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
Online Seminar Series - NOW MEETING
The Sickness unto Death by Soren Kierkegaard
Wednesday Evenings - October 22 - December 17, 2025
Despair is an oft-recurring theme in the Great Books, with such suffering characters as Homer’s Odysseus and Hector, Sophocles’ Oedipus, Dostoyevsky’s Ivan Karamazov, and George Orwell’s Winston Smith. Written under a nom de plume, The Sickness unto Death (1849) was one of Kierkegaard’s greatest works and his attempt to explore the depths of the nature of despair, something he saw as common to every human being.
Called the “father of Christian existentialism,” Kierkegaard viewed despair as both a spiritual illness and a crisis of the Self, stemming from a lack of faith and resulting in unrealized potential. He sought answers in the subjective experience of the individual believer rather than organized religion or dogma. A strong critic of both the state church and the mass media of his day, his ideas remain important today.
Online seminars in this series will take place on Wednesday evenings, 5:30-7:00PM Pacific Time. Attendees will be sent the book. 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 $500. Community of Lifelong Learner subscribers receive a discount of $50 through a refund. Payment options are available.
Online Seminar Series - NOW ENROLLING
Jane Austen - All Six - DATE and Day Change
Thursday Evenings - January 22 - November 5, 2026
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 Thursday evenings, 5:30-7:00PM Pacific Time. Attendees will be sent books in order. 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.
Online Seminar Series - NOW MEETING
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.
Free Community Series
Free Onsite Community Seminar Series
Eastern Classics
On break until February 2026
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
Free Onsite Community Seminar Series
The Poetry of Rumi
On break until February 2026
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
Free Onsite Community Seminar Series
The Poetry of Mary Oliver
On break until February 2026
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:
Schedule:
12:00 - 1:00PM PDT
Location:
To be announced
Upcoming Regular Events
Online Seminar Series
Mind and Matter by Erwin Schrödinger
Saturday, November 8, 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.
November 8 Reading:
Mind and Matter by Schrödinger - Chapter Four - The Arithmetical Paradox- The Oneness of Mind
Entire book: Cambridge University Press;
(March 26, 2012)
ISBN 978-1107604667
Schedule:
12:00-1:30PM PST
Tutor:
Andy Gilman
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
Monday Night Poetry Group
Next Session - Monday, November 10, 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.
November 10 Reading:
The Moose by Elizabeth Bishop
Schedule:
5:00-6:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Carol Seferi
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
Wednesday, November 12, 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.
November 12 Reading:
Book Three - Chapter One of Finnegans Wake by Joyce (page 421, Line 24), Penguin Classics; Reissue edition (December 1999). ISBN 9780141181264.
Schedule:
12:30-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Barry Rabe
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
Immanuel Kant - Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
Thursday, November 13, 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.
November 13 Reading:
Conclusion (pp. 85-98), Solution (pp. 99-104) and Appendix (pp. 105-116)
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.
Online Seminar Series
American Rhetoric: the Lincoln-Douglas Debates
Saturday, November 15, 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.
November 15 Reading:
Quincy Debate (October 13, 1858) - pages 211-249
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 PST
Tutor:
Eric Stull
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
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Online Seminar Series
Shakespeare in Britain and Greece: Comic, Tragic, Both
Saturday, November 22, 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.
November 22 Reading:
Pericles by William Shakespeare
Pelican, Arden, or any standard edition with act, scene, and line numbers will work well
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PST
Tutors:
Eric Stull and Jordan Hoffman
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
by Max Weber
Saturday, December 6, 2025
Written in 1905, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber argues that certain aspects of Protestantism, particularly the belief in a calling and predestination, fostered a mindset conducive to the rise of modern capitalism. He proposed that the anxiety of not knowing if one was chosen for salvation drove believers to see worldly success and diligent work as a sign of election, creating an work ethic that encouraged reinvestment and a relentless pursuit of wealth that continues to influence the world today. We invite you to join us as we read and discuss portions of the text in online seminars about one month apart, eventually completing the entire book.
December 6 Reading:
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber
Authors Introduction and Part 1 - The Problem - Chapter One: Religious Affiliation and Social Stratification (pages xxviii to page 12)
Routledge Classic Edition - ISBN 978-0415254069
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PST
Tutor:
Andy Gilman
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
Male and Female - A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World by Margaret Mead
Saturday, December 13, 2025
Published in 1949, Male and Female by Margaret Mead examines how cultures construct different gender roles, moving beyond her earlier work by incorporating biological constants into her analysis. Drawing on her fieldwork, she explores how biological differences interact with cultural expectations to shape male and female identities, arguing that while certain biological realities exist, social and cultural norms are the primary determinants of behavior and temperament. The book concludes with a critique of American gender dynamics, proposing that each gender has distinct "superiorities" and that a lasting "sexual peace" requires understanding and respecting these cultural constructions. We invite you to join us as we read and discuss portions of the text in online seminars about one month apart, eventually completing the entire book.
