April 2025 Modules

Dr. Peter Baker, then of the University of Virginia, translated Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland into Old English. This module will work with and translate back into Modern English this fun and delightful text.

The saga of Dune is far from over...

Across two months, we will read Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's completion of Frank Herbert's Dune saga. 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 Herbert's originals, and share your insights.

Let the spice flow!

Month 1: Hunters of Dune
Month 2: Sandworms of Dune

This Writer's Workshop will be for practicing the art of writing flash fiction, works that are of 500 or fewer words in length. This is a marvelous place for a new writer to begin as the size is not overwhelming. It is also a marvelous place for a seasoned writer to practice the craft of scene creation and characterization under severe creative restriction.

We will read examples of flash fiction, and provide feedback for one another on original pieces that we shall write over the length of the course. For this we will use the Collaborative Feedback Method that we use in all Space creative writing courses, a method which emphasizes kindness and curiosity while still providing rigorous and useful feedback to the writer.

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!

Join us as we continue learning (advanced) basic Japanese, focusing on the areas of reading and listening comprehension, with some attention to speaking and writing. Over the course of this module series we will work our way through the Genki II textbook, building upon the foundation built from the Genki I text. 一緒に日本語を勉強しませんか

Recorded Series: All sessions of this series are being recorded and provided afterwards to enrolled students in order to support the learning of the group.

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.

In this month-long introduction to the formal study of Latin, students will learn the basic principles of Latin translation, learn to conjugate Latin verbs in the present tense and decline Latin nouns in the 1st and 2nd declensions, and practice translating sentences and short Latin passages. The first step in Signum SPACE's Latin in a Year sequence, this module covers chapters 1-4 of Wheelock's Latin.

Note: All sessions will be live recorded and shared with all enrolled students afterward for review and to allow those who cannot attend live to still participate in the class.

This module offers a series of Latin readings that review material covered in many traditional Latin I courses (including Signum's own Latin I graduate course and the first five Latin in a Year SPACE modules). Students will read selections from selected textbooks and Latin readers and attempt two short literary passages. All readings will be provided, though access to a Latin grammar book and a basic Latin dictionary may be beneficial.

Latin grammar assumed:
- Understanding of stems, endings, cases, agreement, and parts of speech
- Knowledge of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th declension endings for nouns and adjectives
- Knowledge of regular Latin verb conjugations in all indicative tenses (present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, future perfect), both active and passive, and the imperative forms
- Ability to recognize conjugations of of “sum” and “possum”
- Familiarity with ego, tu, is, hic, ille, iste, idem, qui, and reflexives
- Awareness of Latin numerals
- Acquaintance with ablatives of means, accompaniment, manner, time, agent, separation, and place from which, as well as genitive of the whole and use of genitive and ablative with cardinal numerals

Iyashikei (癒し系), or “healing type”, is a category of anime, manga, and games focused on healing the viewer by giving them a peaceful and relaxing experience. It achieves this with a focus on a beautiful environment, low-stakes stories, and a relaxing tone. In a time of natural disasters, political turmoil, and pandemics, this calming style has grown in popularity, and its influence has been seen in many works that might not be considered iyashikei proper. In this module, we will consider many aspects of the type of story, including its history, its status as a genre (or not), its value for its audience, what really “counts” as iyashikei, and the appeal of a story in which, some say, “nothing much happens.” Please join us for a relaxing discussion that may or may not soothe your soul.

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.

In this iteration of The Music of Middle-earth, we’ll be exploring Howard Shore’s score to The Two Towers, 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.