St. John's alumni are welcome to audit Graduate Institute preceptorials on the Annapolis campus this summer without reapplying to the college.

Classes meet daily Monday through Friday 1– 3 pm on the Annapolis campus beginning July 24.
Cost is $1100.
Contact: Kashya Boretsky kaboretsky@sjc.edu

Emmanuel Levinas, Nine Talmudic Readings
Tutor: Ms. Deborah Axelrod

Description: Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) wrote Nine Talmudic Readings in order to explore a philosophy, an ethics, an understanding of what it is to be human that is, in his view, blocked by modern western ways of thinking and speaking. His mode is to show that stories philosophize and that language reveals truth when it uses irony, imagery and paradox, for example.

First Assignment: The "Introduction" to 'Four Talmudic Tales'. 

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Tutor: Mr. Matthew Caswell

First Assignment: Through Part 3, Chapter 2 (‘Breakfast’) 

Herodotus, Histories
Tutor: Ms. Sarah Benson

Description: Herodotus’s Histories center on an analysis of the Graeco-Persian wars of the early 5th century BC, a generation before his time. An ἱστορία in its range of classical uses is not only a methodical attempt to account for the causes of human affairs but more broadly an investigation, a story, or a mythological narrative. Herodotus’s work is all these things. He reports what he has heard, or seen on his travels, of the cultural habits and natural histories of the lands that came under the control of the Persian empire. We will read the complete work, parts of which are read in the History seminar.

Recommended Edition: I will be using the Landmark edition translated by Andrea Purvis but also recommend the University of Chicago edition translated by David Grene. Both are available in the bookstore.