CHARLOTTESVILLE HUMANITIES FORUM
(Formerly The Charlottesville Great Books Discussion Group)
HOSTED BY THE SENIOR CENTER - 1180 PEPSI PLACE, CHARLOTTESVILLE - 434-974-7756

Six alternate Tuesdays (except Thanksgiving week), beginning September 23, 2-4 p.m.
15 places

Theme for Fall 2008: Strategic Rewriting
We will consider the often radical changes that occur in painting, poetry, biography, and reportage when adapted across time, cultures, genres, and media.

Texts
Vel?zquez and Francis Bacon, portraits of Pope Innocent X (handout); Ovid, Metamorphoses, IV (Salmacis and Hermaphroditus) followed by Dante, the Inferno, Cantos 24-25 (handout); Plutarch, "Mark Antony", preferably in The Makers of Rome, translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert (Penguin Classics) followed by Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, preferably in The New Cambridge Shakespeare series (Cambridge University Press paperback), volume editor: David Bevington (there are also three professional performances available on DVD); Susan Orlean, The Orchid Thief (Ballantine paperback) followed by "Spike Jonze" (pseudonym of Adam Spiegel; director) and Charlie Kaufman (screenwriter), Adaptation (available from video rental shops, the Robertson Media Center at UVa's Clemons Library, and NetFlix; the shooting script is highly recommended).

The Senior Center does not furnish materials for this course. Apart from handouts distributed gratis by the moderator, new copies of books can be obtained off the shelf or by special order from any local retailer, as well as from Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. Deeply discounted new (and variously priced "pre-owned") copies are available from vendors associated with the on-line bookstores (click the "new and used" or "used" link on the title's descriptive page). Other reliable dealers in the secondary market include Bookfinder.com, Alibris.com, and Abebooks.com. Allow up to 2 weeks for delivery.

Method
Preparation: each participant identifies specific interpretive problems in the assigned work then frames a trial question and two contrasting answers. These are presented in session to launch a searching discussion by the entire group. The moderator coordinates the exchange and poses socratic questions, as necessary, but does not lecture.

Moderator
David L. Rubin is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia, where he teaches Argumentation and chairs the poetry board of The Virginia Quarterly Review. Telephone: 434-971-1835; e-mail: dlr93039@yahoo.com.

To Enroll
Telephone the Senior Center three to four weeks before the first class. Center membership is required after attending one session as a guest. There is no extra charge for this course.