The Roman Forum Academy
Summer Courses 2015
Session II: 3 August – 17 August 2015
These two separate fourteen-day sessions are the first of what will be a continually expanding Roman Forum Academy Program both in the summer (June-August) and in New York City (September-May). The courses will be offered over ten days, with a morning and afternoon seminar each day. Arrival day, Sundays, and Assumption Day will be free days.
The price of $200 per session includes the educational program alone. The program is limited to twelve students of all ages. (High school participants are welcome, with parental approval.) Although the Roman Forum will help with travel and housing arrangements, all these costs will be paid be participants separately. A variety of types of housing (hotels and private apartments) and prices are available. Meals will be offered as a group, but with choice and payment also left to the individual.
Please contact the Roman Forum by 1 April 2015 (drjcrao@aol.com) for further information and application.
The Pre-Christian World
First Blood in the Battle for Truth
20 July – 3 August 2015
Greek Paideia: The Importance of the Polis
Greek Paideia: The Importance of Philosophy
The Arrogance and Limitations of Rhetoric and the Polis: The Sophist-Socratic Faceoff
Alexander’s Unwitting Achievement
Greek Paideia and Hellenistic Culture
Hellenistic Culture and the Jewish Dilemma
Hellenistic Culture and Greek Disquietude
Roman Gods, Mos Maiorum, and Roman Order
Greek Paideia, the Scipionic Circle, and the Conservative Reaction
Greco-Roman Turmoil and the Creation of the Empire
The Imperial Ecumene
The Senatorial Aristocracy and the Second Age of Sophism
Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, and the Pagan Urban Environment
The Inner and the Outer Barbarians
The Ceaseless Progress of the Magical, Astrological, and Gnostic Vision
The Eve of Christian Victory: The Trials of the “Principate” and the “Dominate” Reform
Ancient Christianity
The Attack of the Incarnate Word
3 August – 17 August 2015
The Problem Posed by Christ and the Mystical Body for Jewish Paideia
The Problem Posed by Christ for Greco-Roman Paideia
Millennial and Apocalyptic Dreams: Deadly Obstacles to Formation of a Christian Paideia
Forming a Militant Christian Paideia: The Apologists
Forming a Militant Christian Paideia: Alexandria
Origen and His Enemies
Pagan Reaction and Christian-Imperial Relations
Monastic Retreat
The “Great Change”: Its Grand Hopes and Secularizing Dangers
Donatism and the Need for an Holistic Christian Vision
Arianism and the Problem of the Court Bishop
St. Athanasius the Great and Eastern Arianism
St. Hilary the Great and the Arian Problem in the West
Advances on All Fronts: The Work of the Cappadocians
Priscillianism and Other Problems
Conquering the “Spaces” of the City: The Christian Roman Ecumene by the Time of the Theodosian Settlement
Rome Transformed: Prudentius and the Christian Victory
SS. Ambrose and John Chrysostom: Victories and Failures in Church-State Relations
Africa, St. Augustine, and the Troubled Future
