January 2025 Modules

Welcome to the Readings in Prose page for the Advanced Old English Series in which students explore, in alternating months, a work of prose and then a work of poetry to introduce students to the breadth and depth of Old English texts available for study. Each month Dr. Swain surveys the group to see what they want to tackle next from month to month.

In this particilar module of the series Art History - A Thousand Stories, we will study and discuss Post-Impressionism focusing on the life and artwork of Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cézanne.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Session 1: Introduction to Post-Impressionism
	Session 2: New Horizons in Art: a brief overview of Georges Seurat, Degas and Paul Signac
Week 2	Session 3: Vincent Van Gogh – Part 1
	Session 4: Vincent Van Gogh – Part 2
Week 3	Session 5: Paul Gauguin – Part 1
	Session 6: Paul Gauguin – Part 2
Week 4	Session 7: Paul Cézanne – Part 1
	Session 8: Paul Cézanne – Part 2

Continuing from where we ended in Japanese 10, we will advance our knowledge of Japanese grammar, vocabulary, speaking, listening, and kanji as we work our way through the Genki textbook.

In this two-month module, we will read and discuss the Frank Herbert's final Dune novel, Chapterhouse Dune. The universe as we know it is gone, as the Honored Matres sweep across the stars and destroy everything in their path. On the remote world Chapterhouse, a handful of rebel Bene Gesserit fight to preserve the last sandworms and the hope of humanity...

Whether you are a new or continuing student in our Dune book club, all are welcome to join this class. Connect with book lovers, compare to the adaptations, and share your insights.

Let the spice flow!

What makes a good story? How can we make our characters feel like real people?

Using a combination of recorded lectures, in-class discussion and exercises, you will find out how to employ Aristotle’s precepts on character, theme and emotional catharsis to enrich your creative practice. You will also discover how Aristotle’s teleological understanding of causality can help you discover the final design of your creative work. This module will be a must for fiction authors, screenwriters and directors, RPG game masters, or anyone who wants to weave a dynamic tale!

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: Introduction to the Poetics
	Workshop 1: Your Narrative's Purpose
Week 2	Lecture 2: Character and Theme
	Workshop 2: Discovering Your Character and Theme
Week 3	Lecture 3: Structure
	Workshop 3: Unfolding Your Story's Structure
Week 4	Lecture 4: Catharsis
	Workshop 4: Sticking the Landing

Write Our Hearts

Come for gentle writing. Introspection. Self expression in a circle of caring and community. Come gather virtually in the Cottage in the Woods with Sparrow: she literally wants us to prep food ahead and get away from the family and the dishes for forty eight hours to write our stories. It's so hard to find time for ourselves, so let's intentionally make that time. From Friday evening through Sunday afternoon there will be writing to prompts, conversation, ideas, blocks of free writing time. Does your heart ache to express a private grief on the page? Is your subconscious telling you to rewrite a story? Do you need to rewrite your story?

Here's the plan:
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Friday from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM Eastern
Escape session with community building and prompted writing time
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Saturday from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM Eastern
Recovery session with prompted writing, free writing, and discussion
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Saturday from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM Eastern:
Nap time.
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Saturday from 3:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern:
Recovery session continues with optional sharing, prompted writing, and free writing
6p - supper time discussion
More Recovery session sharing and writing
9p - Sweet dreams until tomorrow
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Sunday from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM Eastern
Consolation session discussion, prompted writing, and free writing
Wrap up at 4p.
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Our goal is to write our hearts. Is that memoir? Is that a new story just for yourself? Is that a long, long prayer in the form of a poem? Writers might write between sessions as well as during.

You are going to end this amazing experience with something that is uniquely yours. Whether this turns out to be a narrative, creative nonfiction, or a huge list of Be-Happy-Attitudes, this deserves to be on your page, just for you.


Note: For more information about the Collaborative Feedback Method in SPACE, please check out our video here.

We will meet to blend learning, discussion, and playing games with reading, appreciating, and commenting on one another’s work as it is submitted for peer review. Writers are encouraged—but never required—to submit new pieces in any state of draftiness or readiness up to 2,000 words each week for peer reading and feedback. Our Collaborative Feedback method, developed here at Signum University, asks us to comment at the author's comfort level through a structured reader (not editor) response. We gather to encourage the story that the author wants to tell. Our philosophy of kindness first might just turn around your previous experience of writing groups.





A seat has been reserved in this module for any writer (especially a beginner) of marginalized identity to support them finding their voice. Please simply write to [email protected] to identify yourself if you wish to join the class.





Note: For more information about the Collaborative Feedback Method in SPACE, please check out our video here.

