Shakespeare’s Women

Shakespeare’s Women

Attend In Person OR Online Many of Shakespeare’s most powerful, intelligent, and subversive characters are female. How were such vividly complex roles constructed in a culture that legally defined women as property, on the grounds of their intellectual and moral...
Technological Wonders of Classical Antiquity

Technological Wonders of Classical Antiquity

Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses This course explores the people, processes and places that fostered the technological and artistic creativity of potters, sculptors, and temple builders in ancient Greece. Our topics...
Deserts, Plants, and People

Deserts, Plants, and People

Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses Arid and semiarid environments, commonly known as “deserts,” make up about one-third of the earth’s land surface and are home to more than one billion people. We will...
Creating the World of East Asian Buddhism

Creating the World of East Asian Buddhism

Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses The Hangzhou region has long been one of China’s most important cultural hubs and has had a wide-ranging impact on Chinese culture and Buddhism throughout East Asia. It came to...
Jesus, the Bible, and the Invention of Christianity

Jesus, the Bible, and the Invention of Christianity

Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses The Christian religion is inextricably bound up with contemporary culture in America and around the globe. Yet, even after centuries of scholarly inquiry, numerous questions regarding...
Four by Austen

Four by Austen

Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses We will study four Jane Austen novels and the reasons for their perennial appeal. Austen combines the patterns of romance—where the principal couple surmounts obstacles separating them...
Theories of Twentieth-Century Architecture and Urbanism

Theories of Twentieth-Century Architecture and Urbanism

Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses This course surveys twentieth-century architectural and urban theory by focusing on key themes and modalities of design practice that inform its purpose and philosophies. Modern...
The Golden Age of Science Fiction

The Golden Age of Science Fiction

Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses In this course we will dive into classic works of science fiction, from the origins of the genre in the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells to the “golden age” masters Clarke,...
The Biology of Cooperation

The Biology of Cooperation

Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses Birds do it. Bees do it. Microbes do it, and people do it. Throughout nature organisms cooperate with each other. Humans have always been deeply attracted to the idea of...
Knowing the Universe: History and Philosophy of Astronomy

Knowing the Universe: History and Philosophy of Astronomy

Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses This course will cover the history of the oldest field of science, from prehistory and the ancient Greeks to research on the earliest instants of our 14-billion-year-old universe. We...
1917 and the Background of the Great War

1917 and the Background of the Great War

Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses This course centers on the recent, brilliant film 1917 as a touchstone for discussing the literature, film, music, and painting of World War I. Sam Mendez’s movie was nominated for ten...
Leonard Bernstein’s Musical Worlds

Leonard Bernstein’s Musical Worlds

Attend In Person OR Online! See Below for full details about our new Hybrid courses Leonard Bernstein embraced a remarkable range of roles in his career, including composer, conductor, pianist, educator, multimedia pioneer, and engaged citizen. This course presents...
How America Became a Right-Wing Nation: Lessons from the 1970s

How America Became a Right-Wing Nation: Lessons from the 1970s

Attend In Person OR Online The decade of the 1970s represented a turning point in US politics, which shifted in a rightward direction toward free market economics at the domestic level, combined with more militaristic and interventionist policies overseas. The course...
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,...
Language and Identity – DEEP DIVE SEMINAR

Language and Identity – DEEP DIVE SEMINAR

NEW! HSP Deep Dive Seminar Humans use language not just to communicate information but also to indicate identity, that is, the “self versus other” or “us versus them” distinction. Judges 12:6 describes how the pronunciation of the Hebrew word shibboleth was used by...
J.S. Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello

J.S. Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello

Attend In Person OR Online This four-week course will explore the cello’s magnum opus, J. S. Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello. Through these six masterpieces we will discuss Bach’s life in the 1720s, analyze the compositional ingenuity, examine Baroque musical...
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...