Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov
Meditate on Dostoevsky’s final – and greatest – novel.
Tuesdays | January 4, 11, 18, 25, & February 1
Online Seminar Series
Nigerian literary giant Chinua Achebe is celebrated as the father of modern African literature. In this seminar, fellows will read two novels from his famed “African Trilogy” – his groundbreaking first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), about the tragic downfall of the Ibo warrior Okonkwo, and its sequel, No Longer at Ease (1960), about Okonkwo’s Western-educated grandson who returns to Nigeria for a job in the colonial civil service.
In following the lives of the Okonkwo family – from the first contact of European colonists to the waning days of the British Empire – fellows will reflect on the complicated relationship between African tradition and Western influence, the ravages of corrupt governance, and the challenge of moral agency when different belief systems overlap and compete.
Image Credit: Door; Lintel, Olowe of Ise, The British Museum
Martha Bayles on American soft power
This course takes place via Zoom over five sessions, held on Tuesdays, from 6 to 8 PM ET. Fellows will receive a $200 stipend contingent upon participation in the course and completion of a brief response paper. All course materials will be provided.
Martha Bayles is an Associate Professor of Humanities at Boston College, where she teaches a year-long course titled, “From Homer to Dante” and various senior seminars. Her research centers around popular culture and cultural history. She has previously served as a lecturer at Harvard University and Claremont McKenna College.
Martha Bayles is an Associate Professor of Humanities at Boston College, where she teaches a year-long course titled, “From Homer to Dante” and various senior seminars. Her research centers around popular culture and cultural history. She has previously served as a lecturer at Harvard University and Claremont McKenna College.
Ms. Bayles has published essays and reviews in The New York Times, Newsweek, The New Republic, The Claremont Review of Books & The Weekly Standard. She is the author of several books, including Hole in our Soul: Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music, Ain’t That a Shame? Censorship and the Culture of Transgression, and most recently, Through a Screen Darkly: Popular Culture, Public Diplomacy, and America’s Image Abroad. Ms. Bayles received her Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and her Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Jacob Howland
Jacob Howland is a Senior Fellow at the Tikvah Fund. His research focuses on ancient Greek philosophy, history, epic, and tragedy; the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud; Kierkegaard; and literary and philosophical responses to the Holocaust and Soviet totalitarianism. His most recent book is Glaucon’s Fate: History, Myth, and Character in Plato’s Republic.
Eliot Cohen
Eliot Cohen is the Robert E. Osgood Professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) where he has taught since 1990. He served as Dean of SAIS from 2019 to 2021. In addition to public service in the Department of Defense he served as Counselor of the Department of State from 2007 to 2009.
Matthew Continetti
Matthew Continetti is resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Prior to joining AEI, he was Editor in Chief of the Washington Free Beacon. His articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Thomas Merrill
Thomas Merrill is an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University. He is the author of Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment. He is also the co-editor of three edited volumes, including The Political Thought of the Civil War.
Benjamin Storey
Benjamin Storey is Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Furman University. His interests focus on the history of political philosophy. He is currently completing a book entitled The Restless Age: Four French Thinkers on the Quest for Self-Understanding in an Unsettled Modernity.
Jenna Silber Storey
Jenna Silber Storey is Assistant Professor in Politics and International Affairs at Furman University and Executive Director of Furman’s Tocqueville Program. She is the co-author of a book with Benjamin Storey: Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment (Princeton University Press, 2021). Further information about her work can be found at www.jbstorey.com.
Paul Cantor
Paul Cantor is the Clifton Waller Barrett Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Virginia. He has written on a wide range of subjects, including Shakespeare, Romanticism, Austrian economics, and contemporary popular culture.
Antón Barba-Kay
Antón Barba-Kay is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the School of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He is finishing a book on the political philosophy of the internet, which he began while a Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University.