This series of modules introduces the vocabulary and grammar of the Gothic language, the oldest attested body of literature in a Germanic language (4th century AD), not just by talking about grammar, but by doing real translations of real Gothic texts. While no prior language study experience is necessary or expected, it is certainly a benefit to understand basic grammatical terms in English (or equivalent) or have knowledge of learning to read another language.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Session 1: Overview and introduction to the Gothic language, alphabet, grammar, and translation tools and resources.
	Session 2: First easy translation exercises. Continued overview of basic grammatical system.
Week 2	Session 3: First short translation using new tools. Grammatical tips for increasing translation speed.
	Session 4: First paragraph length translation.
Week 3	Session 5: Second paragraph length translation.
	Session 6: Two paragraphs of translation.
Week 4	Session 7: Two paragraphs of translation.
	Session 8: Two and a half paragraphs of translation.

Sir Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is widely regarded as a modern classic, has been described by The New Statesman as “the most ambitious work since The Lord of the Rings,” and has been adapted onto stage, radio, and screen. The series is also deep and complex, drawing from a rich array of literary, philosophical, and theological ideas.

In this three-module series we will read, successively, the three novels in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, juxtaposing each with selected materials that will allow us to read Pullman’s work both on its own and in conversation with other works. Students can join one, two, or all three modules. There are no prerequisites.

This course tracks Lancelot's development from hero of a medieval romance (part tale of adventure, part comedy of manners) to center of a political and moral tragedy. We look in detail at three texts: Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot: The Knight of the Cart (c. 1180), Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur (1470) and Tennyson's Idylls of the King (1859).

Sir Lancelot, as everyone knows, is Arthur’s best and bravest knight—and also, the lover of Arthur’s wife, Guinevere. Examining this pivotal irony of the Arthurian tradition, this course tracks the development of Lancelot as a both character and a literary concept across three major works:

In Lancelot: The Knight of the Cart, master of French Arthurian romance, Chrétien de Troyes, invents a hero who loves Queen Guinevere beyond all bounds of reason—so much that he will face deadly perils and (worse yet) social humiliation to prove his devotion.

Sir Thomas Malory’s late medieval “Tale of Lancelot and Elayne” (part of his sprawling epic, Le Morte Darthur) introduces a would-be rival for Lancelot’s affections in the form of Elayne, the Fair Maid of Astolat. While retaining a few comic touches from earlier versions, this retelling cannot escape the doomed nature of Lancelot’s affair with the Queen.

Finally, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Lancelot and Elayne” (part of his Idylls of the King) depicts Lancelot and Guinevere’s betrayal of their king as the moral rot at the foundation of a perfect but unsustainable society—and in so doing, reveals a Victorian sense of worlds away from Chrétien’s light-hearted original.

This module contains a mixture of lecture and discussion, with one lecture for each of the three works, and the rest of the meetings focusing on discussion.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: Chretien de Troyes and the Creation of Lancelot
	Discussion 1: Lancelot, The Knight of the Cart (first half)
Week 2	Lecture 2: Courtly Romance and Comedy of Manners
	Discussion 2: Lancelot, The Knight of the Cart (second half)
Week 3	Lecture 3: Sir Thomas Malory: Knight Prisoner
	Discussion 3: Le Morte Darthur, “The Tale of Lancelot and Elayne”
Week 4	Lecture 4:Tennyson’s Tragic Arthurian Vision
	Discussion 4: Idylls of the King: “Lancelot and Elayne”

This course is for those who have an interest in Japanese culture and wish to continue our study of Japanese. We will continue using Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji, and covering grammatical structures. Through use of conversational Japanese, we will continue to explore how the language is used in anime, manga, and music.

Japanese is a language of great nuance and depth. This module will open the door to that world and build a foundation for greater insight into Japan's culture and its people.

In this series we’ll study Japanese using different tools such as videos, games, and different exercises. We’ll explore different aspects of Japanese culture and work on more complex vocabulary, grammar, and sentence patterns. We’ll also watch lots of videos, play games, and read graded readers among other things.

Note: Japanese Through Culture is for students who already have a basic level of Japanese.

Ready to begin learning Old English? This series of modules introduces students to the vocabulary and structure of the earliest recorded form of the English language. One year of modules prepares the student to read texts from over a thousand years ago! Each one-month module builds on the previous one, so students ready to learn Old English will communicate with our Director and Professor Swain to make the right placement for everyone.

In this module we'll work together to create individual goals, projects, and action plans for the year to come and establish a journaling system to keep you accountable. We'll also cover techniques that I've found helpful and figure out how they best apply to you individually.

