Saturday, April 28th, 2012
The Birth of Modern Theater
Hedda Gabler by Ibsen and The Seagull by Chekhov
Saturday, March 31st, 2012
Democracy in America
(selections) by Alexis de Tocqueville
Saturday, February 25th, 2012
Utopia by Thomas More
Saturday, January 21st, 2012
Contemporary Issues II - The Phenomenon of Life
Two essays from Hans Jonas - The Burden and Blessing of Mortality and Toward a Philosophy of Technology.
Saturday, December 10th, 2011
Why Should We Believe: Is Religious Faith Reasonable?
Selections of texts from Thomas Aquinas.
Saturday, November 19th, 2011
Madame Bovary
Saturday, October 8th, 2011
A Free Economy: A Source of Wealth or Misery?
Selections from The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith and The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
Saturday, September 10th, 2011
Acting Rightly: Should We Trust Our Conscience?
Selections from Thomas Aquinas and Thomas More
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Does God Make Sense?
Selections from Thomas Aquinas -
Summa Theologiae &
selections from Richard Dawkins -
The God Delusion
Saturday, April 9, 2011
The Path of the Law
Selections from Thomas Aquinas -
Treatise on Law &
Oliver Wendell Holmes -
The Path of the Law
March 19, 2011
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
February 26, 2011
Aristotle on Sensation and the Soul
Selection from On the Soul
January 22, 2011
Between Life and Death
Henry James - The Beast in the Jungle, & The Alter of the Dead, James Joyce - The Dead
November 13, 2010
Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion
October 23, 2010
The Soul
Aristotle, Bk. I, ch. 7 of the Physics Aristotle, Bk. II, ch. 1 of the De Anima
September 25, 2010
The Origin, Significance, and Wisdom of the Constitution - Part III
The Dred Scott Decision (edited)
The Seventh Lincoln Douglass Debate (edited)
July 31 - August 1, 2010
Special Event - The Winter's Tale
April 17-18, 2010
Contemporary Issues series
Man and the Environment
March 19-20, 2010
Contemporary Issues series
Frankenstein and the Ethics of Biotechnology
January 23, 2010
William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying
November 7, 2009
G. K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy
October 17, 2009
Series - The Origin, Significance, and
Wisdom of the Constitution - Part II
John Locke - Second Treatise of Government (selections)
The Declaration of Independence
&
The Constitution
September 12, 2009
Cervantes - Don Quixote
June 13 & 14, 2009
Ovid's Metamorphoses
June 6, 2009
Nature and Beyond
Pre-Socratic philosophers, Selections
The Portrait, Gogol
A Doll’s House, Ibsen
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Heroic Women
Sigrid Undset, Gunnar's Daughter
Henrik Ibsen, A Doll's House
March 28 & 29, 2009
Two Dialogues of Plato
Symposium & Phaedrus
February 7, 2009
Seminar Series - The Origin, Significance, and Wisdom of the Constitution
Aristotle, Politics
(selections from books I and III))
January 17, 2009
Milton, Paradise Lost
December 6, 2008
Morality and Human Behavior
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (selections)
Flannery O’Connor, The Lame Shall Enter First
November 15, 2008
Tragic Rulers
William Shakespeare
Julius Caesar,
Macbeth
October 4 & 5, 2008
Human Being and History
Hegel, Introduction to
The Philosophy of History
Heidegger, essays:
The Question Concerning Technology and The Turning
September 6, 2008
The Qur'an
June 14, 2008
Elie Wiesel, Night
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
May 24, 2008
Camus
The Myth of Sisyphus
April 26, 2008
Freud
Civilization and Its Discontents
March 15, 2008
Dostoevsky
Notes from Underground
February 16, 2008
Kierkegaard
Fear and Trembling
January 19, 2008
Flannery O'Connor
The Lame Shall Enter First ,
A Good Man is Hard to Find, &
The Life You Save May Be Your Own
Special Event
November 9 & 10, 2007
A Weekend with Eva Brann
Lecture on November 9:
Aeschylus Eumenides : Modernity and Patriotism - held at Thomas Aquinas College
Seminar on Saturday, November 10:
Aeschylus - The Persians
Thucydides - Selection from
History of the Peloponnesian War
October 6, 2007
A Day on T . S. Eliot
Murder in the Cathedral
The Waste Land
September 15, 2007
Continuing Theme on Ethics
Sophocles - Antigone
Shakespeare - Hamlet
Lecture: Two Paradigms of Ethical Reflection by Mike McLean, Ph.D., Dean, Thomas Aquinas College
March 10, 2007
Continuing Theme on Ethics
Machiavelli - The Prince, Entire work
February 9 & 10, 2007
Aristotle -
Nicomachean Ethics, Books I-III
January 13 & 14, 2007
A Weekend on Borges
From Collected Fictions
The Circular Ruins, Ragnarök, The Maker, The Aleph, Borges and I, August 25-1983, The Garden of Forking Paths, The Witness, Everything and Nothing
November 11 & 12, 2006
Approaches to God
St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae,
Part One, Chapter 13 - Articles 1-6, and 12
Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed,
Part One, Chapters 50-60
October 20 & 21, 2006
Russian Short Stories IV
Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Dostoevsky, The Gentle Creature
This seminar weekend will kick off with a dinner gathering on Friday night, beginning at 5:00pm, followed by a performance of the Valamm Ensemble from Russia, held at Thomas Aquinas College.
