Led by R.J. Snell

Fridays with lunch from 1:00 – 2:15pm:

September 10 + 24, October 8, November 5 + 19

For more information on this seminar, email R. J. at rsnell@winst.org.

Recent studies indicate that anxiety “runs rampant” on college campuses, with upwards of 61% of college students reporting anxiety as a “major health concern” and with almost 50% of students screening positive for clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety in 2020. While there are many possible causes for this, one contributing factor is conspicuous busyness, the sense that one should always be working, always getting ahead, in both school and life.

This seminar considers classical and contemporary texts on the point and purpose of work and leisure. Aristotle famously argued that “we work to have leisure, on which happiness depends,” but many have the attitude that we rest-up so that we can get back to work.

But Aristotle also (somewhat infamously) didn’t quite understand the point of work itself, perhaps assuming that work, or some kinds of work, were degrading. He might not be the best guide. A life of total work can’t be the good life, but surely work is part of a good life? How ought we understand the value and role of work, and the place and purpose of leisure?

We can’t really understand leisure and work independently. In this seminar we’ll consider the purpose of each within a complete life, within a life lived well.

All Princeton undergraduate or graduate students are warmly invited to participate.

Led by Maura Shea

Tuesday Evenings with dinner from 5:30-7pm:

September 14 + 21 + 28, October 5

To learn more, email Maura at mshea@winst.org.

Jane Austen noted that the titular character in her novel Emma is “a heroine whom no one but myself will much like”. Emma is certainly no Elizabeth Bennet, whose sparkling wit and keen intelligence have made her decidedly the most popular Austen character—but judging by the multiple film adaptations of Austen’s later and more complex novel (including the recent 2020 visually decadent version with Anya Taylor-Joy), there is something about Emma which nevertheless invites us to befriend her, in spite of (or perhaps because of?) her errors and mistakes.

Perhaps her sincere though egotistical attempts to form and influence those around her strikes rather close to home. We, too, think that Pygmalion attempts at shaping others will help them to be better off. Emma is a novel about education: how our relationships educate us for better or for worse, how societal roles both restrict and liberate attempts at self-improvement, and how men and women can learn from one another.

We will play close attention not only to the content of the novel, but the carefully crafted manner in which it is told. The genius of Emma lies in its narration—in how Austen educates us and reveals our own misadventures in judgment.

All Princeton undergraduate or graduate students are warmly invited to participate.

Led by R. J. Snell

Fridays with lunch from 1:00-2:15 pm:

Sept 17, Oct 1, Oct 29, Nov 12, Dec 3

To learn more, email R. J. at rsnell@winst.org.

There are many songs about love but not a whole lot of guidance or practical wisdom to be found, or at least it can seem that way. Perhaps you want something meaningful in your relationships but the cultural scripts aren’t especially clear, your friends seem just as confused as you, and few people seem to know how to date, or what the point of dating is anyway.

In this seminar, we’ll think about romantic love and its proper place during your time in college, with some time spent considering marriage in a happy life and the good of sex. Classic and contemporary texts will be studied, and we’ll have some practical guidance from people who’ve experienced singleness, dating, and marriage. Don’t pretend you’re not interested in learning more!

All Princeton undergraduate or graduate students are warmly invited to participate.

Led by Maura Shea

Saturday mornings with breakfast from 10 – 11:30am:

September 11, October 2 + 9, November 6 + 20, December 11

To learn more, email Maura at mshea@winst.org.

The seminar is dedicated to developing a community in Princeton of graduate students, young teachers, and those interested in education who can provide support, advice, and friendship to one another.

My own experience of eight years of classroom teaching, coaching other teachers, working as a dean of curriculum and instruction, and graduate studies has taught me that many educational institutions — high schools, middle schools, elementary schools, universities — do a lot of good, but often suffer from impoverished understandings of the human person and of the purposes of education. I would like for us to come together to uncover our own implicit and explicit philosophies of education, and to better understand the philosophies of education that have formed and continue to form us.

This fall, we will read and discuss The Love of Learning by Dr. Margarita Mooney Suarez of Princeton Theological Seminary, and we will accompany these discussions with practical applications on how to become better teachers.

Princeton graduate students and preceptors, teachers, and young professionals interested in education are warmly invited to participate.

Led by R. J. Snell

Two sessions will be offered per week to accommodate different schedules:

Option 1: Tuesday mornings, 8:15-9:15am with coffee and pastries

Option 2: Thursday afternoons, 3:00-4:00pm with coffee

Contact R.J. Snell at rsnell@winst.org if interested.

If you know just enough Aristotle or Aquinas to know you would benefit from a more careful study of the basic principles of Aristotelian or Thomistic metaphysics, please join us for this seminar. Many of Witherspoon seminars tackle big life questions—this seminar, however, will be a close and detailed study of a classic Thomistic manual by Henri Grenier. At one point, his textbook, Cursus Philosophiae, was widely used, and while manuals such as his fell out of favor, they still merit study. No previous background in philosophy is required, and the text is (mostly) user-friendly, and helpful if you’d like to understand the basics of metaphysics, the discipline all others depend upon. The topics: being, truth, cause, and God.

All Princeton undergraduate or graduate students are warmly invited to participate.

“Long since on Mars and more strongly since he came to Perelandra, Ransom had been perceiving that the triple distinction of truth from myth and both from fact was purely terrestrial—was part and parcel of that unhappy distinction between soul and body which resulted from the fall. Even on earth the sacraments existed as a permanent reminder that the division was neither wholesome nor final.”

Perelandra is one of C. S. Lewis’ finest and most intriguing works. Drawing from the legacy of Milton’s great epic, Paradise Lost, Lewis reimagines the story of Genesis as it might occur on a world different from ours and recasts it in the form of a modern novel—much as Milton reworks the biblical narrative as an epic poem in the tradition of Homer, Virgil, and Dante. By examining both works and the dramatic and philosophical questions they raise, we can approach the opening chapters of the Bible with fresh eyes. Lewis shows both his admiration for and critique of Milton’s work in surprising ways, often by provoking troubling questions. What does Lewis mean by the division between “truth from myth and both from fact”? Does placing Genesis in the literary and mythic tradition call into doubt its veracity? Further—are things good because God declares that they are, or does He declare them good because they already are so? What was the nature of “man’s first disobedience?” What really is the “knowledge of good and evil”?

All Princeton undergraduate or graduate students are warmly invited to participate.