February 2025 Modules

Protego! Let's read the fifth Harry Potter book!

We will get together twice a week to explore the series, reading through the books at a relaxed pace. Connect with fellow readers and share your insights as we discover (or rediscover) the magic.

Over two months, we will follow fifteen-year-old Harry's adventures as the clouds of war gather over the Wizarding World. Fates collide, heroes fall, and prophecies unfold...

This book club is all about sharing the moments of unexpected, joyful discovery through close reading. Focusing on the text, we will share our personal readings and experiences. We will learn from our classmates in a kindness-first, supportive environment.

Together, we can tackle some big questions about the series. What was it about the Harry Potter books that resonated with so many people? To what extent is it possible or indeed desirable to separate art from artist?

Most of all, however, we will have an inclusive dialogue that embraces a multiplicity of views and enriches our experience of the text.

We will walk through a complete project from pre-writing through writing, revising, editing, (revising, revising, revising), proofreading, and talking about publication options. Are you interested in finally getting down that memoir of your childhood? making a storybook for your grands? turning that daydream into a novelette? This adventure is for you! Whether your story is a draft, an outline, or a daydream, your project is welcome here in a place where we are aiming to finish it!

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

Please choose this module if you're excited to be part of our Creative Writing mini-modules in the near future! If you add this module to your wish list (or short-list it), we will include you in our communications about upcoming mini modules and let you know what's available.

Note: Our mini modules are special month-long group experiences designed for a small and intimate group of 2 to 4 students for the cost of 1 Token. As soon as we get enough interested students that reserve their seat, we'll schedule this class with the group and fly!

Over the course of this module, we will cover the basics of Japanese religious history. Particular areas of focus will be Shintō 神道 tradition and various forms of Japanese Buddhism, shamanism, and Shugendō 修験道. Time permitting (unlikely) we can also touch upon Japanese New Religions and/or Japanese Christianity.

The story of the Holy Grail that was sought by King Arthur’s knights begins with this tale: Chretien de Troyes’s “Perceval, or the Story of the Grail.” This coming-of-age story follows the adventures of Perceval, as he moves from rustic ignorance of his own identity into full-fledged knighthood. As series of mistakes, triumphs, and misadventures leads him almost (but not quite) to the discovery of that most holy of relics. His journey of spiritual understanding, like the quest for the Holy Grail itself, remains incomplete as Chretien’s unfinished romance breaks off in mid-sentence. This course, however, continues Perceval’s story through the numerous continuations of additions by which different authors brought to the tale within a century of its first appearance.

Note on Text: While most of Prof. Daley’s courses are flexible with regard to edition, in this case there is only one English translation that provides the complete text of Chretien’s “Perceval,” and all of the surviving translations: Nigel Bryant’s The Complete Story of the Grail, listed below.

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.

Explore the fascinating spiritual landscape of the ancient Germanic-speaking world (Anglo-Saxon, Continental Germanic, Scandinavian), where gods, myths, and nature were deeply woven into the cultural fabric. This crash course will dive into the rich traditions of paganism in Northern and Central Europe, from the Bronze Age era to its lasting influence in medieval sagas.

We will engage with a variety of sources ranging from written texts such as Latin histories, heroic or skaldic poetry, Germanic law codes, to archaeological findings such as wooden idols, golden bracteates or bog bodies. Study cases will be analysed in their respective historical context, such as the cult of mother-goddesses from the Rhineland or remnants of pagan beliefs in healing charms.

Through discussions of cosmology, rituals, and the role of myth, we will examine how these early belief systems shaped the cultural and socio-political life in pre-Christian Central and Northern Europe, discover potential continuities, but above all else, uncover a great temporal and geographic diversity with plenty of unanswered questions.

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

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: Religions in the Bronze Age – stone pictures, megalithic cultures
	Discussion 1: Class discussion on Lecture 1 material.
Week 2	Lecture 2: Ritual and sacrifice – Iron and Viking Age public and private sacrifices
	Discussion 2: Class discussion on Lecture 2 material.
Week 3	Lecture 3: Pantheons, cosmogonies, eschatologies – Pre-Norse and Norse deities, fate, death
	Discussion 3: Class discussion on Lecture 3 material.
Week 4	Lecture 4: Conversion stories – phases, peoples, syncretism
	Discussion 4: Class discussion on Lecture 4 material.

Nota bene: The course serves as an overview of sources for pre-Christian practices and the evolution of religious ideas in Northern Europe over a timespan of 1000 years – there was never a homogenous, continuous and unchanged strain of “Germanic” paganism. The term remains controversial in scholarship due to its political misuse.

In 2024, Oxford University Press published An Introduction to Middle High German, which promises to become the new standard textbook for learning Middle High German. It has a selection of readings, both prose and poetry, all of which are edited for readability and annotated for instruction.

Due to popular demand, we at Signum University’s SPACE program are offering a month of just perusing the Introduction textbook and reading the prose as a group. We will begin with the introductory text “Von den siben planêten” by Berthold von Regensburg before moving on to the religious literature at the end of the book. Time permitting, we will also look at legal texts in the larger Oxford Guide to Middle High German, which will be supplied as scans according to the Fair Use doctrine. These readings will offer a chance to focus on the language’s syntax when it is not as heavily constrained by the demands of meter and rhyme.

This course is open to both veterans and newcomers to SPACE’s small, but growing Middle High German program.

One of the earliest stories of J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium committed to writing was the tragic tale of Túrin Turambar. As Tolkien himself acknowledged, in creating Túrin’s tale, he drew on elements of real-world legends, particularly those of Sigurd the Volsung, Oedipus, and the Finnish Kullervo. In this module, we’ll look at the interplay between these legends (in the forms that young Tolkien had likely encountered them) and Tolkien’s own creation of the tale of Túrin. The module’s objective is twofold: a semi-biographical examination of young Tolkien’s early creative processes, and familiarization with the historical sources for these legends that proved so inspirational for him.

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

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: Introduction to Túrin Turambar and his legendary inspirations (reading: “Turambar and the Foalókë”).
	Discussion 1: Comments on and questions about Túrin Turambar and his legendary inspirations (reading: “Turambar and the Foalókë”).
Week 2	Lecture 2: Oedipus & Túrin (reading: excerpts Sophocles, ed. Jebb, “The Oedipus Tyrannus”).
	Discussion 2: Comments on and questions about Oedipus & Túrin (reading: excerpts Sophocles, ed. Jebb, “The Oedipus Tyrannus”).
Week 3	Lecture 3: Sigurd & Túrin (reading: excerpts from “The Story of Sigurd”, ed. Lang; excerpts from “Völsunga saga”, trans. Eiríkur Magnusson & Morris).
	Discussion 3: Sigurd & Túrin (reading: excerpts from “The Story of Sigurd”, ed. Lang; excerpts from “Völsunga saga”, trans. Eiríkur Magnusson & Morris).
Week 4	Lecture 4: Kullervo & Túrin (reading: excerpts from “Kalevala”, ed. Kirby; excerpts from Tolkien, “The Story of Kullervo”).
	Discussion 4: Kullervo & Túrin (reading: excerpts from “Kalevala”, ed. Kirby; Tolkien, “The Story of Kullervo”).