The Alexander Arguelles Academy
of Languages & Literatures

French / German / Spanish – Reading and Discussion Circles

• Read literature in original languages under the guidance of a university professor
• Gain in-depth cultural and historical knowledge as well as language skills as you learn through Socratic dialogue
  
  

Conversational Latin

• For those who know how to read and analyze Latin and want to think and speak in it as well
• Read a variety of medieval, Neo-Latin, and contemporary texts as a basis for discussion
• Oral pattern drill sessions also available for those who need practice before starting to speak
  
  

Medieval Literary Languages

• Learn to read Old French and/or Middle High German
• Learn to read Old Norse
• Use modern French and German to learn medieval forms through textual comparison
  
  

Comparative-Historical English + Gothic

• Read and discuss Gospel translations from the years 360, 995, 1389, and 1526
• Compare and contrast the features of Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Early Modern English
  
  

Great Books Reading and Discussion Seminars

• Lifelong learning through conversing and Socratic dialogue for the intellectually curious
• Challenge your mind to grow continuously by discussing and digesting difficult but important texts
  
  

Self-Teaching Language Support Group

• For those teaching themselves one or more foreign languages
• Get guidance, structure, material, and weekly consultation for your progress
  
  

The Path of the Polyglot

• A lecture circle based on my manuscript of the same name
• A comprehensive overview of every aspect of embarking upon a lifelong journey of literary language learning

What Current Students are Saying

Professor Arguelles’s videos have long been the foundation upon which I learned how to learn languages as an autodidact adult. His foreign-language reading circles have helped solidify this foundation by making me improve my skills at reading aloud, which I have found to be an indispensable skill for making a language come alive when I am reading alone. The Professor also helps deepen our understanding with incisive and often humorous questions, which make the plot and characters more vivid and memorable, and help provide context for unfamiliar vocabulary and expressions. It has also been a pleasure to talk with the other students in class, who have been as interesting, intellectually curious, and open-to-learning as the Professor himself.

The Professor’s study-with-me sessions have also provided a great window into his methods. If you have the opportunity to converse with him in these sessions, he is very skilled at adjusting his speech to match your own level of understanding, while still making sure that you learn something new.

I would heartily recommend joining one or more of the Academy’s circles if you are at all interested in reading foreign-language literature, learning historical linguistics, learning-how-to-learn languages, or exploring the Great Books of various cultures.

Prateek

Software engineer

Professor Arguelles’ academy is a magical place. Small circles read and discuss texts, while he deftly facilitates, providing a kind and intellectually stimulating environment tailored to each student. In the Great Books circles, we focus on content: what is being said, why, and other Adlerian questions. In the other circles I’m in, we also focus on language: identifying interesting structures and words, correcting pronunciation, summarizing what we’ve just read, reading out loud, listening with our eyes closed, and so forth.

The circles are invariably engrossing, whether it’s the first day looking at a medieval language via a related modern language, mixed linguistic and content discussion for intermediate readers, or discussion of a chapter of a Great Book. The books are well chosen, and Professor Arguelles is incredibly skilled at asking participants questions that stretch them just the right amount: enough to make the circle lively, while keeping the atmosphere at a perfect balance of playful and focused. His wealth of highly relevant knowledge, both linguistic and cultural, really enriches the experience.

If you want to read a text that has a Circle and discuss it with a handful of people while being drawn into understanding and engaging with it more deeply, I’d strongly recommend applying. Whether you want to summarize, remember, and discuss texts more freely, deepen your knowledge while sharpening your skills in a contemporary language, or simply have a few extra intellectually engaging hours per week, this academy is fantastic.

Luke

Software developoer

As much as I enjoy language learning, I found myself in a rut with French. The brain thrives on novelty and repetition. My French routine needed a remodel. The idea of spending time with the well-known polyglot, Alexander Arguelles, was an excellent chance to bring new inspiration. Discussing French literature with a university professor in a small group is something I look forward to each week. Together, we are diving head-first into a classic by Zola. For an hour every week, I am immersed in a world of French countryside, lively characters and tales of what life was like years ago. The group discussion has a surprising amount of laughter and community. I recommend these reading circles to all my language learning friends. These sessions are absolutely delightful.

Elizabeth

Writer, acupuncturist and budding permaculturist

Distilling the essence of my time with Professor Argüelles into a brief list, I might include terms such as edification, passion, progress and inspiration. Yet to stop there would be a terrible injustice to everything he offers at his academy. Long have I had the passion to dabble in my interests; but what Professor Argüelles offers, beyond expertise and an encyclopedic mind for the ages, is the practice of focused, sustained learning combined with an eagerness to share his experience and knowledge with the world.

