan lifestyles of the major cities. The events in the novel take place against the backdrop of rapid transformations as a result of the liberal reforms initiated by Emperor Alexander II, principal among these were the emancipation reform of 1861, the introduction of elected local governments, the fast development of railroads, banks, industry, the telegraph, increasing rights for woman, the military conflict with the Ottoman Empire, and much more. Acknowledged as one of the greatest novels of all time, the work has been adapted into various media including theatre, opera, film, television, ballet, figure skating, and radio dramas.

 

“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”

 

Online seminars in this series will take place on Thursday evenings, 5:30-7:00PM Pacific Time. Attendees will be mailed the text. Sessions will be facilitated by Roxana Zirakzadeh and Andy Gilman. Groups will be limited to 16 participants and no prior knowledge is required. Teachers will be offered 3 CEU credits for participating. This fifteen-week series is $675. Community of Lifelong Learner subscribers receive a discount of $50 through a refund. Payment options are available. 

Click here for full details.

Free Community Series

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Online Free Community Seminar Series

Lincoln’s Words, America’s Principles

Saturday, September 20, 2025

The Agora Foundation invites you to an enriching six-part seminar series exploring the enduring wisdom of Abraham Lincoln’s greatest speeches. Through a careful study of the Lyceum Address, Temperance Address, House Divided Speech, Cooper Union Address, First Inaugural, Gettysburg Address, and Second Inaugural, we will examine how Lincoln’s words continue to illuminate the challenges of political leadership in a nation “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Each seminar will engage participants in a thoughtful discussion on how Lincoln grappled with the moral and constitutional crises of his time, offering profound insights into the responsibilities of leaders and citizens alike. From his warnings about the dangers of lawlessness and ambition to his appeals for national unity and reconciliation, Lincoln’s speeches serve as a timeless guide for navigating political and social divisions with wisdom, integrity, and a deep respect for America’s founding principles.

This series is designed for those who seek a deeper understanding of how great leadership is shaped by a regard for principle, prudence, and a commitment to the common good. Whether you are a student of history, a civic leader, or simply an engaged citizen, these discussions will provide valuable perspectives on the challenges of leadership in our own time.

Join us as we rediscover Lincoln’s vision for America and explore how his words continue to inspire and challenge us today.

Series Dates:

Saturday, April 26

Saturday, May 17

Saturday, June 21

Saturday, August 16

Saturday, September 20

Saturday, October 11

September 20 Reading:

Gettysburg Address

Schedule:

12:00-2:00PM PDT

 

Tutor

Karl Haigler

Location: 

Online. Register to receive the link. 

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Free Onsite Community Seminar Series

Eastern Classics

On break until winter

Like the west, the east has its own tradition of influential texts that address the perennial questions of human kind. Centering around the bodies of work from China, Japan, and India, this series will focus on the texts of Taoism, Confucius, Buddhism, and Hinduism. We invite you to join us and attendees can feel free to join intermittently.

The next reading is:
The Tao Te Ching - Chapter 38

Click icon to download, or click here
for all chapters.

Schedule:
12:00 - 1:00PM PDT

Location: 

To be announced

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Free Onsite Community Seminar Series

The Poetry of Rumi

On break until winter

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī or simply Rumi was a 13th-century poet and Sufi mystic born during the Khwarazmian Empire. Like others in Persian literature, Rumi's poetry speaks of love which infuses the world. His teachings also express the tenets summarized in the Quranic verse which Shams-e Tabrizi cited as the essence of prophetic guidance: "Know that ‘There is no god but He,’ and ask forgiveness for your sin" (Q. 47:19): - To seek knowledge of tawhid (oneness of God), while negate one's own existence. We invite you to join us once per month to explore his poetry together.

The next reading is:
In Silence

Schedule:
12:00 - 1:00PM PDT

Location: 

To be announced

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Free Onsite Community Seminar Series

The Poetry of Mary Oliver

On break until winter

 

Mary Oliver's poetry is widely recognized for its deep connection to the natural world, often focusing on detailed observations of plants, animals, and landscapes, with a central theme of finding beauty and meaning in everyday moments, while exploring human experiences like mortality, loss, and the interconnectedness of all living things, all presented through vivid imagery and a conversational tone. We invite you to join us once per month to explore her poetry together.

The next reading is:

Every Morning

Schedule:
12:00 - 1:00PM PDT

Location: 

To be announced

Upcoming Regular Events

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Online Seminar Series

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

Wednesday, September 3, 2025

Let us leave theories there and return to here's hear.

 

Having done the longest day in literature with Ulysses (1922),  Joyce set himself an even greater challenge for his next book - the night. "A nocturnal state... That is what I want to convey: what goes on in a dream, during a dream." Published in 1939, the book would take Joyce two decades to complete. 

