Coming Online Events
One-day onsite seminar tuition is $125 per person. Any contribution above $125 is classified as a tax-deductible donation. Special events have differing tuition. Scholarships are available for teachers and students. Or, 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.
Please inquire via email here.
Online Seminar
Free Community Seminar Series
Eastern Classics
Next session Thursday, July 9, 2020
​
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.
​
The July 9 reading is:
Bhagavad Gita - Chapters Seven and Eight
Click on the icon below to download.
​
Schedule:
12:00 - 1:00PM PDT
​
Location:
Online. Click here.
Meeting ID: 846 1990 7666
Online Seminar
Russian Short Stories - Tolstoy and Dostoevsky
Saturday, July 11 , 2020
​
"Oh, what a great sin!" she cried. "How can you! Have mercy on yourself.
To destroy somebody's soul... and worse, your own!..."
​
July 11 Reading:
Tolstoy, The Forged Coupon
Dostoevsky, The Honest Thief
Click on the icons to download
​
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutors:
Kevin Walker and Andy Gilman
​
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar
Free Community Seminar Series
The Foundations of Our Republic, Take II
Monday, July 13, 2020
​
What are the fundamental principles of our Republic? Are these principles based on a view of objective reality/nature, or simply the "consent of the governed"? Depending on how one addresses the previous question: Are these principles changeable, and if so on what grounds? How should one read the founding documents? What authority does the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary branches have? What are rights? Are they based on nature or consent? Are they inalienable?
​
The July 19 reading is -
The Constitution, Article 1, Sections 3-10
Click the icon to download.
Schedule:
5:30 - 6:30PM PDT
Readings:
Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation, selected Federalist Papers, selected Anti-Federalist Papers, the U.S. Constitution, selections from Democracy in American, Dred Scott Decision and Dissenting View (edited), selected Lincoln speeches, Lincoln Douglass Debates (edited), Plessy v. Ferguson and Dissenting View (edited), Brown v. Board of Education, Letter from Birmingham Jail, Proposed Equal Rights Amendment, UN Declaration of Human Rights
Meeting ID: 868 5423 4043
Online Seminar
Series on Love -
Nicomachean Ethics (Book 8 and 9 edited) by Aristotle
Saturday, July 18, 2020
​
Othello said about himself that he “loved not wisely but too well.” It seems that one can love things too much, but can one really love someone too much? Does the answer to that question depend on what is meant by love? Perhaps more fundamentally: are there different kinds of love? This series will devote itself to a discussion of the mystery and majesty of love.
​
Future Readings in the Series:
Augustine, Sermon on Love
Dostoevsky, A Gentle Creature
Ibsen, A Doll’s House
Shakespeare, Othello
Sigrid Unset, Gunnar’s Daughter
Flannery O’Connor, The Lame Shall Enter First
C.S. Lewis, Four Loves
​
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Paul O'Reilly
​
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar
Series On Marcel Proust - Swann's Way - Part III -
Combray III, pp. 135-191
Sunday, July 19, 2020
​
“One cannot change, that is to say become a different person, while continuing to acquiesce to the feelings of the person one has ceased to be."
​
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Patricia Locke
​
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar
Series on Ocean and Underworld - The Book of Jonah
Saturday, July 25, 2020
​
What mysteries are hidden underwater and deep in the underworld? Will one who explores these realms discover ancestors, gods, monsters,... or even oneself? This series will consider the ocean and the underworld as depicted in these classic literary texts.
​The July 25 reading:
The Book of Jonah
​Future Readings in the Series:
Aristophanes, The Frogs
Lucian, A True Story
Virgil, Aeneid - Books 3, 4, 5, 6
Cervantes, Don Quixote - The Cave of Montesinos
Dante, Inferno (selections)
Shakespeare, The Tempest
Melville, Moby Dick (selections)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World
T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland
​Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PST
Tutor:
Elizabeth Reyes
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar
Series - Athens and Jerusalem:
Reason and Revelation - Part III -
Sunday, July 26, 2020
​
We invite you to this six-part series, exploring all three Jerusalem faith traditions from the Socratic philosophical perspective focusing on the questions: What does it mean to be good at being human... To live the best human life?
​
July 26th Reading:
Papal Encyclical Fides et Ratio and Thomas Aquinas on natural law
​
Future Readings in the Series:
Al Ghazali, The Incoherence of the Philosophers - Discussion 3 and Averroes, Decisive Treatise;
Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, "On the Study of Metaphysics"
Leo Strauss, Mutual Influence of Theology and Philosophy
​
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Karl Haigler
​
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar
Series On Thucydides -
The Peloponnesian War - Book Three
Saturday, August 1, 2020
​
Is there an art to writing and reading history? Is a detached view of historical events desirable, or even possible? What does this conflict (431-404 BC) in particular have to teach us. This series will cover all eight books over time, with one two-hour online seminar per book.
​
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
David Appleby
​
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar
Series on Michel de Montaigne, Part II
Sunday, August 2, 2020
​
Montaigne is widely appreciated both for his literary innovations as well as for his contributions to philosophy. As a writer, he is credited with having developed a new form of literary expression, the essay. As a philosopher, he is best known for his skepticism, which profoundly influenced major figures in philosophy such as Descartes and Pascal. Join us as we explore one of the most important figures of the French Renaissance.
​
August 2nd Reading:
To the Reader, Of Idleness, Of Solitude, Of Diversion, Of the Art of Discussion
​
Future Readings in the Series:
Apology for Raymond Sebond, Raymond Sebond, To Philosophize Is to Learn How to Die, On Schoolmaster’s Learning, On Practice, On the Armor of the Parthians, On Cato the Younger, On Democritus and Heraclitus, On the Vanity of words, On Books, On the Power of the Imagination, On the art of conversation, Of Experience
​
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Walter Sterling
​
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Saturday, August 8, 2020
​
“He struggled with himself, too. I saw it -- I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.”
​
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutors:
Barry Rabe and Andy Gilman
​
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar
Selected Stories of Jorge Luis Borges
Sunday, August 9, 2020
​
August 9 Readings:
The Garden of the Forking Paths, The House of Asterion, The Circular Ruins, The Library of Babel, Ragnarok
​
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutors:
Paul Herder and Andy Gilman
​
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar
Series On Marcel Proust - Swann's Way - Part IV -
Swann in Love, pp. 195-260
Saturday, August 15, 2020
​
“I have friends wherever there are companies of trees, wounded but not vanquished, which huddle together with touching obstinancy to implore an inclement and pitiless sky."
​
Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Patricia Locke
​
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar
Series On Nietzsche - On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life
Thursday, August 20 and Thursday, August 27
​
“The power of gradually losing all feeling of strangeness or astonishment, and finally being pleased at anything, is called the historical sense or historical culture.”
​
Schedule:
6:00-8:00PM PDT
Tutor:
Roxana Zirakzadeh and Andy Gilman
​
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.
Online Seminar
Shame - 1968 Film Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Saturday, August 22, 2020
​
Shame is at once an examination of the violent legacy of World War II and a scathing response to the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam. Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann star as musicians living in quiet retreat on a remote island farm, until the civil war that drove them from the city catches up with them there. Seminar participants view the film prior to the seminar.
​​Schedule:
12:00-2:00PM PST
Tutor:
Peter Rainer
Location:
Online. Register to receive the link.