The Book Club selection for April 2022 is the Symposium of Xenophon. Like Plato, Xenophon portrays Socrates and others in discussion within the setting of a symposium, or dinner / drinking party. Discussion will start and continue in the Forum, and we will meet via Zoom on Tuesday April 26 at 11 a.m. EDT Read more
This month's selection is Plato's Symposium, a discussion or series of speeches that takes place at a feast or banquet, in which the participants discuss Eros, or Love/Desire. Read more
"The herald came near, bringing with him a singer, very trusted, whom the Muse loved exceedingly. She gave him both a good thing and a bad thing. For she took away from him his eyes but gave him the sweetness of song." The gifts of the gods are ambiguous and double-edged. Read more
In the Apology Socrates makes his own defense of the accusations he had received for corrupting the youths and introducing new gods in the city of Athens. It is interesting to note that this dialogue does not take a proper noun (the name of one of the characters in the dialogue concerned) as a title but chooses a common noun, one that refers to the act of defense. Why is… Read more
"Looking towards the sea, but in the centre of the whole island, there was a plain which is said to have been the fairest of all plains and very fertile. Near the plain again, and also in the centre of the island at a distance of about fifty stadia, there was a mountain not very high on any side." Our September Book Club selection comprises two dialogues of Plato which… Read more
