Online Continuing Ed

Rome offers great works of the imagination that can help us remember our own imaginative powers today, and it offers historical lessons to make us remember our own principles in the present. Rome can let us think more deeply about what human beings are, our existential situation and our idea of community, as well as offer insights into ancient and modern history.

These courses will be offered as live online meetings with RILA’s academic director, Gabe Pihas. For more details about course formats, please see the descriptions below.

Please visit our Continuing Education page for in person courses in Rome.

The Ancient and Modern Republic

In today’s troubling times we are often infuriated by the news, and yet feel paralyzed. How has our society forgotten its principles? We will take a refreshing look at the grounds for liberal democracy that will allow us to take a firmer grip on our own ideals than the news cycle provides. Since the American founders, like many enlightenment thinkers, took ancient Rome as the model for a free republic, we will try to understand our own principles by drawing on the inspirations and insight ancient Rome provides. What creates and preserves the freedom of a republic? And what are the dangers that corrupt and destroy a republic? We will read selections from works by Livy, Polybius, Plutarch, and Tacitus that inspired the modern founders’ aspirations for liberty and equality.  We will also look at enlightenment thinkers who looked to Roman model. Finally, we will read more recent texts that reflect on issues closer to our troubling present, like populism and the importance of truth in politics.

The course will be organized as an open discussion on the reading of the day, prompted by Mr. Pihas opening question. Mr. Pihas will then lead a conversation, allowing members to discuss their questions and opinions with the group. Readings to prepare for class will require about two to three hours each week.

The course will meet once a week for 90 minutes, for 10 weeks, with the option to choose one of three possible schedules. Classes will be formed with a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 12 participants. The cost of the course is $720. A $50 application fee, due at the time to sign up, will go towards tuition or will be refunded in full if the class of choice is cancelled.

CREDIT CARD PAYMENT

Please note that a 2.9% booking fee must be applied to Paypal and credit card payments. Therefore your total for this course would be $740. In order to avoid the booking fee, you can pay directly from your bank. Please check the Bank payment option for details.

September 14^th, 2020 – November 20^th, 2020

Choose your schedule:

12:00pm EST/9:00am PST Mondays
12:00pm EST/9:00am PST Wednesdays (Section for RILA Alumni)
2:30pm EST/11:30am PST Sundays

Seminar program

• The Overthrow of the Kings (Livy)
• The Power of the People (Livy)
• Checks, Balances, and Sacred Community (Livy and Polybius)
• The Fall of the Republic: Lives of Caesar and Cato (Plutarch)
• The Emperors as Tyrants (Tacitus)
• Immigrants and the Lower Class in a Republic (Machiavelli)
• On the Origin of Inequality (Rousseau)
• The American Founding (Hamilton, Madison, and Jay: Selected Federalist Papers)
• Revolt of the Masses (Ortega y Gasset)
• Truth and Politics (Hannah Arendt)

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Roman Places 

We will discuss key sites in Rome, focusing mostly, but not exclusively on Renaissance and Baroque art, architecture, and history.  We will discuss places that most visitors to Rome have seen but probably never really understood very deeply. We will explore different ideas of the cosmos and civic life in ancient and modern Rome, as well as try to understand the radical artistic revolutions of the early modern period in Rome.  How did the artists of Christian Rome reabsorb pagan art? What is behind our idea of Michelangelo the brooding genius? What motivated Caravaggio’s often violent, often disturbing religious art? What was the effect of Galileo rethinking of physics and the universe on early modern art?

This course will be done through live online lectures, offered by RILA’s academic director, Gabe Pihas, and followed by a discussion period.

The course will meet once a week for 90 minutes, for 6 weeks, with the option to choose one of three possible schedules. Classes will be formed with a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 12 participants. The cost of the course is $480. A $50 application fee, due at the time to sign up, will go towards tuition or will be refunded in full if the class of choice is cancelled.

CREDIT CARD PAYMENT

Please note that a 2.9% booking fee must be applied to Paypal and credit card payments. Therefore your total for this course would be $493. In order to avoid the booking fee, you can pay directly from your bank. Please check the Bank payment option for details.

Choose your schedule:

September 14^th, 2020 – October 23^rd, 2020

October 26^th, 2020 – December 12^th, 2020

2:30pm EST/11:30am PST Tuesdays
12:00pm EST/9:00am PST Thursdays
12:00pm EST/9:00am PST Sundays

Lecture program

• The Pantheon and the Chiesa del Gesù
• The Raphael Rooms at the Vatican
• The Sistine Chapel
• The Paintings of Caravaggio
• Bernini’s St. Peter’s
• Borromini’s St. Ivo alla Sapienza and San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane

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Exploring Rome’s Art and Architecture

This course will offer an aesthetic education and a survey of important periods, artists, and styles in Italian, mostly Roman, art history.  It will try to offer a deeper reading of these art works beyond merely historical questions, allowing you to engage in a thoughtful way with what is still powerful and relevant to us in these works.  It will consider the different ideas of human beings and gods implicit in ancient pagan and late antique Christian art and architecture in Rome; it will look at the scope of secular interests in the art of the medieval republics; it will look at the earthquake that formed the modern artistic sensibility in masterpieces of Renaissance and Baroque art.  Finally, it will reflect on the meaning of the art of Rome for us today and the reasons behind our interest in Rome’s past.

This course will be done through live online lectures, offered by RILA’s academic director, Gabe Pihas, and followed by a discussion and question period.  The two parts of the course may be done separately, although we recommend that participants to the second session have previously taken the first one.  

The course will meet once a week for 90 minutes, for 6 + 6 weeks, with the option to choose one of three possible schedules. Classes will be formed with a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 12 participants. The cost of the course is $480 for one session and $720 for both. A $50 application fee, due at the time to sign up, will go towards tuition or will be refunded in full if the class of choice is cancelled.

CREDIT CARD PAYMENT

Please note that a 2.9% booking fee must be applied to Paypal and credit card payments. Therefore your total for these courses would be $493 for one or $740 for two. In order to avoid the booking fee, you can pay directly from your bank. Please check the Bank payment option for details.

Choose your schedule:

September 14^th, 2020 – October 23^rd, 2020

October 26^th, 2020 – December 12^th, 2020

12:00pm EST/9:00am PST Tuesdays
2:30pm EST/11:30am PST Thursdays
12:00pm EST/9:00am PST Fridays

Lecture program

• Rome, Ancient to Renaissance Art
• Humans and Gods in Ancient Art
• Why Romans are Like Us
• A Temple of Nature and Politics: The Pantheon
• From Idolatry to Icons 
• Rome Abandoned: A Trip to Siena and Padua
• Raphael’s Stanza della Segnatura
• Michelangelo and his Children: Birth of Modern Art in Rome
• The Artist as Creator: The Sistine Chapel Ceiling
• The Idea of the Body in Michelangelo’s Last Judgement
• Caravaggio Paints the Invisible
• Bernini’s Baroque VR 
• Borromini’s Restlessness 
• Moderns among the Ruins of Rome

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