December 13 Reading:
Male and Female by Margaret Mead
Edition Introductions (pages xxv-xlv), Part One - Introductory (pages 1-44)
Mariner Books - ISBN 978-0060934965
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PST
Tutor:
Andy Gilman
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Contemporary Issues Seminar Series
The Emperor of All Maladies - A Biography of Cancer
by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Saturday, December 20, 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.
December 20 Reading:
Part Two - An Impatient War - An Anatomist's Tumor, An Army on the March, The Cart and the Horse, A Moon Shot for Cancer
(pages 151-190)
Scribner; Reprint edition (August 2011)
ISBN 978-1439170915
Schedule:
12:00-1:30PM PDT
Tutor:
Andy Gilman
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
The Periodic Table: A Memoir by Primo Levi
Saturday, January 24, 2026
Published in 1975, The Periodic Table by Primo Levi is a collection of 21 autobiographical stories, each named after and inspired by a chemical element. Levi recounts episodes from his life, including his experiences before, during, and after the Holocaust, to explore themes of identity, memory, and the human condition. The book interweaves his passion for science and his professional life with his personal history, showing how chemistry provided a lens through which to understand and survive experiences. In 2006, the Royal Institution of Great Britain named it the best science book ever written. We invite you to join us as we read and discuss portions of the text in online seminars about one month apart, eventually completing the entire book.
January 24 Reading:
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
Argon, Hydrogen, Zinc (pages 1-36)
Schocken - ISBN 978-0805210415
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PST
Tutor:
Andy Gilman
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
The Sestercentennial Regards the Bicentennial
Saturday, January 31, 2026
Fifty years ago, to commemorate the American Bicentennial, some American novelists published works that consciously took stock of America 200 years after its founding. These works, from popular bestsellers to obscurer innovations, varied in length, tone and attitude. Now, during the American Sestercentennial, we revisit a few of these mid-1970s era works to ask questions about who we Americans were then, who we thought we were, and how we have changed since.
Over the Sestercentennial year we will read seven books in ten intermittent seminars; three novels will be covered over two seminars. (NB: An important work published in 1976, Alex Haley’s Roots, will not be included, despite its accolades. For some people, the discovery of Haley’s plagiarism — revealed only after the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize — presents an ethical problem. More practically, the text is too lengthy for the boundaries of this particular course.)
Visit The Sestercentennial Regards the Bicentennial page for full information.
Events in the series (all taking place on Saturdays, 12:00-2:00PM Pacific Time)
January 31 and February 21: The Bastard by John Jakes
March 21: Flight to Canada by Ishmael Reed
April 25: 1876 by Gore Vidal
May 23 and June 13: The Public Burning by Robert Coover
August 22: The Franchiser by Stanley Elkin
September 19: Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut
October 17 and November 14: October Light by John Gardner
January 31 Reading:
The Bastard by John Jakes
Berkley - January 2004 - ISBN 978-0451211033
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PST
Tutor:
Jordan Hoffman
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar Series
Hannah Arendt: Democracy, Responsibility, and the Threat of Authoritarianism
Saturday, February 7, 2026
The Agora Foundation presents a six-session seminar series exploring the profound moral and political insights of Hannah Arendt through her posthumously published work, Responsibility and Judgment. In this collection of essays and lectures, Arendt grapples with one of the most urgent questions of the modern age: how individuals can maintain moral integrity and sound judgment amid the collapse of traditional values and the pressures of totalitarian ideologies. Participants will examine her reflections on conscience, evil, obedience, and the capacity for moral reasoning in times of crisis—issues that remain strikingly relevant to our contemporary world.
Each session will combine close reading and open discussion, guided by Arendt’s insistence that thinking and judging are essential acts of freedom. The series will situate Responsibility and Judgment within the broader arc of Arendt’s thought—from The Origins of Totalitarianism to The Life of the Mind—highlighting her unique synthesis of philosophy, politics, and lived experience. Together, participants will engage with Arendt’s challenge to “think without banisters,” exploring what it means to act responsibly and judge wisely in public and private life today.
Events in the series (all taking place on Saturdays, 12:00-2:00PM Pacific Time)
February 7: Prologue
March 14: Personal Responsibility under Dictatorship
April 18: Collective Responsibility and Home to Roost
May 16: Thinking and Moral Considerations
May 30: Reflections on Little Rock
February 7 Reading:
Prologue (pages 3-14)
Responsibility and Judgement by Hannah Arendt
Schocken - August 2005 - ISBN 978-0805211627
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PST
Tutor:
Karl Haigler
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.