 

A story with no real beginning or end, the work has come to assume a preeminent place in English literature. Anthony Burgess has lauded Finnegans Wake as "a great comic vision, one of the few books of the world that can make us laugh aloud on nearly every page". Harold Bloom has called it Joyce's  masterpiece, and, in The Western Canon (1994), wrote that "if aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon, Finnegans Wake would be as close as our chaos could come to the heights of Shakespeare and Dante".

Join us as we read this text a few pages at a time, every other Wednesday afternoon. Click here to visit the Finnegans Wake Online Seminar page, with links to media and the Discussion Forum.

 

September 3 Reading:

Book Two - Chapter Four of Finnegans Wake by Joyce (page 392, Line 14), Penguin Classics; Reissue edition (December 1999). ISBN 9780141181264. Also, Chapter Twelve of A Reader's Guide to Finnegans Wake by William Tindall. Syracuse University Press; Reprint edition (May 1996), ISBN 0815603851

Schedule:

12:30-2:00PM PDT

Tutor

Barry Rabe

Location

Online. Register to receive the link. 

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Online Seminar Series

Monday Night Poetry Group

Next Session - Monday, September 8, 2025

Join us as we explore, through close reading, what makes a poem. Each online session will focus on a single poem or two shorter ones. We'll examine how language becomes art, taking note of everything from forms and sound patterns to imagery and word order, discovering how poets transform ordinary language into “machines made out of words” that resonate on emotional, sensory and imaginative levels.

No preparation is required— we’ll read aloud and discover the poems together. Each of the seminars is self-contained, so join for any or all that interest you. Whether you're new to poetry or a seasoned reader, these gatherings will deepen your ability to see how poems work their particular magic, revealing the craft behind moments of beauty, surprise and insight.

Visit the Monday Night Poetry Group page for more information and to access upcoming poems. 

September 8 Reading:

Birches by Robert Frost

Schedule:

5:00-6:00PM PDT

 

Tutor

Carol Seferi

Location

Online. Register to receive the link. 

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Online Seminar Series

Immanuel Kant - Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics

Thursday, September 18, 2025

What can we say we know with certainty? What does it mean to say that we know something? How does knowledge differ from belief? Can an exploration of basic philosophical questions, such as How do we know what we know? and What are the limits of our understanding? inform our thinking not just on intellectual issues, but on broader cultural challenges as well?

 

In Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (published in 1783), Immanuel Kant explores the possibility of metaphysics as a science by examining the limits and structure of human knowledge, particularly through the lens of synthetic a priori knowledge which forms the basis for mathematics and pure natural science. He argues that while our minds structure experience through inherent categories such as causality and space-time, our understanding is limited to phenomena (things as they appear to us) and cannot grasp noumena (things-in-themselves). Consequently, metaphysics should not attempt to know the transcendent objects of pure reason, but rather act as a critique, investigating how our cognitive faculties enable knowledge and experience in the first place. 

September 18 - Letter to Marcus Herz (pp. 117-122) and Preface (pp. 1-8) 

October 2 - Preamble (pp. 9-22) and First Part (pp. 23-34)

October 16 - Second Part (pp. 35-63)

October 30 - Third Part (pp. 64-84)

November 13 - Conclusion (pp. 85-98), Solution (pp. 99-104) and Appendix (pp. 105-116)

Join us as we discuss this foundational work from Kant. This series continues a broader series on epistemology. All are welcome. Please join us even if this will be your first seminar in the series. 

Click here to visit the Epistemology Page.

September 18 Reading:

Letter to Marcus Herz (pp. 117-122) and Preface (pp. 1-8) 

Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant

Hackett - ISBN 978-0140446456

Schedule:

Thursdays, 12:00-1:30PM PDT (EARLIER TIME)

 

Tutor: 

Carol Seferi

Location: 

Online. Register to receive the link. 

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Online Seminar Series

Shakespeare in Britain and Greece: Comic, Tragic, Both

Saturday, September 27, 2025

In the geography of his poetic imagination, Shakespeare seems to find world enough in time -- a stage in every age -- from the worlds of mythical Greece and the mother of epic, the Trojan War (The Two Noble Kinsmen and Troilus and Cressida) to Britain before Merlin (King Lear) to the “pale fire” of Roman Greece (Timon of Athens) to the warped world of pagan Roman Britain (Cymbeline) to the zany (and not-so-) world of Mediterranean sea change (The Comedy of Errors and Pericles) to the “fog and filthy air” of medieval Scotland (Macbeth) to a world of Elizabethan goodwives that somehow includes Falstaff (The Merry Wives of Windsor).  In these plays, the poet’s constant themes are love, betrayal, identity, disguise, given in about as many combinations and permutations as one could wish, romantic, comic, tragic, and blends thereof.

September 27 Reading:

The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare

Pelican, Arden, or any standard edition with act, scene, and line numbers will work well

Schedule:

12:00-2:00PM PDT

 

Tutors

Eric Stull and Jordan Hoffman

Location

Online. Register to receive the link. 

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Online Seminar Series

Mind and Matter by Erwin Schrödinger

Saturday, September 6, 2025

"The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one."

