October 2026 Modules

In this module we will cover various religious traditions generally covered by the umbrella term "Hinduism." We will start with an overview of some of the methodological challenges faced when studying these traditions, and then turn our attention to some of the major streams of Hindu history and practice, including those of Vedic religion, Upanisadic religion, and various Bhakti traditions. Time permitting we will then move on to Raja Yoga and Advaita Vedanta, followed by developments in modern Hinduism.

This module is a continuation of the Biblical module series for students who want to learn how to read Biblical Hebrew. The course would include some speaking, listening, and writing skills as well. But people who learn Biblical Hebrew do so in order to read it, so reading and comprehension skills would take primary focus.

Artificial intelligence is transforming the way many people work, create, and learn, but what is it, really? Over eight sessions, this discussion-based module explores AI from multiple angles: what it is and isn't, how people already encounter it in everyday life, and its potential as a practical thinking and creative tool.

Together we'll examine real-world applications, creativity, ethics, and ways AI might support deeper and more meaningful work. Rather than advocating for or against AI, the course invites thoughtful, balanced discussion about how to navigate this rapidly changing technology. The module concludes with an open Q&A, giving participants the opportunity to explore their remaining questions and ideas.

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

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Session 1: Topic: What AI is (and isn't)? Discussion: What excites or concerns you about AI?
	Session 2: Topic: AI in daily use Discussion: How are you already using AI (if you are).
Week 2	Session 3: Topic: AI as a "Thinking Tool" Discussion: How can we use AI to help us think and how should we be wary of that?
	Session 4: Topic: AI in Everyday Life Discussion: What areas in life are tedious or monotonous that we can use AI to overcome.
Week 3	Session 5: Topic: Can AI help us create? Discussion: Can AI create and where is it appropriate to use? Where should humans remain central to the creation process.
	Session 6: Topic: Ethics Discussion: The ethical use of AI
Week 4	Session 7: Topic: AI as your administrator Discussion: How can you use AI to allow you to create more.
	Session 8: Topic: Q&A and Open Discussion

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.

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

Do humans have free will? As science progresses, events in the world become more predictable and less chaotic. Some people argue that humans are no different from other physical objects in that they do not have free will, while others argue that our actions are determined by our beliefs and desires, our environment, or the past, which are not up to us. These considerations and others have led to an ongoing debate in philosophy about whether it is possible for humans to make free, undetermined choices.

In this module, we will discuss the major views about free will, the primary arguments for and against those views, and how this debate relates to issues such as the nature of the mind, moral responsibility, and punishment.

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

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Session 1: Introduction to the Free Will Problem
	Session 2: Compatibilism
Week 2	Session 3: Libertarianism
	Session 4: Mind, Free Will, and Causes
Week 3	Session 5: Hard Determinism
	Session 6: Alternative Possibilities and the New Compatibilists
Week 4	Session 7: Ultimate Responsibility and Modern Science
	Session 8: Conclusion

This module explores the fifth book in the series: Sunrise on the Reaping (2025).

Series Outline:

What lessons do the Capitol and Districts have to teach us? What warnings should we heed? What road leads from here to Panem? Over the course of five months, participants in these SPACE modules will read and discuss a modern classic of dystopian storytelling, The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.

In this hybrid series, each week will include one lecture and one live discussion. The lectures will examine the inspirations behind, allusions in, and questions posed by that month's novel. In live discussions, participants will share their insights on, interpretations of, and reactions to the story. Together we will consider why this series has spoken to so many readers and explore how its messages remain relevant today.

Students will be asked to read one book over the course of each month in whatever format they choose. All of these novels are available in print, ebook, and audio format.

(Warning: The Hunger Games series include descriptions - for a young-adult audience - of substance abuse, physical abuse, violence, and death.)