Each class will begin with a 10-15 minute mini-lecture, but the class will be largely workshop based.

To get the most out of this class expect to spend 1-2 hours outside of each class session and be prepared to share your personal goals and projects in class so that we can help each other refine and reach our goals.

This module will be divided into four main parts:

• Theme & Goal Setting
• Journaling
• Time Management
• Action

This module, which builds on the skills taught in the previous Middle High German Modules, looks at another representative of the Medieval German so-called Spielmannsdichtung (pseudo-minstrel tales). It tells the story of the Duke Ernest, who after unsuccessfully waging an assassination attempt and civil war against his misled step-father (and Holy Roman Emperor) flees to the Far East as a crusader, encountering mythical creatures and far-off places reminiscent to anyone who has read the Old English Wonders of the East.

We will follow the methods used in other Middle High German modules and look at the Herzog Ernst poem both as literature and as a chance for interested students to continue perfecting their Middle High German reading skills. We will read selections of the text in the original language and translate them into English. Since it’s not entirely feasible to assume that everyone has access to a modern English translation, we will primarily discuss the translated sections, although a summary of the poem in general will be given.

Questions discussed in the module will include questions of genre (as always) and the connection between the frame story and the second narrative, monsters and the bridal-quest, the medieval political philosophy and the HRE (Holy Roman Empire), crusade poetry, and more.

The language of Herzog Ernst is roughly equivalent to the language of the Nibelungenlied, so completion of the Middle High German 1 and 2 modules are strongly encouraged. If you have any questions or need help, please feel free to contact Dr. Schendel.

In this iteration of The Music of Middle-earth, we’ll be exploring Howard Shore’s score to The Fellowship of the Ring, and seeking to better understand how the music behind Peter Jackson’s film interacts with the source material, the action on screen, and even Tolkien’s poetry.

Note: This series is not sequential, and folks are more than welcome to register for any class that interests them at any point.

JRR Tolkien is one of those rare authors whose poetry is as accomplished as his prose writing. Up to this point, though, those who wished to focus primarily on Tolkien’s poetry had to access a significant number of books and online resources to do so, as they were scattered far and wide. Now, a Most Delightful Event has occurred – for the first time, a collected volume of Tolkien’s poetry is available, and it is a Tome of Significant Size!

In this hybrid course, we will read and discuss a selection of these poems, enjoying them for their aesthetic appeal as well as analysing them for Tolkien’s style, use of language, and the poetic forms he employed. This is a hybrid course, in which one class per week will be a lecture and the second class will be group discussion.

There are so many poems in these volumes that the intention is to spread the course over several months. If you can’t make one or more of the months, feel free to dip in and out as suits you!

I am also delighted to announce that one lecture session per month will be led by the one and only James Tauber, who will focus on language and the formal elements of the poetry.

Bonus Lecture from Dr. Olsen each month! We are delighted to announce that each month Dr. Corey Olsen will offer a bonus lecture on Tolkien's poetry. Each month the SPACE team will share Dr. Olsen's bonus lecture with all enrolled students that month in The Poetic Corpus of J. R. R. Tolkien series.

JRR Tolkien is one of those rare authors whose poetry is as accomplished as his prose writing. Up to this point, though, those who wished to focus primarily on Tolkien’s poetry had to access a significant number of books and online resources to do so, as they were scattered far and wide. Now, a Most Delightful Event has occurred – for the first time, a collected volume of Tolkien’s poetry is available, and it is a Tome of Significant Size!

In this hybrid course, we will read and discuss a selection of these poems, enjoying them for their aesthetic appeal as well as analysing them for Tolkien’s style, use of language, and the poetic forms he employed. This is a hybrid course, in which one class per week will be a lecture and the second class will be group discussion.

There are so many poems in these volumes that the intention is to spread the course over several months. If you can’t make one or more of the months, feel free to dip in and out as suits you!

I am also delighted to announce that one lecture session per month will be led by the one and only James Tauber, who will focus on language and the formal elements of the poetry.

Bonus Lecture from Dr. Olsen each month! We are delighted to announce that each month Dr. Corey Olsen will offer a bonus lecture on Tolkien's poetry. Each month the SPACE team will share Dr. Olsen's bonus lecture with all enrolled students that month in The Poetic Corpus of J. R. R. Tolkien series.

JRR Tolkien is one of those rare authors whose poetry is as accomplished as his prose writing. Up to this point, though, those who wished to focus primarily on Tolkien’s poetry had to access a significant number of books and online resources to do so, as they were scattered far and wide. Now, a Most Delightful Event has occurred – for the first time, a collected volume of Tolkien’s poetry is available, and it is a Tome of Significant Size!

