EverScholar programs are more than classroom sessions, but the classes are certainly at their heart. Read about our recent and upcoming courses, with top faculty, intriguing topics, innovative approaches, supremely curated reading, and more, below. Click through the short descriptions to see the full course pages. Then, from our menus above, learn more about our faculty – lead and guest professors; see some of the readings they have selected, and then visit “Beyond the Classroom” to learn about the special events. See “Community” to see how the courses continue past their week’s end.
New Courses! Registration will open very soon.
The Arc of History in Asia: Freedom and Authoritarianism in China and South Asia in the 20th and 21st Centuries
Professors: Peter Perdue, Denise Ho, and Zaib Aziz
November 21-24, 2024
Washington, DC
Martin Luther King famously proclaimed history’s inexorable liberal pull towards freedom. The West’s 21st century raises questions about this thesis, and Asia’s historical arc may well be its own – or perhaps not.
Modern China’s political regimes, from the Qing dynasty to the Republican period and the People’s Republic, have almost always been authoritarian one-party states. Even though elections were held in all three regimes, a single party dominated the process. Not until the end of martial law in Taiwan did a Chinese regime become a multi-party polity.
Colonial India, after 1857, was also an authoritarian regime in which the Indian population did not have equal civil rights or a voice in the government. After independence, India, Pakistan, and later Bangladesh have followed a variety of paths, including parliamentary democracy, military dictatorship and electoral authoritarianism.
Authoritarian regimes systematically repress dissent, but they do not rule by coercion alone. They buttress their legitimacy in other ways, by teaching official approved versions of history, by mobilizing civil society, by conducting public rituals, and by propagating symbols of national unity. Citizens resist as best they can, through protest, underground literature, and by rewriting national history to stress the rights of the people against the state.
Ethnic and religious minorities suffer especially deeply from discrimination by nationalist regimes. Contestation on the borders of China and India, in places like Kashmir and Xinjiang, has polarized the inhabitants and encouraged state violence.
Is authoritarianism irresistible? What are the tools by which it perpetuates itself? Do forces for freedom appropriate these same tools and frustrate their oppressors? Does technology constitute the problem, the solution, or merely a symptom? This seminar examines authoritarian states in China and South Asia from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries and into the current day. We look at particular times of crisis, when the regimes faced challenges to their official ideology. How they responded may indicate possibilities for the future of democratic and authoritarian polities today. Asia, 21st century colossus and focus, may provide the key insights as we make our own assessment of the arc of history.
Shakespeare’s Rome
Professors: David Quint, Larry Manley, and Anthony Grafton
January 23-26, 2025
The University Club, New York City, NY
Rome has captured the imagination for millennia, and never in more remarkable ways than in the mind of our greatest playwright. “Shakespeare’s Rome,” presented by EverScholar, takes on the challenge of harnessing Shakespeare’s humanistic revival of the ancient world, of seeing how Shakespeare was inspired by depictions of Rome by greats such as Machiavelli and Montaigne, how Shakespeare’s depiction of Rome influenced countless historical actors (and one who began as a theatrical actor: John Wilkes Booth) and even today colors our views of, say, tyrranocides. We are guided by a “dream team” of faculty: Tony Grafton, David Quint, and Larry Manley.
Explore Shakespeare’s portrayal of ancient Rome through his tragic masterpieces—Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus—inspired by Plutarch’s Lives. Join our attempt, through The Rape of Lucrece and Titus Andronicus, to frame these works, and reflect along with Cymbeline. Participants will delve into Shakespeare’s classical sources, Renaissance influences, and the lasting impact on modern culture, enriched by the historical and cultural context of the Renaissance. Join us to experience an unforgettable intellectual journey through Shakespeare’s eyes and his immortal pen.
Grand Strategies and Grand Statesmanship
Professors: Sir Philip Bobbitt, Patricia Clavin, Sir Christopher Clark, Toby Lanzer, Rana Mitter, and Arne Westad
June 14-22, 2025
London and Oxford, United Kingdom.
How do statesmen think about strategy? What are the factors – politics, economics, culture – that shape their idea of grand strategy and what acceptable or desirable outcomes might be? These questions have intrigued political thinkers and actors for millennia, and now, EverScholar ponders them with a team befitting the enormity of the topic – and with you.
This course examines timeless questions, approaching them by querying different ideas of strategy across the 20th century, placing them in historical and cultural context. We examine what states want, and how they express it through the choices and actions of political and military actors and thinkers, concentrating on periods of hot and cold war. In doing so, we shall explore the people, ideas and practices that shape the past, present and likely future of grand strategy in the modern world.
We look at both theory and practice at every turn. Our structure is that of case studies, specifically, three pivotal 20th century historical moments and their associated strategic challenges, choices, and key statesmen.
To this end, we have assembled a team of six(!) brilliant, world-class, renowned scholars, honored diplomats, valued advisors, recognized experts, and beloved teachers. We invite you to peruse our faculty’s bios – then imagine yourself in class, at dinner, and visiting key historical, cultural, and diplomatic sites with Sir Philip Bobbitt, advisor to seven US Presidents, or Arne Westad, head of Yale’s legendary Grand Strategy program, or Patricia Clavin, acclaimed Oxford historian of the League of Nations, just for some examples.
The United Kingdom is the perfect place to conduct our exploration, and we will take advantage of its innumerable on-point resources to enhance our program at every turn.
This is the absolute best way to tackle a topic that is at once seductive and yet resists even a precise definition: by immersing ourselves in it, with a group of great and experienced minds, day after day, seminar after seminar, formally and informally. Your fellow EverScholars will join you on this journey, and at its end, will continue to join you, now as new lifeline