Series Outline:

• Module 1: The Hunger Games (2008)

• Module 2: Catching Fire (2009)

• Module 3: Mockingjay (2010)

• Module 4: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020)

• Module 5: Sunrise on the Reaping (2025)

In this series of modules, you will get familiarized with basic Japanese vocabulary and structures. Using a communicative approach, you’ll learn basic expressions, start to learn the hiragana script, and recognize katakana and kanji in a fun and interactive way. We will also explore Japanese culture in general. いっしょに日本語を学びましょう！

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 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.

One of the most relevant novels you could read right now was written almost two centuries ago. Mary Shelley’s The Last Man asks what it means to be human while living in unprecedented times. This 1826 classic of apocalyptic science fiction considers the implications of a global pandemic, a rapidly changing environment, and the failures of political and social institutions. Part imaginative autobiography, part science fictional warning, and part ecocritical thought experiment, The Last Man forces us to examine our assumptions about our present and future.

In this module we will consider Mary Shelley’s novel in the context of her life, times, and intellectual history. We will also explore the afterlife of The Last Man in critical discussions of the ominously similar challenges we face in the 21st century. In the process, we will discuss the novel’s lasting meanings and contributions as pioneering work of speculative fiction.

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

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: The Last Man
	Discussion 1: Introduction and Volume 1
Week 2	Lecture 2: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
	Discussion 2: Volume 2
Week 3	Lecture 3: Inspirations and Ancestor Texts
	Discussion 3: Volume 3
Week 4	Lecture 4: Pandemic and Post-Apocalyptic Literature
	Discussion 4: Themes and Takeaways

The John Newbery Medal is given by the Association for Library Service to Children to the author of "the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children"; an annual award, it has been given from 1922 to the present. Winners must have been written by an American citizen or resident and its first publication must be in English.

Read Newbery Medal award winners and discuss with Sparrow and your fellow EverLearn students: what do these stories reveal about their times and what is timeless about them? Where does this work fall in the old discussion about whether children's literature should provide education or delight? What cultural values and developmental landmarks does the work deliver to readers?

Each month we will read two different works and gently travel through time with Stories.

This series of modules introduces you to the vocabulary and grammar of Old Norse, preparing you to read medieval sagas, eddic poetry, and even Viking-Age runic inscriptions. Each one-month module builds on the previous one, so students ready to learn Old Norse will communicate with our Director and Professor Anderson to choose the right placement for everyone.

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.

“Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?”

It’s spooky season, so let’s read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein!

Consumed by his need to unlock the secrets of life, scientist Victor Frankenstein pieces together a living being from body parts of the dead. Horrified by his own creation, Frankenstein casts it aside. His misshapen offspring craves love and acceptance, but meets only revulsion and cruelty. As their lives spiral toward revenge and ruin, Frankenstein and his monster must confront the terrifying cost of playing God.

A foundational text of gothic horror and science fiction, Mary Shelley explores profound ethical questions with compassion and humanity.

This module will focus on bodies in Middle-earth from a multitude of directions and fields of enquiry. We will address fascinating subjects such as Sauron's body, the physical differences between Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White and the age old question "Do Balrogs have wings?" [No, the case is not settled on this.] We will explore how Tolkien writes about gendered and racialized bodies and how he uses slap-stick carnivalesque bodily humor in The Hobbit. We will explore the artwork and film images too. The point will be that bodies very much mattered in the narratives that make up Tolkien's Cauldron of Story, and they matter in his Legendarium!

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

Outline	8-Session Structure
Week 1	Lecture 1: Introductions. Strategies of Reading Theories of the Body Topics: Feminism, Gender, Sexuality, Race, Religion, Science, Art Do Bodies Matter in Middle-earth? Reading spirituality: Evil and Angelic Bodies, Wraiths, Elves, Istari, Sauron’s Bodies
	Discussion 1: Discussion about Lecture 1 topics
Week 2	Lecture 2: Reading gendered bodies Trans bodies? Women’s and Men’s Bodies Masculine and Feminine Bodies Bodies and Metaphors of Light or Foliage
	Discussion 2: Discussion about Lecture 2 topics
Week 3	Lecture 3: Reading race and the body Hobbits, Orcs, Elves, Races of men Hybridized Bodies: The White Rider Intersectionality: Dwarf Women
	Discussion 3: Discussion about Lecture 3 topics
Week 4	Lecture 4: Wars, wounds, suffering bodies Bodies Out of Faerie: on stage and on screen
	Discussion 4: Discussion about Lecture 4 topics

