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Community seminars

Drop-in seminars for students ages 14 to 19. Every date stands on its own: read a short text beforehand, then talk it through together.

Ages 14 to 19 · About ninety minutes each

From past seminars

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From past seminars
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From past seminars

How a seminar works

Each date is a complete seminar on its own, so you can come to one, several, or all of them. You read a short text beforehand, then we spend about ninety minutes exploring it together in a small group, with no lectures and no right answers.

We focus on classical texts, paintings, and films that have survived because they ask questions that do not go away.

  1. Read ahead

    A few days before, everyone gets a short work: a story, a film, or a painting. Each person comes to the seminar with one observation and one question.

  2. Start from one question

    Everyone shares their opening questions, and the seminar leader concludes with their own.

  3. Talk to each other, not to the leader

    Students answer one another and point back to the work to support what they say. The leader slows the conversation down, emphasizes important moments, and makes sure every voice is heard.

  4. Suspending judgement

    The aim is to understand the work better than anyone could alone instead of dismissing or agreeing with it prematurely.

Places are limited, so please only apply for the dates you can attend.

What we read

Short texts, sent out before each seminar.

  1. 2001: A Space Odyssey

    Stanley Kubrick · United States · 1968

    Widely accepted as the best film of all time, Space Odyssey is a slow and meditative exploration of humanity's most fundamental experiences: ambition, anger, and wonder.

    Film

  2. Crito

    Plato · Ancient Greece

    A dialogue of Plato that captures Socrates in prison expecting execution. The dialogue turns from scheming to escape prison to a transcendent appreciation of law and order.

    Text

  3. Gusev

    Anton Chekhov · Russia · 1890

    Two soldiers, two diseases, one ship. Both encounter different ends, and we glean a bit about their past lives from the meager interactions they share.

    Text

  4. Close-Up

    Abbas Kiarostami · Iran · 1990

    Ranked as one the greatest films of all time, Close-Up is an unforgettable and explosive tale of a director pretending to be a director while directing a film we're watching.

    Film

  5. Immortality

    Andrei Platonov · Soviet Union · 1936

    A communist railroad worker is captivated by becoming immortal through electricity, while failing to fall asleep at nights.

    Text
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  1. Rear Window

    Alfred Hitchcock · United States · 1954

    Arguably Hitchcock's best film, Rear Window is really a lesson in close reading. So much is happening, and so little is explained, that you're left to wonder what you missed.

    Film

  2. The House with the Mezzanine

    Anton Chekhov · Russia · 1896

    A beautifully sad love story, along with a large question Chekhov poses: how should we live our lives, in leisure or in strenuous works?

    Text

Join a seminar

Tell us which dates you can make, and we will confirm your place.

Apply for a seminar