What's New at SeumasU June 2022
The passage of time is a strange thing. I find it hard to believe that it's June - the last term at SeumasU has felt far too short, and sometimes life feels far too long. This week, as I engage in my occasional re-reading of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, I came across the passage that speaks about how books speak of books, so that books themselves are engaged in a conversation, and the library in the book is a long murmuring across the centuries. That's part of what we do here at SeumasU, we enter into the long conversation of books across the centuries.
New Classes
The next term of classes starts on July 17th. For the introductory Greek levels, we're running 101 and 103 this term, while for more advanced readers we've got the Epistle of Barnabas, Basil's letter on the place of Hellenistic literature in his Christian view of education, and the theoretically-perpetual reading class of Plato, currently in Crito. Our LGPSI class has turned into a kind of collaborative storytelling/RPG-lite experience, but it's also a very flexible class that could go in new conversational directions at any time. Lastly, I'm very pleased to be offering Greek Composition again. I'm convinced this is a fairly unique offering because on the one hand I will put you through your paces in writing Greek, but on the other hand it's flexible, doesn't involve reams of English>Greek translation, and is designed to spark and cultivate a love of writing new material in Greek.
In the Latin half of things, I have a limited but delicious range of things. Latin 103 picks up Familia Romana at chapter 22. Dhuoda offers the opportunity to read the thoughts of a Carolingian noblewoman on the proper conduct for a young Christian noble of the time (advice tragically never put into practice by her own sons). For those with a taste for something almost as modern as it gets, you can join us to read the Latin correspondence between CS Lewis and Don Gionvanni Calabria.
Other Projects
Most of my discretionary time has been consumed in a contracted writing project that I'm hoping to finish in the next couple of months. Our LGPSI class has produced a ton of raw material that I will also be processing into a revised LGPSI edition which should start appearing in more public forums starting in July. I have already started to dream of Term 4's offerings, including some poetry classes, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Watch out for some new Life at SeumasU videos in the coming weeks though.
curate ut valeatis, o sodales lingua utriusque cultores,
Ἰάκωβος Δοναλδίδης