Though I, like Professor Argüelles, have a strong background in the humanities, it has been an absolute pleasure collaborating with students with the most disparate of backgrounds, all of whom share a similar zeal for knowledge and languages. Be it in literature or languages, Professor Argüelles is as adept as any in tailoring his courses to the level, pace and interests of his students. The Alexander Argüelles Academy has truly been a gem for me on my personal journey and has significantly enhanced and refined my own language learning practices as well as my approach to systematically reading literature.

Nathan

Student of medieval literature

In less than three months, my foreign language goals have been clarified and my methods have been overhauled. I am a significantly more mature and effective language learner than I was when I began.

In addition, I’m finally able to participate in a rigorous, professionally guided discussion of classic texts in seminar format, instead of merely reading through them alone. This is truly the “lifelong learning” I’ve been waiting for.

I highly recommend the Arguelles Academy to all those interested in languages and literatures.

Albert

Teacher

4th Quarter 2022 (October, November, December)

Note: All times are in U.S. Central / Chicago time

The purpose of the academy is to foster a community of lifelong learners. Instead of classes or courses, the offerings are referred to as circles, which will be kept small so as to provide for an intimate learning environment. There are two kinds of circles:

1. Smaller circles [an average of 6 participants] for foreign languages

French / German / Spanish Literature

These are for learning to read literature in foreign languages with ease, enjoyment, and understanding. In these circles, participants prepare readings ahead of time, then, during the session, go around the circle in turn, reading aloud, summarizing what they have understood, and discussing the material in the target language.

• Suitable for intermediate and advanced learners of French, German, and Spanish
• Meet for 60 minutes once per week via Zoom
• Read aloud, summarize, and discuss texts exclusively in the target languages
• Homework for each session roughly 20 pages per week
• $125 per month (= 4 weeks), planned in 12-week quarterly sessions as of July
• The readings (whether short stories, novels, or non-fiction) will be suggested by the academy, but chosen by the participants in any given circle to reflect their interests.
  
  

As far as possible, these foreign language circles are grouped by proficiency level, judged by your responses to the sample text reading provided in the application form.

Conversational Latin

• Suitable for those able to read and analyze Latin
• Focus on developing the abilities to think and speak the language
• Meet for 60 minutes once per week via Zoom
• Read aloud, summarize, and discuss texts exclusively in the target language
• Use a variety of authentic and didactic texts from medieval and contemporary Latin
• Homework for each session roughly 20 pages per week
• $125 per month (= 4 weeks), planned in 12-week quarterly sessions as of July
  
  

Medieval Literary Languages (Ancien Français & Mittlelhochdeutsch)

• Suitable for those who are comfortable reading modern French or German
• Focus on using the contemporary language to work back to the medieval literary form
• Meet for 60 minutes once per week via Zoom
• Read aloud, summarize, and discuss texts exclusively in the target languages
• Homework for each session roughly 20 pages per week
• $125 per month (= 4 weeks), planned in 12-week quarterly sessions as of July
  
  

Comparative-Historical English + Gothic

• Suitable for those interested in comparative historical linguistics and the evolution of the English language
• Focus on using the contemporary language to work back to earlier forms
• Meet for 60 minutes once per week via Zoom
• Read and discuss Gospel translations from the years 360, 995, 1389, and 1526
• Compare and contrast the features of Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Early Modern English
• Homework for each session roughly 20 pages per week
• $125 per month (= 4 weeks), planned in 12-week quarterly sessions as of July
  
  
  

2. Larger circles [an average of 12 participants]

These are for discussing the content of Great Books read in English, and for support group consultations for self-study of languages. These are in a more traditional seminar format than the smaller circles, with focus on content rather than language. Thus, there is greater responsibility for participants to actively engage in discussion.

Great Books seminars in English [for native/fluent readers]

• Seminar-size groups (average of 12 participants)
• Suitable for native/fluent readers of English (focus on content, not on language support)
• Meet for 60 minutes once per week via Zoom
• Equivalent to a college-level Great Books seminar
• Homework for each session roughly 50 pages per week
• $65 per month (= 4 weeks), planned in 12-week quarterly sessions as of July
• The Great Books readings are taken from two collections available online:
  • The Great Books of the Western World
  • Sacred Books of the East
    
    

For the Great Books of the West, we read the texts chronologically and thematically, beginning with works of history and biography. 

