Calendar of Events
Click on event title for information.
|
Asilomar
April ll-13, 2008
Leaders'Workshop
May 3, 2008
Annual Picnic
June 8, 2008
Long Novel Weekend
August 23-24, 2008
Poetry Weekend
November 15-16, 2008
|
|
|
February 2007
Dear Great Books Supporter,
2008 is our 50th Anniversary Asilomar Great Books Weekend. This year we will be discussing works by Hawthorne, Machiavelli, Howe, Van Duyn, Feldman, Jeffers, Frost, Reed, Heaney, and Collins. Don't miss the Mini-Retreat Recap below.
We are continuing the Great Books discussions founded by Robert Hutchins (see quote below) and Mortimer Adler of the University of Chicago in 1947. GBSF (serving Northern California) is a volunteer organization of motivated readers. We coordinate over 40 existing groups, provide leader training and sponsor literary events in scenic locations.
If you know someone who might be interested in receiving this E-Newsletter, just click on the "Forward email" link at the bottom of this page. Enter your friend's name and email address and we will send him or her a copy.
Rob Calvert has updated the GBSF website. If you have not visited it for awhile, check it out. Rob has done a great job, including the addition of sign-up boxes for this E-Newsletter. Now you can refer your friends to the website and they can sign up there also. We also have added an archive of past GBSF E-Newsletters which can be accessed in the "Quick Links" box on the left.
There are a number of links (click here or on blue letters with underline) available for more information. You may have to double click depending on your email program. You can reach our website by clicking on "More about us" in the Quick Links box or by clicking on the GBSF logo at the top of this page.
|
50th Annual Great Books Asilomar Weekend
April 11-13, 2008
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a prolific author, writing scores of short stories and sketches and romances of which The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, is best known. Earlier, in 1845, he wrote one of the earliest alternate histories in which long dead historical and literary figures are still alive featuring the poets Burns, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, the actor Edmund Kean, the British politician George Canning and even Napoleon Bonaparte. Among his friends were Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Franklin Pierce, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and Herman Melville, who dedicated his novel Moby-Dick to Hawthorne "in admiration for his geniu s." Edgar Allen Poe wrote unflattering reviews of much of Hawthorne's work, but admitted "The style of Hawthorne is purity itself. His tone is singularly effective-wild, plaintive, thoughtful, and in full accordance with his themes. . . .we look upon him as one of the few men of indisputable genius to whom our country has as yet given birth."
At right is a detail from a painting, supervised by Hawthorne, titled The Scarlet Letter by T. H. Matthews in 1860.
Get in the picture. We will be taking a group photo of all who attend our 50th Asilomar Weekend Retreat. We will have on display some group photos of previous Asilomars including the 25th anniversary.There will be a Saturday Evening Party to celebrate our fifty years at Asilomar. Here are the readings for this year:
Poetry:
The Moose in the Morning Mona Van Duyn
The City and its Own Irving Feldman
The Purse Seine Robinson Jeffers
The Master Speed Robert Frost
The Naming of Parts Henry Reed (PW96)
The Bog Queen Seamus Heaney
Aristotle Billy Collins
Novel: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Essay: Selections from The Discourses by Nicolo Machiavelli
Play: Painting Churches by Tina Howe
For more information and access to a flyer and registration form click here or contact Sheri Kindsvater at kindsvater@aol.com.
|
| We have an archive for these GBSF E-Newsletters! You will find a link in the "Quick Links" box to the left or click here. The archives should be useful for new subscribers and those who are new to Great Books discussions. There is a lot of information for discussion leaders in previous issues. Refer your friends to items of interest.
|
|
Mini-Retreat--2008 Recap
THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
MILAN KUNDERA
On February 2 last, forty committed and enthusiatic readers pored over a series of themes only to find that after examining
one level of meaning, another was revealed. Leader Vince Scardina opined that although the work was a relatively short 300 pages, it could have easily qualified for the Long Novel Weekend.
If you like a sex ersatz love story with a liberal sprinkling of such weighty philosophical subjects as Nietzsche's concept of the "eternal return" along with lengthy discourses on the relevance of "kitch" in everyday life, as well as edifying sections such as a "Short Dictionary of Misunderstood Words", then this is the book for you.
Kundera, a contemporary Czech writer, skillfully leads us down a Kafkaesque path, asking us to examine whether to have meaning, our acts must somehow contain weight because without this quality our acts become "light" in their insignificance.
Whatever conclusions, if any, we draw from the book, we can all agree that The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a facinating and challenging read. To such comments, Kundera has responded, "Man thinks - God laughs!"
Claudia O'Callaghan
Mini-Retreat Coordinator
|
|
| Reading Matters, our newsletter delivered via the post office, is now available electronically in living color and it arrives sooner. Just go to our website and click on "Latest Issue" for a downloadable version of RM. If you will email me your name and zip code I will see that you are removed from our RM postal mailing list and that will save us a lot in postage and printing costs.
|
|
Annual Picnic
June 8, 2008
The Monastery in Shangri-La
"While attempting to escape a civil war, four people are kidnapped and transported to the Tibetan mountains. After their plane crashes, they are found by a mysterious Chinese man. He leads them to a monastery hidden in "the valley of the blue moon"-a land of mystery and matchless beauty where life is lived in tranpuil wonder, beyond the grasp of a doomed world.
It is here, in Shangri-La, where destinies will be discovered and the meaning of paradise will be unveiled."
|
|
Some Useful Great Books Links
GBSF is affiliated with the Great Books Foundation which was started in 1947 by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler and produces most of the reading material used by Great Books discussion groups around the country. Their website provides a wealth of information and a list to find groups in your area or how to start a discussion group if one is not available near you. GBF also publishes Junior Great Books for use in schools or at home for K-12 students.
Symposium Great Books Institute discussions in March/Early April: Virginia Woolf: Orlando (Optional: Orlando Performance @ ACT on March 13th); Descartes: The Discourse on Method and Meditations; The Bible: Gospels of Matthew & John; Dante: The Inferno; Rig Veda & Upanishads: Selections; Omar Khayyam: Ruba'iyat. Check the website for dates and times. Some of these discussions are full.
Center for the Study of the Great Ideas, founded by Mortimer Adler and Max Weismann, exists to help citizens understand why philosophy is everybody's business and to promulgate the insights and ideals embedded in Dr. Adler's lifelong intellectual work in the fields of Philosophy, Liberal Education, Ethics and Politics. This is a comprehensive website with something for everybody interested in Great Books.
Classical Pursuits offers learning vacations around the world with location appropriate Great Books discussions as well as Toronto Pursuits, a week in July of music, art and GB discussions. Ann Kirkland also produces one of the best e-newsletters available.
London Theatre Tour for Thinkers VI, October 20-25, 2008. Six days of the world's best theatre followed each morning by a Great Books type shared inquiry discussion led by Ted M. Kraus, a veteran NYC drama critic and experienced GB discussion leader. Contact Ted at 925-939-3658 or tedmkraus@yahoo.com.
|
|
Thank you for your interest in Great Books. Is there something you would like to know that we can add? This is your e-newsletter, so let us know.
Be sure to forward this email to your friends who might be interested in Great Books. Just click on Forward email at the bottom left.
Sincerely,
Jim Hall
Great Books Council of San Francisco |
|
|
