RECENT HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND COUNCIL SPRING INSTITUTE READINGS

 

1982: SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE:

The Hollow Men, T. S. Eliot

Persuasion, Jane Austen

Becket, Jean Anouilh.

 

1983: KEYS TO THE TREASURE:

Analytical Psychology, Jung;

Dunyazadiad, John Barth;

The Manticore, Robertson Davies

 

1984: THE DANCER AND THE DANCE:

The Wisdom of Insecurity, Alan Watts;

Zorba the Greek, Kazantzakis;

Ridley Walker, R. Hoban.

 

1985: MASKS AND MIRRORS:

Richard II, Shakespeare;

Masks, Fumiko Enchi;

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, John Ashbery.

 

1986: OUR GODS, OURSELVES:

Saviors of God, Kazantzakis;

A Burnt-Out Case, Graham Greene;

Till We Have Faces, C. S. Lewis.

 

1987: TAMING THE PAST:

Free Fall, W. Golding;

The Fifth Son, Elie Weisel;

Feila’s Child, Matthee.

 

1988: PERHAPS LOVE:

On Love, A. Orage;

Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neal Hurston;

We, R. Johnson.

 

1989: UNFETTERED:

Book of Exodus;

Beloved, Toni Morrison;

The Road Less Traveled, Peck.

 

1990: ANOTHER TIME:

Stones for Iberra, H. Doerr;

Our Town, Thornton Wilder;

Duino Elegies, Rilke.

 

1991: LIFE SENTENCES:

Language and Myth, E. Cassirer;

A Defence of Poetry, Shelley;

Eagle or Sun, Paz.

 

1992: LEGACIES:

Human Nature and Conduct: Dewey;

The Price, Arthur Miller;

Oscar and Lucinda, Carey.

 

1993: REASON UNREQUITED:

Critique of Pure Reason, Kant;

Phaedra, Racine;

Immortality, Milo Kundera.

 

1994: EYE OF THE BEHOLDER:

Ways of Seeing, J. Berger;

Fifth Business, Robertson Davies;

An Ordinary Evening in New Haven, Wallace Stevens.

 

1995: SOUL SURVIVORS.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night, O’Neill;

The English Patient, Ondaatje;

Poem #41 from Proverbs and Song-Verse, Antonio Machado.

 

1996: LOVE AND DECEPTION.

The Mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy;

M. Butterfly, David Hwang;

Truth, RLS

 

1997: STILL LIFES.

The Fall, Camus;

Fra Lippo Lippi, Browning;

Six Degrees of Separation, John Guare

 

1998: THE MYSTERY OF KNOWING.

 Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf;

Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn;

Arcadia, Stoppard

 

1999: CHARISMA.

The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald;

The Prince, Macchiavelli;

Autumn of the Patriarch, Marquez

 

2000: GRACE UNDER PRESSURE:

God, A Biography, Jack Miles;

The Warden , Trollope;

A Man for All Seasons, Richard Bolt

 

2001: TRUE BELIEVERS:

Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver;

Gorgias, Plato;

Saint Joan, Shaw

 

2002: HERO NOW…

Beowulf, transl. Seamus Heaney;

Lysistrata, Aristophanes;

Henry V, Shakespeare

 

2003: MANIFEST DESTINY:

The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell;

Shorter Summa, selections, Thomas Aquinas;

A Way in the World, V. S. Naipaul. (Friday: Essay on empire)

 

2004: BEING AND SEEMING:

The Alchemist, Ben Jonson;

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot;

Last Report of the Miracles at Little No Horse, Louise Erdrich. (Friday: paintings)

 

2005: POWER AND MORALITY:

Faust, Part I, Goethe;

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume;

The Royal Physician’s Visit, Per Olov Enquist.

 

2006: DIVIDED LOYALTIES:

Burial at Thebes, Heaney;

Tale of Two Cities, Dickens;

Regeneration, Barker

 

2007: “WOULD YOU BELIEVE,,,?” Faith vs. Reason:

Gilgamesh, new transl.;

Future of an Illusion, Freud;

Hummingbird’s Daughter, Urrea.