For Sacred Books of the East, we work through major texts by respective tradition.

Support for Self-Study of Languages

• Weekly consultation / tutorial / support group (average of 12 participants)
• Suitable for autodidactic learners teaching themselves foreign languages
• Meet for 60 minutes once per week via Zoom
• Offers accountability/structure for learners; opportunity to discuss methods, progress, obstacles; demonstrate techniques, problem-solve, etc.
• $65 per month (= 4 weeks), planned in 12-week quarterly sessions as of July

The purpose of my Virtual Academy to continue to offer the guidance I have provided for over 20 years as a university professor of languages and literature, but now to participants from all over the world who want to continue the journey of lifelong learning.

The focus of the academy will be on weekly reading and discussion circles exclusively in the target languages. These circles provide the support you need to become an independent reader of literature in a foreign language. The regular meetings ensure that you form the habit of reading consistently, and in them you will gain cultural knowledge, conversational ability, and enriched vocabulary. Whether you have just finished teaching yourself a language or whether you studied it in the past and have now grown rusty, these circles can help you make the transition from intermediate to advanced.

The overall purpose of the academy is to take advantage of advances in technology that now permit people from all over the world to congregate together virtually. This ability represents a development that can and should revolutionize education, which has become too enshrined in degree programs for those primarily in their first decades of life, with institutions offering little in the way of continuing lifelong learning opportunities despite the fact that this is held out as an ideal.

The academy aims to remedy this by offering opportunities for adults to develop the ability to read literature in foreign languages at any stage of life, as well as support for learning languages in the first place, and for reading and discussing the Great Books of various civilizations in the kind of ongoing seminar environment in which they can be increasingly appreciated. This learning environment is designed to be suitable both for those who want to develop abilities in a single language or area, as well as to provide a foundation for those who might wish to develop more wide-ranging skills and understanding.

Academy Subscriptions

How the Academy Works

If you are interested in the academy’s offerings, you should plan on attending for at least several months.  You may sign up for a single month initially to see if this form of continuing adult education is for you, but after that, we urge you to become a member by signing up for a continuing subscription. 

This is because the Academy works by reading and discussing significant longer texts, which is naturally a question of multiple months.  To do this effectively, we need to form cohesive cohorts whose participants can commit to conversing together for long enough to digest, analyze, and enjoy a text of 300+ pages.  To that end, the Academy will run on a quarterly basis:

1^st Quarter = January, February, March

2^nd Quarter = April, May, June

3^rd Quarter = July, August, September

4^th Quarter = October, November, December

Each quarter will consist of 12 weekly meetings (an average of 4 meetings a month, with some months having 5, others only 3), with a 1-week break either between or during quarters.  Please note that quarters may begin or end on the first or last days of adjacent calendar months.  When you subscribe, you will be asked how many quarters in the calendar year you currently plan to attend.

Advantages of Subscription

Becoming a member of the Academy with a recurring subscription provide the following benefits:

1. You will have a strong voice in selecting the texts to be read and the hour of meeting.
2. You will have access to further discussion during office hours.
3. You will have access to study-with-me language practice sessions.
4. You will pay a lower price (currently $125/month instead of $140/month for circles, $65/month instead of $75/month for seminars).
   
   

Cancellation of Subscriptions

You may cancel your subscription at any time should your circumstances change, but in that case we ask for as much advance notice as possible.

Single “Month” (4 Meetings) Price

You may also opt to pay for a single “month” (4 sessions) at a time.  However, please note that you will not have access to the first three advantages listed above, and the price will be higher at $140/month for circles and $75/month for seminars. 

Those who recall my old website may also recall the extensive description I had there for an ideal systematic training in polyliteracy and the ideal of developing it into an academic discipline. This virtual academy represents the initial steps in that direction.

First and foremost, the above offerings should provide the stability to eventually offer more and more specialized instruction. Furthermore, the offerings themselves combined can form the core of a master’s of arts program. For instance, someone who takes two full years literature courses in two languages, two full years of two Great Books seminars, and two full years of guided self-instruction in an exotic language should have completed the equivalent of enough credit hours for the award of a degree pending completion also of a master’s thesis.

Anyone interested in this should indicate his intentions from the outset so that hours and progress may be carefully tracked, and should also understand that this is still an ideal with accreditation and affiliation with an awarding body still pending.