Seminar on Robert's List?

[Nick Thompson]

Dear Friammers,

The recent outpouring of literary interest on the FRIAM list suggests that perhaps the “City University of Santa Fe” might offer a “coffee house” seminar in which we read from Robert’s Wonderful List.  I have found a highly qualified person to lead such a seminar. 

Now, before you all imagine all the graduate credits you are going to accumulate, you should recall that CUSF is just me and a few other old guys and a web page.  Still, the idea is that Santa Fe should someday have graduate programs in many of the fields it does best and that a good way to foster that idea is to start doing it in whatever way we can.  So, over the last year we have taught three such seminars, on “emergence”, on “mathematical thinking” and on “EvoDevo”, the study of what we are learning about the history of life from the study of its development.    These seminars have involved graduate level discussions of materials led by scholars with advanced degrees relevant to the materials at hand. 

The reason I am writing is to try and gauge what sort of seminar to offer.  One point is clear.  Like all the C.U.S.F seminars so far, I would like to explicitly devote some portion of each session to achieving a common understanding of crucial passages in the texts we are reading, before we begin to discuss our reactions to those texts.  

So far so good! The big question I have concerns the role of writing in the seminar.  Some of you have suggested that you might enjoy the opportunity to do some writing as a part of the seminar (a few hundred words a week, max).  Our potential leader is certainly qualified to respond to our writing and would look forward to doing so.   The idea would be to use the readings on the list as points of departure, thematically or stylistically, for a bit of writing of our own. 

                So, my question is: (1) would you be interested in a Seminar on Robert’s Wonderful List AND,  if so, (2a) would you be interested in reading and discussion only, or (2b) would you also like some writing to be part of what we do?  Here, again, is the list:

Don Quixote

Moby Dick or The Whale

Ulysses

Diamond Age, The

Glass Bead Game, The or Siddartha

Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life

Pride and Prejudice

Heart of Darkness

The Iliad or The Odyssey

War and Peace

 

 

 

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