Humane Letters IV

Class Overview

The Senior Seminar is the capstone to your education at Arete Preparatory Academy, and it will offer you the opportunity to bring all of your previous experience and training in careful reading and discussion to bear on a wide variety of texts. This year you will begin by experiencing the Homeric epics re-envisioned by the great Roman master, Virgil, and the Hebrew texts reinterpreted by the followers of Jesus and his apostles. Then we will move into examining some of the great medieval philosophical and literary texts. In addition to these, we will look at a variety of political and scientific texts, two of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, and we will finish the year with Dostoevsky’s masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov. The overriding theme throughout the year will be an examination of faith and reason, and the place that both of these forces have in our communities, on our lives, and within our souls.