Cost and Registration Information

Early Registration Price (January 8 at 9 am** – January 25 at 4 pm): $240
Regular Registration Price (January 25 at 4 pm – first day of class): $264

** Registration opens online at 9 am. Phone registration will be accepted starting at 10 am.

Members, seniors, and students get a 10% discount.

Online registration is closed, but you can still register by phone. Please call (312) 255-3700 to do so.

Seminar Description

To celebrate the bicentennial of George Eliot’s birth, this seminar will present the author’s first full-length novel in manageable weekly installments for serial reading and discussion—with no spoilers! Published in 1859 (twelve years before her celebrated Middlemarch) and widely acclaimed in its time, Adam Bede explores challenging issues of maturity, hypocrisy, sexuality, and the need for a humanistic view of religion. Weekly discussions will be supplemented with slides and film clips.
Seven sessions. E - $240, L - $264

Steven J. Venturino holds a PhD in English and is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. He has led seminars at the Newberry Library and has taught at Loyola University Chicago.

Materials List

Required:

• George Eliot, Adam Bede, Oxford World Classics, edited by Carol A. Martin. 2008. ISBN: 978-0199203475

First Reading:

• For the first class, please read only Chapter 1 of Adam Bede. Please do not read the book’s introduction.

This class is part of the Newberry’s Adult Education Seminars Program. Learn more about our registration procedures.