Mind and Matter, a work following What Is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell is a 1956 book written for the lay science reader by physicist Erwin Schrödinger. The book is based on a course of lectures delivered by Schrödinger in Trinity College, which focused on one important question: "What kind of material process is directly associated with consciousness?" We invite you to join this monthly online series as we read this short but difficult book, one chapter at a time.

September 6 Reading:

Mind and Matter by Schrödinger - Chapter Three - The Principles of Objectivation

Entire book: Cambridge University Press;

(March 26, 2012)

ISBN 978-1107604667

Schedule:

12:00-1:30PM PDT

 

Tutor

Andy Gilman

Location

Online. Register to receive the link. 

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Online Seminar Series

American Rhetoric: the Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Saturday, September 13, 2025

There has never been anything like them, before or since. It is not the least part of the Lincoln-Douglas debates’ uniqueness that the texts of the debates were formed from what was a new phenomenon at the time, namely newspaper transcripts of entire speeches. In brackets within the texts of the two men’s speeches appear notes of crowd response or quotes of crowd members’ comments. There were no moderators, no restrictions on what was to be discussed, no buzzers, no mute buttons. Although there were no constraints on the subjects to be taken up, and although many matters arose in the course of the debates, the only subject really under consideration was slavery, which as Lincoln said, was the only problem which ever threatened the very existence of the United States.

In one of the greatest examples of the exercise of free speech in all our history, the burning issue at stake was freedom itself, and whether it could prevail against its hideous opposite, its negation. The initial speaker spoke for an hour; the other replied for an hour and a half; the first spoke again, in rejoinder, for half an hour. The first debate was held in the heat of late summer, the last in the chill of autumn, a few weeks before the election. Some of the debates were rather sparsely attended; others drew thousands.  We invite you to join us as we read and discuss all eight debates, roughly one month apart. 

 

September 13 Reading:

Galesburg Debate (October 7, 1858) - pages 173-210

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The Lincoln Studies Center Edition

University of Illinois Press; First Edition (July  2014)

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0252079924

or click here for an online version.

Schedule:

12:00-2:00PM PDT

 

Tutor

Eric Stull

Location: 

Online. Register to receive the link. 

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Online Contemporary Issues Seminar Series

The Emperor of All Maladies - A Biography of Cancer
by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Saturday, October 18, 2025

From the author - "In a sense, this is a military history—one in which the adversary is formless, timeless, and pervasive. Here, too, there are victories and losses, campaigns upon campaigns, heroes and hubris, survival and resilience—and inevitably, the wounded, the condemned, the forgotten, the dead. In the end, cancer truly emerges, as a nineteenth-century surgeon once wrote in a book's frontispiece, as "the emperor of all maladies, the king of terrors."

The Emperor of All Maladies won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction: the jury called it "an elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal". The Guardian wrote that "Mukherjee manages to convey not only a forensically precise picture of what he sees, but a shiver too, of what he feels." Literary Review commended Mukherjee's narrative: "It is so well written, and the science is so clearly explained, that it reads almost like a detective story—which, of course, it is." We invite you to this monthly offering, reading several chapters each time. 

October 18 Reading:

Part Two - An Impatient War - They form a society, These new friends of chemotherapy, The butcher shop, An Early Victory, Mice and Men, VAMP

(pages 105-150)

Scribner; Reprint edition (August 2011)

ISBN 978-1439170915

Schedule:

12:00-1:30PM PDT

 

Tutor

Andy Gilman

Location: 

Online. Register to receive the link. 

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Online Seminar Series

The Laws by Plato

Saturday, November 1, 2025

“...there is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter offenses, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom; and he who is under the influence of the latter fancies that he knows all about matters of which he knows nothing.”

The Laws (Greek: Νόμοι, Nómoi; Latin: De Legibus) is Plato's last and longest dialogue. The conversation depicted in the work's twelve books begins with the question of who is given the credit for establishing a civilization's laws. Its musings on the ethics of government and law have established it as a classic of political philosophy alongside Plato's more widely read Republic. Scholars agree that Plato wrote this dialogue as an older person, having failed in his effort to guide the rule of the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse, instead having been thrown in prison. These events are alluded to in the Seventh Letter. The text is noteworthy as Plato's only undisputed dialogue not to feature Socrates. We invite you to join us as we read this often overlooked text, one section at a time, in monthly online events.

Click here to visit the Laws of Plato Online Seminar page, with links to media and the Discussion Forum.

 

November 1 Reading:

The Laws by Plato

Books 11 and 12: Section 25 - Miscellaneous Legislation - Section 26 - The Nocturnal Council
(pages 438-490, 932d - 969d)

Penguin Classics (June 2005)

ASIN ‏B01FIXK9JK

ISBN 9780140449846

Schedule:

12:00-2:00PM PDT

 

Tutor

David Appleby

Location: 

Online. Register to receive the link. 

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