About:

The Odyssey and Moby-Dick

Homer’s Odyssey and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick are two great humanities classics and deserve to be read together. And talked about together. In this class you will be able to choose the amount of reading you wish to do in these two big books. Level 1, Read the whole of each volume. Level 2. Read a recommended chapter or two of each book. 3. Read a few recommended passages in each book.  Then everybody can take part in the class discussions. When we finish the course everybody will be able to say (though with varying levels of honesty), “During Covid-19, I read The Odyssey and Moby-Dick!”

Read/read from any translation of The Odyssey you choose, though Robert Fagles’ translation is recommended.  Read/read from any edition of Moby-Dick.

This workshop will meet every Monday and Wednesday, beginning Feb. 8, 2021, at the same time for 6 consecutive weeks. (Feb. 8, 10, 15, 17, 22, 24, March 1, 3, 8, 10, 15, 17)

Class size is limited to 25 students so that all participants get some personal attention.

If you are a Humanities ND member this event is free. You can find the promo code in the Vault at humanitiesnd.org.

This class is taught by George Frein. George Frein, PhD taught in the Philosophy and Religion Department at the University of North Dakota from 1968 to 1997. Beginning in 1986, George spent summers traveling with the Great Plains Chautauqua Society. Rather than lecture about the humanities, Chautauqua scholars choose to perform as the people one meets with in the humanities. For George, this has meant dressing and speaking as Herman Melville, Henry Adams, Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Seuss, Carl Jung. In this way, George says, "Audiences get to meet great humanities thinkers and ask them questions. It is more fun than listening to a lowly professor!" (Note: It is not true, as one of George's colleagues claims, that he chose to do Carl Jung in order to help himself deal with his multiple-personality syndrome!)

HND Value Statement

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this {article, book, exhibition, film, program, database, report, Web resource}, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Humanities North Dakota.

However, in an increasingly polarized world, we at Humanities North Dakota believe that being open-minded is necessary to thinking critically and rationally.

Therefore, our programs and classes reflect our own open-mindedness in the inquiry, seeking, and acquiring of scholars to speak at our events and teach classes for our Public University.

To that end, we encourage our participants to join us in stepping outside our comfort zones and considering other perspectives and ideas by being open-minded while attending HND events featuring scholars who hold a variety of opinions, some being opposite of our own held beliefs.