In this Issue:LecturesGraduate Institute EventConcertsTheatre & PerformanceNovember Community Seminars

COMMUNITYCALENDAR

ST. JOHN’S COLLEGESANTA FE, NEW MEXICO VOL. 6.14

NOV/DEC 2014

EARLY GRADUATE INSTITUTESTUDENTS PARTICIPATING INA SEMINAR CLASS.

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“The Graduate Institute first opened

its doors on the Santa Fe campus in

1967 as the Teachers Institute in

Liberal Education. There were 33

students in the class, 27 associated

with the teaching profession.

The following year the name was changed to the Graduate Institute

in Liberal Education, to more accurately reflect its availability to

all who could benefit from a St. John's graduate experience." —The St. John’s Reporter, 1979

Please visit www.sjc.edu regularly for updated information on

the 50th anniversary.

19642014

Celebrate with St. John’s College

GI Class,1973: Theinitial classes inthe Graduate Institute includedseveral publicschool teachers.

The Graduate Institute

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DEAN’S LECTURESLectures are free and open to the public and are followed by a question-and-answer period.

Galileo’s Hermeticism Classics and History: Historical and Literary Contexts in the Reading of Sanskrit TextsFriday, November 7, 3:15 p.m. Great Hall, Peterson Student CenterPatrick Olivelle, University of Texas, Department of Asian Studies Rohrbach Memorial Lecturer

Professor Olivelle will address three interrelated issues. First, how a classic iscreated: the historical contexts that create classics; the role historical memoryplays in this process; and the fate of “forgotten” classics—forgotten by the tra-dition and thus ignored by modern scholarship. Second, the need to attend tothe historical—political, religious, economic—contexts that gave birth to thetext that came to be designated as a classic. Third, the role of translations inreading classics. Can there be translations that permit total access to the origi-nal? If not, what do we lose in translation? Two elements of originals, espe-cially of poetry, are structure and sound—elements that can never be capturedin translations. Professor Olivelle will present examples of such poetic struc-tures and “beauty of sound” that are essential ingredients of Sanskrit poetry.

Patrick Olivelle was the chair of the Department of Asian Studies, from 1994until 2007, and is currently the Mossiker Chair Emeritus in the Humanities atthe University of Texas at Austin. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellow-ship and was elected president of the American Oriental Society in 2005. Hisbooks have won awards from the American Academy of Religion and the Associ-ation of Asian Studies. In 2011 he was awarded the Career Research ExcellenceAward of the University of Texas at Austin. He has published over 25 books andover 50 scholarly articles. His recent books include King, Governance, and Lawin Ancient India (Oxford 2013) and Reimagining Asoka (Oxford 2012).

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Nighttime Walks with ProustFriday, November 14, 7:30 p.m. Great Hall, Peterson Student CenterPatricia Locke, St. John’s College, AnnapolisPart of The Carol J. Worrell Annual Lecture Series on Literature

This lecture is a close reading of a short passage from the first volume ofProust’s novel, In Search of Lost Time.We will walk familiar paths by moon-light to discover how our spatial experience changes at night. How do the alterations affect us? How woven together are we with the world around us? In this paragraph, the narrator recalls after-dinner walks with his parents thatstand as a counter-example to the indoor bedtime trauma he remembers sovividly of early childhood. Locke will compare these moonlit events with a passage from the last volume of the novel—when the narrator is a young manwalking alone at night in Paris—as a way of marking change in time as well asspace. Ultimately, our question is how a small moment in a long novel might actas a key to being at home in the world. Can we say, on the basis of the signifi-cant differences in lived spatiality between day and night, that the “obscurecountry” of the human is also sought and found in analogously distinct ways?

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The Meaning of RomeFriday, November 21, 7:30 p.m.

Great Hall, Peterson Student Center

Michael Grenke, St. John’s College, Annapolis

Part of The Carol J. Worrell Annual Lecture Series on Literature

In Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, Britain stops paying tribute to Rome and attemptsto become its own independent nation. The power of Rome opposes this attemptand invades. A young British lover exchanges vows (and manacles of love) withhis new wife, as each proclaims exclusive ownership of the other. A sly Romandisputes the validity of any such claims of marital exclusivity and unassailablevirtue. This Roman sets about to prove his claim and disrupts the marriage to a point that approaches the tragedy of Othello. The lecture will consider Cymbeline as a sustained rumination on what possibilities of exclusive ownership are available to human beings and what would have to be true aboutreason, passion, and the world in order for human beings properly to found their claims to possess things that belong to them alone.

The “Turnings” of the Soul: The Five Mathematical Studies in Plato’s Republic VIIFriday, December 5, 7:30 p.m. Great Hall, Peterson Student CenterMitch Miller, Vassar College, Department of Philosophy

In Book VII of the Republic, Plato has Socrates introduce the study of five math-ematical disciplines as the pivotal phase in the “turning of the soul” from “whatbecomes” to “what is” and to “what is the brightest of what is,” namely, “theGood” (518c). We will ask: what is this “turning,” and how is it that these five

studies, in this particular sequence, have the power to occasion it? As we willtry to bring to view, there are in fact several interrelated turns that the fivestudies occasion, and the way they function together in guiding thought fromthe sensible to the intelligible yields seminal questions about the relations be-tween sense-perceptible things and forms.