Fundamental Seminars Program
September 23 & 24, 2006
Human Suffering
Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus
The Bible, The Book of Job
Epictetus, The Handbook
March 17 & 18, 2006
Liberty II
Ongoing series on Liberty, examining different views of freedom, responsibility, human happiness, and the providential order.
Thomas Aquinas - selections from the Treatise on Law
Session one: Q. 90 articles 1-4; Q. 91 articles 1-4; Q. 92 article 1.
Session two: Q. 94 articles 1-6; Q. 95 articles 1-2.
Session three: Q. 96 articles 1-6; Q. 97 articles 1-4
February 11 & 12, 2006
Phenomenology III
Ongoing series on the underlying philosophical principles and developments of twentieth-century phenomenology.
Heidegger - further selections from Being and Time.
January 7 & 8, 2006
A Weekend on James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
December 17 & 18, 2005
Russian Short Stories III
Tolstoy, Father Sergius
Gogol, The Portrait
Chekhov, The Bet
November 12, 2005
Liberty I
The first in an ongoing series on Liberty. This series will examine different views of freedom, responsibility, human happiness, and the providential order.
Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy
October 1 & 2, 2005
Phenomenology II
Ongoing series on the underlying philosophical principles and developments of twentieth-century phenomenology.
Heidegger - selections from Being and Time
August 27 & 28, 2005
The Nature of Greek Tragedy
Aristotle, Poetics (chapters 1-18)
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
(chapters 1-15)
Euripides, Hippolytus (entire play)
One-Day Seminar
The Divine Comedy III
Dante, Paradise
April 23 & 24, 2005
Beginning Series on Phenomenology
Selections from The Essential Husserl
March 19, 2005
The Passion of Christ
Film: The Passion of the Christ
The Gospel of Luke - entire work
The Gospel of John - Chapter 2, versus 1-11, and Chapters 13-19
The Gospel of Mathew - Chapters 26-27
January 15, 2005
Toni Morrison, Beloved
entire work
December 4, 2004
The Divine Comedy
Dante, Purgatory
October 16, 2004
The Divine Comedy
Dante, Inferno - Held at Thomas Aquinas College
September 25, 2004
Tolstoy, War and Peace
entire work
June 12 & 13, 2004
Special Event
A Weekend on Music
Man the Musician (selections)
by Victor Zuckerkandl &
Thinking About Music (selections)
by Lewis Rowell
Music selections include:
Josquin Desprez · Kyrie
Wolfgang Mozart · Menuetto, K. 355,
Elliott Carter · Poems by Frost, Bishop, etc. set to music
June 12 & 13, 2004
May 1 & 2, 2004
Faust
Christopher Marlowe:
Dr. Faustus - (A-Text version only)
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe:
Faust I - (complete)
Faust II - (acts IV and V)
March 19 & 20, 2004
The American Novel
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Herman Melville, Billy Budd
Willa Cather, My Antonia
February 20 & 21, 2004
The Book of Job
January 17, 2004
James Joyce, Dubliners
November 22 & 23, 2003
Transgression, Punishment, and Mercy - William Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice
Measure for Measure
The Winter's Tale
October 11 & 12, 2003
Russian Short Stories II
Tolstoy , The Devil
Chekov , The Black Monk
Dostoevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
September 6 & 7, 2003
The Gospel According to John
May 23 & 24, 2003
When is War Justified
Aquinas, On War, and On Murder
Wendell Berry, The Failure of War
James Sterba, Reconciling Pacifists and Just War Theorists
April 25 & 26, 2003
Is Lying Justifiable
Twain, Was it Heaven? Or Hell?
