The Course Catalog
Each quarter, we offer lifelong learners access to more than 70 courses at the University of Chicago.
Click through on any course below to register online. For registration questions, please contact grahamregistrar@uchicago.edu or call 773.702.7249.
Summer quarter courses are now open for registration below.

The Great Performers and the Art of Interpretation The Great Performers and the Art of Interpretation
Why does the same piece of music sound so different when played by different performers? Why and how do Toscanini and Karajan, or Rubinstein and Horowitz project such different worlds of emotion and...

The Normal and the Pathological: Sickness, Care, and Wellbeing Across Cultures The Normal and the Pathological: Sickness, Care, and Wellbeing Across Cultures
Taking its title from an important text by historian and philosopher of medicine Georges Canguilhem, this class considers how sickness, care, and wellbeing have been differently understood and...

The Roman Epic: Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses The Roman Epic: Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses
Writing in times of change and conflict in the empire’s first century, Virgil and Ovid thought and spoke about their contemporary worlds by turning to Graeco-Roman myth, including the stories of...

Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow
In this monumental novel of 1973, heir to Moby-Dick, Ulysses, and To the Lighthouse, Pynchon envisions a world that has surrendered, in the late stages of the second world war, to eruptive cognitive...

Tsars, Soviets, and Putin: Modern Russia, 1860-present Tsars, Soviets, and Putin: Modern Russia, 1860-present
This course provides an overview of the history of Russia and its empires, told through original primary sources. Covering the period from 1860 to the present, we will examine the allure and...

Virginia Woolf’s The Years Virginia Woolf’s The Years
In the follow up to her classic A Room of One's Own, Woolf's "Three Guineas" offers an ahead-of-its-time account of the impact of ideals of masculinity on society, by way of pondering how women might...

Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas Virginia Woolf’s Three Guineas
In this follow up to her classic A Room of One's Own, Woolf's "Three Guineas" offers an ahead-of-its-time account of the impact of ideals of masculinity on society, by way of pondering how women might...

Western Civilization versus Ancient Greek Politics Western Civilization versus Ancient Greek Politics
There’s a tension running through the Western tradition—and the Basic Program four-year curriculum—about what to do with the ancient Greek idea of political freedom. Dust off your Herodotus, Plato...

What are Ghost Stories About? What are Ghost Stories About?
Well... ghosts. But what else? How do the presence of ghosts inflect the stories we tell about ourselves? This course approaches such questions through a close reading of classics in the ghost story...

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Poet? Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Poet?
Sad, but true. Many folks who enjoy reading fiction, drama, and memoirs feel considerably less comfortable with poetry. Our course will address this anxiety head on. Through close-textual analyses and...