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Courses | Events Archive |
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The Wit and Wisdom of Oscar Wilde
Course instructed by Theo Theoharis 8 Saturdays: February 4 to March 24 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. $205 / $185 for members Register Here Please join us for a new 8-week course on four of Oscar Wilde's most important works, to be taught by Dr. Theoharis C. Theoharis, who also lead the Salem Athenaeum's popular Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn course in 2011. Course texts will be The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Decay of Lying, and De Profundis. Participants will be asked to debate some of the questions Wilde poses through his work, such as: is there a relationship between beauty and knowledge, between beauty and virtue? Does sincerity have anything to do with truth? Can ugliness be real? Clearly, a provocative set of topics.
Theoharis has lectured widely on American and European literature both in the United States and abroad. He is author of James Joyce's Ulysses: An Anatomy of the Soul and Ibsen's Drama: Right Action and Tragic Joy, and well as the translator of Before They Could Change Them: The Complete Poems of Constantine P. Cavafy. He has received teaching awards from UC Berkeley, MIT and Harvard. He has taught courses on the epic, tragedy, and modern fiction at Harvard for the last 25 years, his most recent course being "Satire and Resistance in the American Novel : Huckleberry Finn and Catch-22."
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The War of 1812--the Second War for Independence-- or, Mr. Madison's War
Course instructed by Robert Allison 6 Thursdays: April 12, 19 and May 3, 10, 17, 24 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. $195 / $175 for members Register Here The War of 1812 was a three-year conflict fought between the forces of the United States and those of the British Empire, including Upper and Lower Canada and it was conducted on 3 different theaters of operation: the Atlantic Ocean, the Great Lakes and Canadian Frontier, and the Southern States. But the causes, consequences, winners and losers of the War are still fiercely debated by historians, depending on their particular affiliations. In this bicentennial anniversary year of the War of 1812, the Salem Athenaeum proudly announces a 6-week course devoted to this subject, taught by the brilliant historian and lecturer Dr. Robert Allison of Suffolk University. Dr. Allison previously taught the Athenaeum's popular course on The American Revolution and was one of the historians who contributed in 2010 to our Founders Symposium. Many things about the War of 1812 seem paradoxical: the belligerent powers settled many of their disagreements before they declared war; the peace treaty did not actually address the war's causes; and the war's biggest battle was fought after the parties signed the treaty. No war has ever been less popular in New England, which threatened to secede from the Union. During these six sessions, we will explore the causes of the war, the complicated interactions of British, Indians, and Americans, the stunning American victories at sea and on the Great Lakes, the military disasters such as the loss of Detroit and the burning of Washington, DC, and the extraordinary consequences of the war, which ushered in a period of national unity and industrial growth. |
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