Basic Program of Liberal Education

Past Courses

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

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...

Frontispiece of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes.
BASC10303

Explore human nature and the problem of evil in political, social, and individual contexts in this Year 1 Seminar, offered online or in person. The Tutorial for Spring 2024 is a close reading of...

woman listening in classroom surrounded by other students blurred in the foreground
BASC10202

Basic Program Year 1 continues with Winter Quarter. New students may join the program in Winter Quarter.

The Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults offers a rigorous, noncredit liberal arts...

Alt: A replica of Isaac Newton's second reflecting telescope of 1672.

Photograph © Andrew Dunn.

BASC30101

In the Seminar, we read two classics texts seeking the ungrounded ground of reason. In the Tutorial we will engage in a close reading of a classic novel. The novel for 2024 is War and Peace, by Leo...

Title page from the first edition of John Locke's Two Treatises of Government.
BASC30303

Zero in on philosophical and psychological ideas about human nature and morality in this Year 3 Spring Seminar. Students will investigate Thomas Aquinas' Treatise on Law, John Locke's Second Treatise...

Illuminated manuscript for Virgil's Eclogues, circa 1470.
BASC30202

In Winter Quarter, the Year Three Seminar takes us from the ancient world to Medieval Europe with texts focusing on different kinds of journeys. The Year Three Tutorial focuses on two classic texts...

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

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...

Augustin Pajou's sculpture of Blaise Pascal studying the cycloid, which is engraved on the tablet he is holding in his left hand.
BASC20303

Examine philosophical and psychological ideas about human nature and morality in this Year 2 Spring Seminar. Students will dive into Michel de Montaigne's The Essays: A Selection, Blaise Pascal's Pens...

Giuseppe Bottani's eighteenth-century painting, "Athena revealing Ithaca to Ulysses."
BASC20202

The Year 2 Seminar follows three different journeys of self-discovery as the authors explore ideas of alienation, transformation, and homecoming. The Year 2 Winter tutorial will focus on a close...

A close-up of the cover of Berlin Alexanderplatz, written by Alfred Döblin, published by S. Fischer Verlag, and illustrated by George Salter.
BASC70186

Every now and then a great novel gives birth to a great film. What makes it possible? "I found myself reading Berlin Alexanderplatz in a way that you could hardly call reading – more like devouring...