ADULT rED
Have you ever wanted to go back to school in a progressive classroom similar to your child’s? Intrigued by what you hear around the dinner table? Many parents of LREI students tell us how they wish that they could have the experiences that their children have each day.
In response to significant parent interest, this winter LREI will be offering two evening courses for adults, taught by members of our outstanding faculty. These will be seminar style courses, with an emphasis on discussion and open dialogue between participants. Two members of our high school faculty, Julia Heaton (English Teacher, former Acting High School Principal, former Academic Dean) and Tom Murphy (History Teacher, History Department Chair), will be offering abridged versions of their most popular offerings—Dangerous Language and Global War on Terror: American Foreign Policy Since 9/11, respectively.
Each course will be open to 15 participants. There will be pre-seminar reading assignments (to be completed over Winter Break) with additional shorter supplemental assignments during the five-week session. The courses meet simultaneously. If you are interested in participating, please choose one, with the expectation that you will attend all five sessions. While there are no required writing assignments, participants are encouraged to take notes and respond in writing to the week’s guiding questions.
Classes will meet on the following Tuesday evenings—January 12th, January 19th, January 26th, February 2nd and February 9th. Courses will meet from 6:30PM-8:00PM in the high school, 40 Charlton Street.
There is a $100 registration fee for each participant.
If you would like to register for one of these courses, please contact Rowena Penaranda-Askins at rpenaranda@lrei.org or (212) 477-5316, x295.
Course Descriptions
Pornography or Masterpiece: Reading Lolita at LREI
“I shall never regret Lolita. She was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle– its composition and its solution at the same time, since one is a mirror view of the other, depending on the way you look.” – Vladimir Nabokov, 1964.
“What frightens or disturbs us in Lolita…opens our eyes to ourselves and our worlds. Everyone should read it for the pure joy.” — Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran
Published in 1955, Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita was hailed by Graham Greene as one of the best books of all time and also “the filthiest book I have ever read…sheer unrestrained pornography” (John Gordon, London Sunday Express, 1956). For the past half century, this iconic story of a middle-aged professor’s infatuation with his adolescent stepdaughter continues to fascinate, intoxicate and alienate readers of all ages. In this five-week seminar, we will journey together through the novel Lolita, analyzing the text in terms of character, language, formal structure, and theme. Furthermore, we will consider the novel’s publication history (banned in several countries) as well as its complicated position in the literary “canon”. Finally, we will discuss the societal and moral implications of the novel’s subject, and the complicity we feel as readers when we are at once “entranced with the book while abhorring its author” (Nabokov, Lolita). Participants will read an annotated version of Lolita as well as selected works of literary criticism.
The Global War on Terror: American Foreign Policy Since 9/11
“We will rid the world of evildoers.” — Bush, Sept. 17.
The Global War on Terrorism (or GWOT) is the name of a campaign with the stated goal of ending international terrorism by preventing terrorist groups from posing a threat, and by putting an end to state sponsorship of terrorism. This campaign was launched by the United States following the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. carried out by al-Qaeda. After more than eight years the name has changed yet the conflict continues. In this five-week seminar, we will use a combination of primary sources, articles and Frontline documentaries to examine the evolution of the war against radical Islam. By looking at how we got here we may develop a better understanding of what we should do next.
Syllabus:
Week One: Al Qaeda and the New Terrorism
Week Two: The Bush Foreign Policy Revolution
Week Three: The War in Afghanistan
Week Four: The War in Iraq
Week Five: The Global War on Terror and Human Rights
THE LOOMING TOWER Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. By Lawrence Wright. Illustrated. 469 pp. Alfred A. Knopf.