In this module we will explore the musical storytelling of works related to the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. This discussion-based course is not targeted to musicians, and no prior musical knowledge or skill set is required. Rather, the course seeks to discuss how music can tell stories, and how music interacts with text, poetry, and adaptation. A familiarity with the work of Professor Tolkien is very helpful.

This course will study three types of musical adaptation: music inspired by Tolkien’s writing, work that has taken Tolkien’s poetry and put it to music, and music written for adaptations of Tolkien’s work. Each of these types of composition comes with their own unique storytelling approaches and outcomes.

Session Outline

• Session 1: Johan de Meij, "Symphony No. 1: The Lord of the Rings"
• Session 2: Martin Romberg, "Symphonic Poem, Telperion and Laurelin"
• Session 3: Paul Corfield Godfrey: “The Tolkien Cycle”
• Session 4: John Sangster, "The Hobbit Suite"
• Session 5: The Tolkien Ensemble, "An Evening in Rivendell"
• Session 6: Donald Swann: “The Road Goes Ever On, a Song Cycle”
• Session 7: Howard Shore, "The Fellowship of the Ring"
• Session 8: Bear McCreary, "The Rings of Power, Season One"

With book sales exceeding 200 million copies, a billion-dollar film industry, and a bookshelf of critical, philosophical, and popular works, C.S. Lewis is at once the beloved author of The Chronicles of Narnia and a leading public figure.

While Narnia is sometimes miscategorized as Narnia or Lewis caricatured as just an apologist, this Oxford don thought that meaning was bound up in the reading experience. Given the distortions of his public image, it is hard to see how the same Lewis could be a literary scholar, voice of faith on the BBC, and creator of Narnia.

In The Spiritual Imagination of C.S. Lewis (2026), Brenton Dickieson uncovers a secret thread woven into Lewis’s spiritual tapestry. This Signum SPACE class follows this thread by focusing primarily on Narnia and his personal writings. Together, we will discover that the shape of Lewis’s imagination invites a hopeful, transformative invitation to spiritual life.

Key topics covered in this module include:

• The Secret Thread and the Lost Manuscript
• Standing on the Shoulders of Giants and Mice: Tool-shed Cracks, Seeing Like Lucy, and Uncle Andrew’s Lesson in Epistemology
• Mental Maps and the Cartography of the Soul
• “Slow-paced I come, Yielding by inches”: Lewis’s Conversion in His Spiritual Imagination
• The Shape of the Cross: Heaven’s Front Lawn, Love that is not Love, and the Undragoning of Eustace
• Eucatastrophe and the Fairy-Tale Form
• A Brief Study in Black and Scarlet
• The Upsidedownedness of Childlike Wonder, or What We Learn from Absurdly Solemn Literary Puritans
• “As High as My Spirit, As Small as My Stature”: C.S. Lewis’s Theology of the Small (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)
• Sacred Paradoxes in Lewis’s Spiritual Imagination
• Going Out Beyond the Edges: How Lewis Embiggens our Spiritual Imaginations

There are dragons in Tolkien’s works, of course, as well as Ents, Trolls, and Orcs, all enabling Tolkien to give shape and dimension to his world of Middle-earth. Less discussed amongst readers of the legendarium are the weird creatures that sit in the shadows – the ones designed to really make the back of your neck prickle. In this course, we will discuss these more troubling inhabitants of Middle-earth, with some close reading of the texts to guide our way.

Access to copies of The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is essential. Prior knowledge of the texts is desirable, but you could read them as we go along.