Mitchell Miller was the Dexter Ferry Professor in Philosophy at Vassar Collegeuntil 2013; he is now emeritus. He has published two books on Plato, Plato’sParmenides: The Conversion of the Soul (Princeton 1986, Penn State ppk 1991)and The Philosopher in Plato’s Statesman (Martinus Nijhoff 1980, reissuedwith “Dialectical Education and Unwritten Teachings in Plato’s Statesman,”Parmenides Publishing 2004), and a number of essays on Plato. He has alsopublished studies of Hesiod, Parmenides, and Hegel. He has recently been atwork on the Philebus, the “so-called unwritten teachings” of Plato, and—as thePlatonic provocation for this inquiry—the notion of “the longer way” (Republic435c-d and 504b-e) to the dialectical study of the Good and a more “precisegrasp” of the city, the soul, and the cosmos that, he argues, Plato projects as theyield of the “longer way.”

Did Euclid Understand Fractions? Do We Understand Euclid?Friday, December 12, 3:15 p.m. Great Hall, Peterson Student CenterDavid Pengelley, New Mexico State University, Department of Mathematical Sciences

What does it really mean for two fractions to be equal? How can one legiti-mately detect their equality? Euclid’s Book VII is at the heart of this issue, but has been sorely misunderstood. We will explore a conundrum in Euclid onprime divisibility and fractions, discover a flaw, and aim to fix it in the spirit of Euclid.

David Pengelley is professor emeritus at New Mexico State University. His research is in algebraic topology and history of mathematics. He develops thepedagogies of teaching with student projects and with primary historicalsources, and created a graduate course on the role of history in teaching mathe-matics. He relies on student reading, writing, and mathematical preparation before class to enable active student work to replace lecture. He has received theMathematical Association of America’s Haimo teaching award.

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EXPERIENCE THE LIBERAL ARTS:

A Free Graduate Institute Event to Learn About the Liberal Arts Master’s Program

Saturday, November 8, 20141-4:30 p.m. St. John’s College, Levan HallAdmission is free

David Carl, director of the Graduate Institute, and

St. John’s tutor Lise Van Boxel will lead a discussion

on short stories by Jorge Luis Borges. This event is

an opportunity for prospective students to partici-

pate in a St. John’s College seminar and experience

the great rewards of dialogue as learning.

Space is limited. Please RSVP by November 5 to Susan Olmsted at santafe.gradadmissions@sjc.edu or 505-984-6083.

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LUNCHTIME CONCERT

PETER PESIC IN CONCERT

Wednesday, December 3

12:10–1:15 p.m.

Great Hall, Peterson Student Center

Peter Pesic, piano. Debussy: Préludes 1–6 (BookII); Chopin: Impromptu, op. 29; Scherzo, op. 20.

Admission is free.

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DEATHTRAPSaturday, November 22, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, November 23, at 3 p.m.Great Hall, Peterson Student Center

Ira Levin wrote this Tony-nominated play-within-a-play in 1978, and it holdsthe record for the longest-running comedy thriller on Broadway. At St. John’s,Deathtrap is being presented by Chrysostomos, the student theater group.

Admission is free.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNESTGreat Hall, Peterson Student CenterFriday, December 12–Sunday, December 14

This Oscar Wilde classic, first performed on February 14, 1895, at the St. James’s Theatre in London and now presented by members of Chrysosto-mos, the student theater group, is a farcical comedy in which the protagonistsmaintain fictitious personae to escape burdensome social obligations. Workingwithin the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play’s major themesare the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Friday and Saturday show-time is7:30 p.m.; the Sunday matinee is at 2 p.m.

Admission is free.

VERA & WEI BAI’S PERSONAL CALLIGRAPHY EXHIBITION Wednesday, November 12, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, November 16, at 3 p.m.Great Hall, Peterson Student Center

Vera is a Solo Artistic Story Telling (SAST) project that brings together piano,guitar, acting, ballet, and flamenco dance as a musical play, presented by St. John’s student Wei Bai. She writes the story, composes the music, directsthe play, and performs by herself. After the show, there is a small personal calligraphy exhibition of Wei Bai for project Vera. As a young Chinese calligra-pher, Wei Bai has displayed her works in mainland China, Taiwan, and Japan.

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ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE COMMUNITY SEMINARS

Community Seminars are special opportunities for community membersto read and discuss seminal works inthe same unique manner as our stu-dents. Seminars are discussion-basedand small in size in order to ensure spir-ited dialogue. There are topics to piqueevery interest, and for many participants the discussion-based learning model is an entirely new experience.

SHAKESPEARE: THE HISTORY PLAYSFriday, November 14, 4-6 p.m., Shakespeare’s Richard IISaturday, November 15, 10 a.m.-Noon, Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part ICost: $125 for Friday and Saturday sessions.

Teachers receive half off the seminar price.Juniors and seniors in high school attend free.

St. John’s College President Mike Peters and tutor Lise van Boxel will leadtwo series of Community Seminars covering Shakespeare’s English Historyplays. In the fall, Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 will comprise a two-seminarseries. In the spring semester, Henry IV, Part 2 and Henry V will comprise asecond two-seminar series. Shakespeare’s second tetralogy plays covering“The War of the Roses” offer remarkable insight into the overlapping intrica-cies of the political and the personal with action ranging from the courts to the battlefields to the flea-bitten inns of London. High politics, shrewdstatecraft, low comedy, and memorable characters all find keen expression in these plays.

Community members can sign-up for one or both series. The texts are availablefor purchase at the St. John’s College Bookstore. Full-time teachers with proofof current employment can enroll in a Community Seminar at a 50-percent discount. Community Seminars are free to 11th and 12th grade high school students (limited spaces available).

The second series will be held on Friday, February 13, 4-6pm, and on Saturday,February 14, 10-noon. The February Seminars will be on Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part II and King Henry V.

Please call 505-984-6118 or email Yoshi Gruber to register for any of the seminars, or go to http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/santa-fe/community-seminar-series/.

St. John’s College President, Mike Peters

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