Aquinas, On Lying
Kant, On the Supposed Right to Lie
March 1 & 2, 2003
Satire and the Human Condition
Swift, Gulliver's Travels
January 17 & 18, 2003
Is Religious Belief Reasonable
Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian
Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 1
Lewis, MereChristianity, Book 2
December 13 & 14, 2002
Justice and the Political Order Continued · Plato, The Republic VI-X
One-Day Intensive
October 12, 2002
The Nature of Sensation
Aristotle, On the Soul, Book Two
(sections 5, 6, 7, & 12 only)
Lecture: "Are Sensible Qualities Real?" - by Dr. Christopher Decaen
Dinner and Reception follow
November 23 & 24, 2002
Justice and the Political Order
Plato, The Republic I-V
September 6 & 7, 2002
Vengeance and Justice
Aeschylus, The Oresteia
June 28 & 29, 2002
The Nature of Comedy
Shakespeare, As You Like It
Chaucer, The Miller's Tale & The Reeve's Tale
Essays from Bergson, Goldsmith, & Hazlitt
One-Day Intensive
May 11, 2002
Aristotle, On the Soul
Book One Chapters 1-5,
Book Two Chapters 1-2
Lecture: "Thomistic Biology as an Antidote to the Reductionism of Modern Science" - by Dr. William Carroll of
Cornell College, Iowa
Dinner and Reception follow
One-Day Intensive
One-Day Intensive
March 23, 2002
Aristotle, On Nature and Causality
Book Two, Chapters 1, 3
Book Two, Chapters 4-6, 8
Lecture: "Natures Act for an End"
by Dr. Robert Augros of
St. Anselm College, New Hampshire
Dinner and Reception follow
February 23 & 24, 2002
Aristotle, On the Principles of Nature
Book One, Chapters 1, 5-6
Book One, Chapter 7
Book One, Chapters 8-9
January 19 & 20, 2002
Human Suffering
Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus
The Bible, The Book of Job
Epictetus, The Handbook
December 14 &15, 2001
Existentialism
Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism
Sartre, No Exit and The Flies
Camus, The Stranger
November 17 & 18, 2001
Russian Short Stories
Gogol, The Nose, The Overcoat, The Calash
Chekhov, The Kiss, Gooseberries, The Bishop
Tolstoy, Master and Man
September 22 & 23, 2001
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
July 6 & 7, 2001
Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
June 2 & 3, 2001
Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
March 16 & 17, 2001
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (On Friendship)
Bk. VIII, Chapters 1-8
Bk. VIII, Chapter 9 – Bk. IX, Chapter 3
Bk. IX, Chapters 4-12
January 20 & 21, 2001
Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
December 15 & 16, 2000
Plato and Aristophanes
Plato, Protagoras
Aristophanes, The Clouds
November 17 & 18, 2000
Descartes, Meditations Concerning First Philosophy
September 22 & 23, 2000
The Nature of Poetry
Aristotle, Poetics, Chapters 1-6
Aristotle, Poetics, Chapters 7-15
Euripides, Hippolytus
July 8 & 9, 2000
Aristotle, Ethics I-III
June 16 & 17, 2000
Tyranny and Justice
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Thomas Aquinas, On Kingship and Summa Theologiae (selections)
Machiavelli, The Prince
March 17 & 18, 2000
The Short Story
Flaubert, A Simple Heart and
St. Jullian Hospitalier
Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych
Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find and The Enduring Chill
January 28 & 29, 2000
Augustine, The Confessions
November 13 & 14, 1999
Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
September 24 & 25, 1999
The Political Order
Aristotle, Politics (selections)
Rousseau, The Social Contract
Declaration of Independence and
The Federalist Papers (1, 10, 51)
June 18 & 19, 1999
Faith and Reason
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles
Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
St. Paul, Letter to the Galatians
Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians
April 23 & 24, 1999
The Origin of Knowledge
Plato, Meno
Aristotle, Posterior Analytics
Descartes, Discourse on Method
March 12 & 13, 1999
Law and Conscience
Sophocles, Antigone
Plato, Apology and Crito
Lincoln, selections
January 29 & 30, 1999
Human Action
The Holy Bible, Genesis, Chapters 1-25 v.11
Pre-Socratics and Epicurus
Freud, An Outline of Psychoanalysis
December 4 & 5, 1998
Love
Plato, Symposium
C. S. Lewis, Four Loves
Shakespeare, Othello
November 13 & 14, 1998
Does God Exist?
Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion
Blaise Pascal, Pensees
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ques. 2
September 25 & 26, 1998
Morality and Human Action
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
St. Thomas Aquinas, On Homicide
Formerly The Great Books Seminars in Ojai.
©2007 The Agora Foundation. All rights reserved.