Coming Soon: 2020 Curriculum & Themes

With intellectually curious peers from around the world as fellow adventurers, every summer students examine and engage with Great Books and Big Ideas across all of our campuses.

Each week, Great Books students explore a variety of carefully selected classic and contemporary texts that raise important questions on a universal, timeless theme. With over 20 weeks of sessions this summer, the list is immense!

As we prepare for 2019, we invite you to look at last year's themes for each campus.

@Amherst

Contemplate "The Price of Revenge" with authors including Gabriel García Márquez, Susan Sontag, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and more.

Examine "Portrayals of Happiness" in the writings of Aristotle, Grace Paley, George Saunders, and others.

Probe the theme of "Hiding and Seeking" through the works of Anton Chekov, John Keats, Jostein Gaarder, and more.

Explore the idea of "Lost and Found" in literature with writers Percy Bysshe Shelley, Langston Hughes,  Guy de Maupassant, and others.

@Stanford

Delve into "Science Fiction and the Exploration of a Moral Universe" through the works of Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin, and more.

Discover the many portrayals of "Freedom and Imprisonment" with authors Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others.

Investigate the concept of "The Present Moment" with writers Virginia Woolf, Jorge Luis Borges, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and more.

@UChicago

Ponder the idea of "Transformation" with the works of Amy Tan, Frederick Douglass, Marjane Satrapi, and others.

@Dublin

Compare and contrast  "Humor and Pathos in Irish Literature" through the work of Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, Anne Enright, and more.

@Oxford

Delve into the works of British authors and more as we dive into the provocative themes of "Are We Cruel? Examining the Ethics of Human Nature" and "Procrastination"  within the writing of William Shakespeare, Homer, and others.

@Beijing

Explore what make animals human and humans animals with the theme "Our Lives as Animals" and the theme of "Right and Wrong" with authors including Jonathan Swift, Franz Kafka, Lewis Carroll, and Jean Paul Sartre.

Want to Learn More?

To learn more about our curriculum for 2019, or to speak with an Admissions Counselor about which week is best for your summer, please email us or call at +1-203-612-9470.