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General Offerings
In addition to our Core Program, we offer a variety of courses focused on particular great books, ancient languages, and other related subjects. These courses offer opportunities to focus one’s learning in a welcoming intellectual community.
Our courses are open to adults 16 years or older from all educational backgrounds and walks of life. Most courses meet weekly for between 1-2 hours.
Unless otherwise noted, meetings take place online via Zoom.
Reading groups
In a reading group, you choose one or more great books to study and meet regularly for discussions with a group of 8-14 peers. Discussions are peer-led in accordance with our core principles.
Intensive reading groups
Modeled on our old tutorial format, intensive reading groups are an opportunity to go deeper with one’s own thinking and the thinking of others.
The size of the group is smaller, allowing each reader more conversational space, and readers are asked to write and share short weekly reflection papers.
Subject tutorials
When possible, we organize small group meetings with a tutor competent in subjects such as: the art of writing, ancient languages, and mathematics.
The number of readers, duration, and mode of instruction all vary according to the subject being taught and the preferences of the tutor.
Registration for our Spring 2025 term closed on Monday, December 9th. Subscribe to our mailing list to be informed of upcoming community events and offerings.
Please note: all meeting times are listed in U.S. Eastern Time and dates follow the convention of month/day/year.
Subject Tutorials
Each subject tutorial meets at the listed days and times to study the identified subject. Participants may be given assignments to complete before each meeting: these are given to assist in learning and no grades or credit will be given.
Introductory language tutorials are open to any reader who is willing to put in the effort of learning a new language.
Intermediate language tutorials typically involve the translation of texts and are most appropriate for those who have spent at least a year studying the relevant language.
Advanced language tutorials are appropriate for readers who already have some experience reading texts in the relevant language (for example, through recent participation in intermediate language tutorials).
Introductory Ancient Greek
– Tuesdays, 8:00-9:30 PM ET, 1/28-4/29 (14 wks)
– This tutorial will use Chase and Phillips, A New Introduction to Greek, 3rd ed.
– This tutorial will begin by tackling one chapter of the textbook per week, but the pace may be adjusted to meet the needs of readers
– Commitment: 2-3 hours of study per week outside meetings
Intermediate ancient Greek, Plato’s Republic, Book 9
– Saturdays, 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET, 2/15-5/24 (15 wks)
– Commitment: 3-4 pages/week in the Oxford Classical Texts edition. Readers are expected to present their translations of a brief portion of the assigned pages
Advanced Latin, Sallust’s Conspiracy of Catiline
– Mondays, 3:00-5:00 PM ET, 2/03-4/21 (12 wks)
– Commitment: 3-4 chapters per week of reading, plus additional homework involving translation
The Art of Writing: the Personal Essay
– Mondays, 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET, 2/03-4/07 (10 wks)
– This tutorial will read excerpts from The Art of the Personal Essay (ed. Phillip Lopate), possibly in addition to other readings
– The first half of this course will focus on readings, with perhaps some in-class generative writing assignments. The second half of the course will feature shorter readings to make time for workshopping writing assignments. The goal will be for each participant to have their writing be workshopped at least once
– Commitment: Each week, writers will be expected to read one essay (approx. 1-2 hrs.) and to prepare writing assignments (approx. 3-4 hrs.)
Intensive Reading Groups
Groups meet on the identified dates and times to discuss readings in the listed text(s). Readers are expected to write short reflection papers each week and share them with the entire group. Reflection papers are intended as an aid to thinking and conversation, and no grades are given.
The identified amounts of weekly reading are rough averages that may vary by edition.
Edicts of Ashoka
– Wednesdays, 1:00-2:30 PM ET, 2/05-2/26 (4 wks)
– Commitment: 10-20 pages/week plus weekly writing assignments
Reading Groups
Groups meet on the identified dates and times to discuss readings in the listed text(s). Unless otherwise noted, meetings are conducted in English and take place online.
The identified amounts of weekly reading are rough averages that may vary by edition.
Aristotle, Metaphysics
– Thursdays, 8:00-10:00 PM ET, 2/20-5/01 (11 wks)
– Commitment: 25 (dense) pages/week
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
– Tuesdays, 7:30-9:00 PM ET, 2/04-4/22 (12 wks)
– Commitment: 20-30 pages/week
Augustine, On Christian Teaching
– Wednesdays, 7:00-8:30 PM ET, 2/05-4/09 (10 wks)
– Commitment: 20 pages/week
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
– Wednesdays, 8:00-9:30 PM ET, 2/05-3/05 (5 wks)
– Commitment: 35 pages/week, but readers will be expected to read through the entire text (about 150 pages) before the first meeting
Thomas Bernhard, Woodcutters and Henrik Ibsen, The Wild Duck
– Sundays, 8:00-10:00 PM ET, 3/09-3/30 (4 wks)
– Commitment: 60 pages/week
Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions
– Mondays, 8:00-9:30 PM ET, 2/03-4/07 (10 wks)
– Commitment: 10-30 pages/week
René Descartes, Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy
– Mondays, 7:30-9:00 PM ET, 2/03-3/31 (9 wks)
– Commitment: 10-12 (dense) pages/week
Carl Theodor Dreyer, Selected films
– Thursdays, 10:30 AM-12:00 PM, 3/06-5/01 (9 wks)
– Præsidenten (1919), Prästänkan (1920), Der var engang (1922), Du skal ære din hustru (1925), La passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928), Vampyr (1932), Vredens dag (1943), Ordet (1955), Gertrud (1964)
– Commitment: 2 hours of viewing/week
George Eliot, Middlemarch
– Saturdays, 8:00-9:30 PM ET, 2/08-5/10 (15 wks)
– Commitment: 50-70 pages/week
William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!
