The Erotic, Laughter, and Spirituality

The Erotic, Laughter, and Spirituality

Course Cancelled We regret to say that this course must be cancelled and apologize for any inconvenience caused. We are currently working with Professor Classen to secure a future HSP course for those interested in the topic of Medieval German poetry. Many people know...
Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623)

Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623)

Attend In Person OR Online This seminar will explore the enduring relevance of Shakespeare’s drama, extending from love to politics, to human fate. To mark the 400th anniversary of the First Folio, we shall study six of the plays in their genres: comedy,...
Chinese Poetry Then and Now

Chinese Poetry Then and Now

Attend In Person OR Online It is for good reason that China is often called a land of poetry. As the longest continuous form of creative writing in the country, poetry has been a defining feature in the life of China’s elite, from their participation in the civil...
Literary Masterpieces from the Middle Ages

Literary Masterpieces from the Middle Ages

This exciting seminar will look into the history of literature through the lens of the Middle Ages. We constantly encounter medieval masterpieces that continue to influence literature today. These works are robust and often express fundamental human concerns, values,...
Introduction to Mexican-American Popular Culture

Introduction to Mexican-American Popular Culture

We are immersed in popular culture during most of our waking hours. It is on the radio, television, our computers, and smartphones that we access the Internet and streets and highways in the form of advertisements and billboards. It is in newspapers, movie theaters,...
Dostoevsky’s Demons: Satire and Prophecy

Dostoevsky’s Demons: Satire and Prophecy

Dostoevsky’s Demons (1872) – according to Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 1970 – “are crawling across the whole world in front of our very eyes, infesting countries where they could not have been dreamed of” and “announcing their determination to shake and destroy...
Goya, Picasso, and the Modern Dilemma

Goya, Picasso, and the Modern Dilemma

Both Francisco de Goya and Pablo Picasso exercised a profound influence on the development of the techniques, forms and meaning of modern art. They also confronted modernity’s monsters and produced works that offer reflections on the relationship between social...
The Fiction of Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Fiction of Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald

  After Fitzgerald sent a copy of The Great Gatsby to Wharton, she wrote him back, saying that his was the fiction of the future, hers “the literary equivalent of gas chandeliers.” Although Wharton saw herself as an American Victorian as opposed to Fitzgerald the...
Shakespeare’s Comedy

Shakespeare’s Comedy

  Concentrating on five of Shakespeare’s comedies, this seminar will inquire into the ways in which Shakespeare’s development of comedy’s distinctive theme of romantic love enabled him to explore a range of issues. These include hetero- and homosexual love,...