Basic Program of Liberal Education

Courses

Quarter
Day(s)
BASC64211
BASC64211 Autumn

Alumni Sequence: The American Tradition Year II Alumni Sequence: The American Tradition Year II

In the second year of this sequence, we follow out the trajectory of some of those fracturings considered in the spring quarter – especially the conflicts about race, slavery and regionalism that...

BASC61111
BASC61111 Autumn

Alumni Sequence: The Romans Year I Alumni Sequence: The Romans Year I

The Romans first year courses will focus on the history and politics of Rome, delving into influences on our own history and institutions. The Autumn Quarter Seminar looks at Roman heroes and anti...

War of Athens
BASC40101 Autumn

Basic Program Year Four: Autumn Basic Program Year Four: Autumn

The Year 4 Seminar texts cover a wide range time periods and genres, including philosophy, biography, satire, and romance, which connect through the themes of love, character, and humor as they...

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant's painting, "Antigone at the Bedside of Polynice"
BASC10101 Autumn

Basic Program Year One: Autumn Basic Program Year One: Autumn

Since 1946, the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults has engaged lifelong learners in reading, discussing, and building community around the foundational texts of literature, philosophy, and...

Cleopatra: The oil painting "Cleopatra" by John William Waterhouse (1888). Death Pentheus Louvre: Pentheus torn apart by Agave and Ino on an Attic red-figure cosmetics bowl lid, c. 450–425 BC.
BASC20101 Autumn

Basic Program Year Two: Autumn Basic Program Year Two: Autumn

The Year 2 seminar is devoted to three great plays: Sophocles' Oedipus the King, Euripides' The Bacchae, and Shakespeare's Anthony & Cleopatra. A close reading of Aristotle's Poetics will enhance our...

Fernando Pessosa
BASC70213 Autumn

Fernando Pessoa’s Multitude Fernando Pessoa’s Multitude

The stature of the national modernist writer of Portugal, Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935), has been on the rise in the English-speaking world. At the time of his death, Pessoa left two trunks full of...

Closeup of two hands on the pages of an open book.
BASC70059 Summer | Autumn | Winter | Spring

How to Read Classic Texts How to Read Classic Texts

This course is intended to address some of the more persistent and daunting difficulties we face when beginning to read classic texts of the Western cultural tradition.

We will begin from...

Beckett's Three Novels
BASC70215 Autumn

The Art and Ends of Reading: The Novel: Reading as Kenosis: Reduced to Zero—Beckett, Three Novels The Art and Ends of Reading: The Novel: Reading as Kenosis: Reduced to Zero—Beckett, Three Novels

With the Three Novels of Beckett, we reach a zero point in the development of the novel: here reading is no longer a matter a of self-enhancement but rather becomes a kind of kenosis (“self-emptying”)...