After the Life of the Mind Seminar, we turn to the close reading of single authors or books. The writings of ancient Greece have been read for centuries across numerous traditions because of their broad scope, their brilliance, and their beauty. These books ask foundational questions in such a rich and vivid mode that they have been sought out as aids to thinking by many subsequent thinkers from across the globe. 

Each thinker feeds those who come after: Homer formed Plato’s education, and Plato formed Aristotle’s. These writings are the beginning of a great conversation, the lines of response and reaction that reach into the Abrahamic religious traditions as well as into national literatures, in genres we now call literary, philosophical, or scientific. 

The pace of readings is generally more leisurely in these courses and the size of the group is smaller, allowing each reader more space in the conversation. Required writing assignments prompt readers to focus their thinking and reflect on particular observations, questions, or ideas.