– Mondays, 8:00-9:30 PM ET, 2/24-4/07 (7 wks)
– Commitment: 40-50 pages/week
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
– Mondays, 8:00-10:00 PM ET, 2/03-3/10 (6 wks)
– Commitment: 50 pages/week
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams
– Mondays, 7:00-9:00 PM ET, 2/03-4/14 (11 wks)
– Commitment: 40-50 pages/week
Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
– Tuesdays, 7:00-8:30 PM ET, 2/04-3/18 (7 wks)
– Commitment: 4 poems/week
Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
– Mondays, 7:00-9:00 PM ET, 2/03-7/28 (26 wks)
– Commitment: 50 pages/week
Henry James, The Wings of the Dove
– Wednesdays, 7:00-8:30 PM ET, 2/05-4/09 (10 wks)
– Commitment: 50 pages/week
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
– Wednesdays, 6:30-8:00 PM ET, 2/05-4/09 (10 wks)
– Commitment: 50-70 pages/week
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
– Sundays, 8:00-9:30 PM ET, 2/09-3/16 (6 wks)
– Commitment: 50-70 pages/week
C.G. Jung, The Undiscovered Self
– Wednesdays, 7:00-8:30 PM, 2/05-3/19 (7 wks)
– Commitment: 16 pages/week
Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion
– Fridays, 2:00-3:30 PM ET, 1/31-4/18 (12 wks)
– Commitment: 60 pages/week
Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety
– Mondays, 1:00-2:30 PM ET, 2/17-4/07 (8 wks)
– Commitment: 25-30 pages/week
Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
– Thursdays, 7:00-8:30 PM, 2/06-4/10 (10 wks) wks)
– Commitment: 40 pages/week
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
– Wednesdays, 7:00-9:00 PM ET, 3/05-5/21 (12 wks)
– Commitment: 40 pages/week
Plato, Symposium
– Wednesdays, 7:30-9:00 PM ET, 2/05-3/12 (6 wks)
– Commitment: 10 pages/week
Book of Psalms
– Tuesdays, 9:00-10:30 PM ET, 3/04-4/08 (6 wks)
– Commitment: 5-8 psalms or 30 pages/week (we’ll read through the Book of Psalms twice)
EN ESPAÑOL: Francisco de Quevedo, El Buscón
– Sundays, 9:00-10:30 AM ET, 2/02-3/16 (7 wks)
– Commitment: 40 pages/week
– This group will be conducted in Spanish
William Shakespeare, Hamlet and The Tempest
– Mondays, 6:00-7:30 PM ET, 2/24-3/31 (6 wks)
– Commitment: 1-3 acts/week
William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It
– Tuesdays, 10:00 AM-12:00 PM ET, 2/04-5/13 (15 wks)
– Commitment: 1 act/week
– The group will begin each session by reading aloud the act to be discussed. Reading aloud will be voluntary
Lord Alfred Tennyson, Poems
– Tuesdays, 7:00-9:00 PM ET, 2/04-5/13 (15 wks)
– Commitment: 1-2 poems or 20 pages/week
Anthony Trollope, The Warden, Barchester Towers, and Doctor Thorne
– Wednesdays, 1:00-2:30 PM ET, 1/29-4/30 (14 wks)
– Commitment: 100 pages/week
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
– Wednesdays, 3:30-5:00 PM ET, 2/05-2/26 (4 wks)
– Commitment: 50 pages/week
Xenophon, Memorabilia
– Fridays, 9:00-11:00 AM ET, 2/07-5/02 (13 wks)
– Commitment: 10-12 pages/week
William Butler Yeats, The Tower
– Wednesdays, 6:00-7:30 PM ET, 2/05-2/26 (4 wks)
– Commitment: 5 poems/week
Zhuangzi
– Wednesdays, 7:00-9:00 PM ET, 2/05-5/28 (17 wks)
– Commitment: 20-30 pages/week
IN-PERSON (Pier 57, NYC): Homer, Odyssey
– Wednesdays, 7:00-8:30 PM ET, 1/15-2/19 (6 wks)
– Commitment: 50-60 pages/week
IN-PERSON (Pier 57, NYC): Plato, Theaetetus
– Thursdays, 6:00-8:00 PM ET, 2/06-5/01 (13 wks)
– Commitment: 8 pages/week
IN-PERSON (Pier 57, NYC): Sophocles, Electra, Ajax, Oedipus the King, Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus, Women at Trachis, and Philoctetes
– Wednesdays, 7:00-8:30 PM ET, 2/26-4/16 (6 wks)
– Commitment: 1 play/week
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Catherine Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization incorporated in the State of Maryland. A copy of our current financial statement is available by writing to Catherine Project, 2631 Housley Road, Box 1006, Annapolis, MD 21401 or by calling (443) 808-0881. Documents and information submitted under the Maryland Solicitations Act are also available, for the cost of postage and copies, from the Maryland Secretary of State, State House, Annapolis, MD 21401 or by calling (410) 974-5534.
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