In this hybrid course, we will read and discuss a selection of these poems, enjoying them for their aesthetic appeal as well as analysing them for Tolkien’s style, use of language, and the poetic forms he employed. This is a hybrid course, in which one class per week will be a lecture and the second class will be group discussion.

There are so many poems in these volumes that the intention is to spread the course over several months. If you can’t make one or more of the months, feel free to dip in and out as suits you!

I am also delighted to announce that one lecture session per month will be led by the one and only James Tauber, who will focus on language and the formal elements of the poetry.

Bonus Lecture from Dr. Olsen each month! We are delighted to announce that each month Dr. Corey Olsen will offer a bonus lecture on Tolkien's poetry. Each month the SPACE team will share Dr. Olsen's bonus lecture with all enrolled students that month in The Poetic Corpus of J. R. R. Tolkien series.

In this module we will attempt to integrate the evidence from literary and archaeological sources into a broader context of shamanistic northern religions.

In the Icelandic sagas in particular, there are indications about the operative magical practices of the Sámi - one famous queen, Gunnhild (the wife of Eric Bloodaxe) is even said to have travelled to the Finns to get sorcerous instruction. In Norse myth, cosmology dwells on the world pillar, the ash tree Yggdrassil, while Odin's horse Sleipnir has the power to cross between worlds.

Shamanism as a means of accessing supernatural forces through ecstasy may have enhanced the Viking mind with challenging ideas about gender, shapeshifting, or violence that are well worth our attention.

Millions of people emotionally connect with Middle Earth in ways that are unique to Tolkien’s works. All sorts of people… young and old, all walks of life, all over the globe, have reported using Tolkien’s writing as comfort in times of stress, a classroom in times of confusion, and a sanctuary in times of danger.

How many people feel this way about Middle Earth? Well, Tolkien’s stories are valued at roughly the same amount as the GDP of Iceland. That’s a lot of fans.

But Why?

Why do we love Faerie, and specifically Tolkien, with such passion. What is it about Middle Earth that elicits such a powerful emotional response?

This class will cover what those typical responses look like and then discuss the psychological mechanisms behind them. We will discuss what it is about Faerie, and Tolkien’s writing specifically, that is so successful at prompting these psychological functions.

This class is not so much about Tolkien’s work, but rather it is a study of the people, like all of us, who are impacted by his work and why we react the way we do. We will read The Professor's own theories about Faerie and then connect these ideas with various psychological studies.

The module will follow an 8-session structure as shown below:

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Session 1: Intro to this Class + Psychology of Faerie Stories: This is a psychology class! We will talk about the literature, but mostly will focus on what happens to us when we engage with the literature. While we will read some Tolkien, most of what we will be reading are scientific studies. To begin, we will define and discuss the true definition of a faerie story? And HOW does it captivate? Introduce “positive psychology” vs. “traditional psychology” and the concept of Flow State.
	Session 2: Psychology of Faerie Stories continued
Week 2	Session 3: Developmental Psychology and Faerie How does Faerie impact the adolescent and child versus the adult. Why are teenagers & adults impacted? Talk about different stages of development specifically moral development
	Session 4: First of two parts on “Fantasy, Recovery and Escape” The first part will focus on “Fantasy” and the difference between Controlled Fantastical Thoughts and being delusional or hallucinating and Tolkien's vies on Lies Vs. Enchantment. We will also talk about Frankl’s theories of logotherapy.
Week 3	Session 5: Recovery & Escape What does Tolkien mean by “cleaning our window”? How does the concept of the “Eucatastrophe” allow people to recover from trauma and build resilience mechanisms?
	Session 6: Tolkien and Carl Jung – Symbolism, Imagination and Magic. This class will be based on the lectures given by Dr. Lance S. Owens on the similarities between Carl Jung’s imaginative experiences writing his “Red Book” and Tolkien’s writing
Week 4	Session 7: Thinking Strategically (non-linear) vs. linear thinking (cognitive psychology and adult learning) How does Fantasy open up non-linear thinking and learning? Plus, how do Tolkien’s stories allow for safe places to think without bias and repressive tolerance. We will introduce various cognitive psychology theories such as Frederickson's Broaden and Build Theory and Mezirow's theories on adult learning.
	Session 8: Spirituality & Evangelium. The religion of LoTR. SBIMI – SHALL PROVE BUT MINE INSTRUMENT! Faith and Finding grace in LoTR and how that type of spirituality contributes to happiness and well-being.