Recorded HS

A Contrast of Kings: Macbeth and Julius Caesar (Catholic Shakespeare Series)

Our course will very briefly review that evidence and then place its focus on examining the two plays most widely read by high school students. Although set in Scotland of the 11th century and Rome of the 1st century BC, both plays comment clearly and powerfully on the sad situation of the Catholic Church, outlawed and persecuted in Shakespeare’s England. Both dramas end with victory for Christ’s Holy Bride that cannot, for long, be suppressed.

Recorded HS

An Introduction to Dante’s Divine Comedy

Students will be introduced to Dante’s literary masterpiece through a selective reading of cantos from each of the three books of the Comedy (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise), focusing on the moral theology that informs the work.

Live HS

C.S. Lewis and The Screwtape Letters

Register for this course early as we expect it to fill and close! Lewis’ imaginative explications of the conditions of Hell and our sinful “thoughts” are the best of their kind in the last 700 years!

Recorded HS

Comedy Writing: Comedy and Humor in Literature and Life, Part One (HS X-17)

Learn the styles of comedy in all of its forms -- literature, sketches, standup, and more -- practicing and honing your writing skills with comedy and humor to become a better writer.

Recorded HS

Comedy Writing: Comedy and Humor in Literature and Life, Part Two (HS X-18)

Using the styles of comedy in literature and spoken form, practice and hone your comedy writing skills with hands-on writing projects -- to become a better writer.

Recorded HS

Cultural Literacy for Catholics

What are some of the basic things all educated Catholics should know? Sadly, most Catholics don’t know them! From the point of view of Literature and its impact on culture, these basic “everybody should know this” stuff would include the issues we will examine in each class meeting.

Live HS

Dante on Dante

Kevin O’Brien, professional actor and host of EWTN’s TV series The Theater of the Word appears as Dante - in person via Zoom! Dante discusses his Vita Nuova, his love for Beatrice and several cantos in The Divine Comedy.

Live HS

Dante’s Inferno

Join Dr. Russell and your fellow students to learn why Dante is the greatest author of the greatest book on the greatest subject of any ever written by a man not known by the Church to be directly inspired by God!

Recorded HS

Dante’s Paradiso (Heaven) by Dante (Divine Comedy Series)

Dante teaches us what it means to be a Catholic in every element of our thought and culture. His work is not only sublimely beautiful but filled with the most important truths. The Comedy provides a vision of eternity in order to teach man how to live in time, in his brief excursus before forever.

Recorded HS

Inferno (Hell) by Dante (Divine Comedy Series)

Join Dr. Russell and your fellow students to learn why Dante is the greatest author of the greatest book on the greatest subject of any ever written by a man not known by the Church to be directly inspired by God!

Recorded HS

Purgatorio (Purgatory) by Dante (Divine Comedy Series)

Dante Alighieri is the only “secular” author in praise of whom a Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church has written an encyclical letter. His Holiness Benedict XV’s “In Praeclara Summorum” of 1921 rightly says, “We admire in him not only supreme height of genius but also the immensity of the subject which holy religion put to his hand. If his genius was refined by meditation and long study of the great classics it was tempered even more gloriously, as We have said, by the writings of the Doctors and the Fathers which gave him the wings on which to rise to a higher atmosphere than that of restricted nature.”

Recorded HS

Conversion of Mind and Heart

Conversion is at the center of Christ’s call to each of us. It is a lifelong process that begins when we turn toward our Lord and away from sin, but it is an ongoing process, one that is renewed each day, and that requires a lifetime of humility and struggle. And yet we hear very little about conversion in the modern Church, about repenting and seeking the grace of sanctification, of being made holy, of approaching perfection or “maturity in Christ.” What is the essence of conversion and how can we live it out?

Recorded HS

I Hate Poetry!

Is it possible to go from hating poetry to loving poetry? Is it possible to be able to tell a good poem from a bad one? How about the poems we write but are too scared to show anybody else? Are they any good? Can we make them better?

Recorded HS

Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know

Join Professor Joseph Pearce and learn about everything from the Greek epics to Shakespeare's plays to Tolkien's famous trilogy. What Every Catholic Should Know is an insightful introduction to the world's rich depository of stories. Learn how great literature mirrors The Story—the Story of Salvation History and how it directs us back to the Storyteller, God himself.

Recorded HS

Love and the Meaning of Life

We know as Catholics that “God is love.” We also know that it is our obligation to love God and to love our neighbors. We know that love, especially the sacrificial love of Christ on the cross, is central to the meaning of life. But what is love?

Recorded HS

Mythology in Literature

What is myth and how does it relate to storytelling in general and to our Catholic Faith in particular? How have the great myths of the world’s cultures been adapted into novels and plays?

Recorded HS

Romanticizing the Middle Ages

In this high school literature course (history/literature/poetry credit), learn about Romanticism, Neo-Medievalism, and the Middle Ages with famous poets like Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Newman, Hopkins and more.

Recorded HS

Poems Every Catholic Should Know

Join Professor Pearce as he leads us through a thousand years of Christian verse, introducing us to those great poems which every Catholic should know, including the poetry of Dante, Southwell, Crashaw, Coleridge, Newman, Hopkins, Belloc, Chesterton, and Sassoon.

Recorded HS

The Aeneid by Virgil: The Founding of Nations in the Will of God

When we visit Washington D.C. the great buildings are not imitations of Greek but of Roman architecture. Our country was founded not as a democracy but as a Republic. George Washington was called “The Father of His Country.” Each of these three facts, and many more, are due to the enduring and world-wide influence of Virgil’s Aeneid.

Recorded HS

The Canterbury Tales (Medieval Lessons for Modern Catholics Series)

Chaucer was the master at making Catholic nobles laugh at the failings of others until they realized those characters were a bit too much like themselves. This great moralist, like a comic Dante, lets his characters boast and strut until they have convicted themselves out of their own mouths.

Recorded HS

The Iliad

Homer is at the foundation of Western Civilization and is arguably, with the possible exception of Dante and Shakespeare, the greatest writer that Western Civilization has produced. Professor Pearce will guide us through Homer’s classic work, examining the ways in which its moral vision harmonizes with that of Christianity, offering timeless insights into the human condition.

Recorded HS

The Odyssey by Homer

Register today to learn why Prof. Joseph Pearce says that Homer is at the foundation of Western Civilization. Homer is arguably, with the possible exception of Dante and Shakespeare, the greatest writer that Western Civilization has produced.

Recorded HS

C.S. Lewis and The Screwtape Letters

Lewis’ imaginative explications of the conditions of Hell and our sinful “thoughts” are the best of their kind in the last 700 years!