Literature Classes in Boston, MA

Delve into some of the best short novels of the 20th century. Spend the first weeks of summer delving into some of the best short novels. 

What does it mean to be human in the world today? Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition (1958) is a provocative treatise on what it means to live on earth and share the world in common. Her study, originally intended to be titled Amor Mundi (Love of the World), investigates the central activities of human life—labor, work, action—and their corresponding...

What is poetry and what is it good for? These questions have long haunted practitioners and readers of this “beautiful and pointless” art, to quote the contemporary critic David Orr. But “beautiful and pointless” were not always the terms of the debate. On the contrary, these questions about what poetry is and what it does mean something profoundly...

Join Colm Tóibín, celebrated author of Brooklyn and professor at Columbia University, for a course on three Irish writers and three American writers. The divided self and the delighted eye—this course explores the idea of internal tension in a text, literature in which there is an argument enfolding, an argument that animates the text; as well...

How are we to understand loneliness today? It appears that we are facing a mass epidemic of loneliness—one perhaps exacerbated by virological pandemic of COVID-19. Britain has appointed a Minister of Loneliness to counter rising rates of isolation. Approximately 20-43 percent of American adults over the age of 60 experience “frequent or intense...

Ovid begins his Metamorphoses, “My soul would speak of bodies changed into new forms,” and it is the great theme of physical transformation that unites the poem’s many myths: humans becomes animals and plants, and vice versa; humans becomes stones and constellations; and humans change their sex. No poem from antiquity has so influenced Western...

Do capitalist societies have an inherent tendency toward economic, social, and political crises?  Political economists have, over the course of the past 250 years, offered different frameworks to understand the existence of crises within capitalism: from Adam Smith’s “general glut” (when production exceeds demand) to Marx’s belief that...

This course is designed to help students become more confident and proficient readers in English.  Students explore a variety of genres (websites, short stories, etc.) and reading skills (vocabulary-building, summarizing, critical thinking, etc.). Important: An ESL Placement Test score is required for all new students registering for this course.If...

Join us for the first edition of the Coucou book club! Introducing one of France’s most famous tales : “Le Petit Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Hosted by our teacher Cynthia, the Coucou Book Club we will take a closer look at some famous characters, passages and quotes. This masterpiece creates deep philosophical refections for kids...

Jorge Luis Borges’ fiction is uniquely powerful for its captivating amalgam of political, mystical, and metaphysical themes. In this course, an introduction to Borges’ most canonical works, we’ll read his great short story collections Ficciones and The Aleph, as well as the essay collection Other Inquisitions—bearing in...

Join charismatic actor and teacher Leo Schaff as he breathes life into Shakespeare’s words, acting out portions of the play and offering illuminating insights into the Bard’s language, plot lines, historical context and eternal relevance, all with a generous sense of humor. The Tempest - January 8 The magic hand of Prospero guides us through...

The Black Jacobins: Liberation, Political Theory, and the Haitian Revolution The Haitian Revolution marked not only the liberation of Haiti from French colonial rule, but also, in Cedric Robinson’s words, “the first slave society to achieve the permanent destruction of the slave system.” As with the Paris Commune later in the 19th century and...