Classics at St. John's College

07/08/2025

Calling all lifelong learners! This September recapture the back-to-school mindset with a Year of Classics. Register for the 2025-2026 year of reading thoughtfully on the theme of Solitude in nine monthly seminar discussions, September through May, on books inspired by the St. John’s College curriculum in discussions led by St. John’s College faculty.

Seminar seats are still available in-person in Annapolis (choose from 3 available classes).

Visit the Year of Classics website for details and to register. Teachers and educators are eligible for a 50% discount! https://www.sjc.edu/year-classics

Recent participants have described Year of Classics as:
“The best of book clubs, where everyone has done the reading, the books are classic and the discussions are well-informed and interesting.”
“A once-a-month dose of intellectual discussion, providing a unique opportunity to learn and study with others.”

30/06/2025

Join St. John's College as Director of College-Wide Annual Giving. Apply today: https://lnkd.in/g2razdUz

Spearheading the college’s annual giving program, the Director of College-Wide Annual Giving develops, writes, and implements a multi-channel fundraising program for the college’s annual “Fund for St. John’s,” partnering with alumni, parents, and friends of the college to benefit both St. John’s campuses in Annapolis and Santa Fe. Year round, the Director leads, coordinates, and facilitates project-management among internal partners and stakeholders and with outside vendors to reach and exceed annual fund goals.

23/06/2025

Opinion piece just published by Walter Sterling in influential DC publication The Hill.

"At St. John's College, where I am president, we uphold the root meaning of liberal education— the education that frees. This is the education America needs now. Our “great books” curriculum brings students together around a seminar table to discuss texts reflecting every pole of our society’s political, religious, and moral axes, from Aristotle to Baldwin, Adam Smith to Marx, Aquinas to Nietzsche."
"This education is at least as broad as the range of our society’s fundamental values, because these texts are the sources or classic statements of those values. This breadth of inquiry explodes ideological bubbles, requiring students to consider ideas they would usually dismiss. Students must articulate reasoned positions and listen attentively even to those they disagree with, working together to reach deeper understanding. Each seminar table really becomes a miniature republic, where ideas clash but people cooperate — a model that can thrive in settings from community colleges to public high schools to neighborhood book clubs.”

https://thehill-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5360902-civic-infrastructure-democracy/amp/?fbclid=IwY2xjawLGpYRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFKM2VVaUkyclhWeVZEcWt3AR4Dwfg7OVn1kUFTJ9Yh7rWg7EYy7nnrotLmtDwDyijQz8mRL9Il7nI3t4JaVA_aem_enuz256d3Jhe99dpS6ZDwA

23/06/2025

9 books, an engaged community, a universe of thought, - that’s a Year of Classics!
Register now for either the online sessions or the in-person meetings in Annapolis, Washington DC or Santa Fe.
From Shakespeare to Ovid to Dickinson to Toni Morrison - join us and give your mind wings.

Information at: https://www.sjc.edu/year-classics

22/05/2025

Summer Classics focus: Soren Kierkegaard

“But one must not think ill of the paradox, for the paradox is the passion of thought, and the thinker without the paradox is like the lover without passion: a mediocre fellow… This, then, is the ultimate paradox of thought: to want to discover something that thought itself cannot think.” Thus writes Johannes Climacus, “John of the Ladder” (aka Soren Kierkegaard), in his “pamphlet,” Philosophical Fragments. It is a book that endeavors to philosophize passionately about faith, articulating the space between them.

The Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments seminar, running from July 21-25, will be led by tutor Joe Macfarland and Gerard Versluis, dean of the Pascal Institute, Leiden. For information on Summer Classics visit: http://sjc.edu/summer-classics

[Image Kierkegaard 1902]

21/05/2025

Kathleen Murphy, an employee at St. John's College, had been dissuaded by a career counsellor from pursuing her dream science path, despite all signs pointing towards that career. Instead she embraced creative writing and became a teacher. Now retired from teaching, she looks forward to Summer Classics, which she dubbed "sleep-away camp for the endlessly curious."
This July 14 through 18, see her at Du Châtelet’s Foundations of Physics seminar. Marquise Du Châtelet-Lomont was one of the foremost scientists of her day and was at the center of contemporary efforts to recover the works of early women scientists. For information on this, and other available seminars visit https://www.sjc.edu/lifelong-learning/summer-classics/seminar-schedule and read Kathleen's story in the Los Alamos Daily Post.

St. John’s College staff member Kathleen Murphy. CourtesySJC By KATHLEEN MURPHY St. John’s College In 1983, I met with my school counselor for the “career talk”. All vocational tests pointed toward the sciences, and I could taste a future at NASA. As I became more insistent about this pathwa...

20/05/2025

“’Can truth be learned?’ - this is the question posed by Kierkegaard, and by tutors Joe Macfarland and Gerard Versluis as they bring their seminar participants through a week of Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments. It's part of our Summer in Santa Fe Classics program, and seminar seats are still available. To see availability, visit https://ow.ly/lyYP50VVj7V

13/05/2025

At Summer Classics we showcase storytelling, from powerful authors, to surprising science to genre-smashing movies. Join us as we study films that move back and forth between past and future, including one of the most formally innovative time travel movies ever made, a landmark of the French New Wave, and a classic work of Japanese cinema ending with Sans Soleil, a profound meditation on memory, storytelling, and identity.

Led by tutors David Carl and Katie Kretler, the program runs from July 7-11 in Santa Fe.
To reserve your seat, visit https://www.sjc.edu/santa-fe/programs/summer-classics/film

“I believe strongly that in our period we can’t consider ourselves liberally educated if we don’t have a developed critical relationship to audio-visual media, especially the moving photographic image.” SJC tutor Krishnan Venkatesh.

11/05/2025

Still considering which seminar to attend for the St. John's Summer Classics in Santa Fe? Consider "Women Writing the Self" from July 7-11. Reading women from three very different locations and periods, spanning a number of genres and styles, we dive into the question of what a self is and what we do when we write about ourselves.

Can we find a whole self in Sappho’s fragments or Sei Shonagon’s jewel-like disjointed memories of Heian Japan? Do Lady Hyegyong’s memoirs of 18th-century Korea written over the course of a lifetime offer a clearer picture of a written self? Join tutors Leah Lasell and Rebekah Spearman to discuss this fascinating topic.

For information and to register, please visit https://www.sjc.edu/santa-fe/programs/summer-classics/seminar-schedule

06/05/2025

We still have availability for the Summer Classics seminar featuring Émilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil, marquise Du Châtelet-Lomont who was one of the foremost scientists of her day. Famous both as the intellectual partner and lover of Voltaire as well as the sole French translator of Newton’s Principia, her work is of interest both in connection to the intellectual currents of her time and in its own right. Our seminar focuses on her ground-breaking treatise, Foundations of Physics, which provides the philosophical foundations for the Newtonian worldview.

Tutors for this unique exploration of a pioneering scientist are Mahmoud Jalloh and Paola Villa , and they assume no prior knowledge of physics, philosophy, or mathematics.

Seminar is at our Santa Fe campus from July 14–18, 2025. For information on this and all remaining seminar bookings, visit https://ow.ly/yasj50VNYMY