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.
Registration for wait list available for “The Gilded Age and The Dawn of The American Century” and “Machiavelli’s Continuous Revolution”
The Gilded Age and The Dawn of The American Century
Professors: Paul Grimstad, Esther da Costa Meyer, and David Nasaw
November 13-16, 2025
Course filled – Register for Wait List
New York, NY
EverScholar invites you to join us for an immersive and collegial long-weekend experience in the opulent palaces of New York City as we explore the “Gilded Age.” This period from the end of the Civil War to the early 20th century was a time of explosive growth, innovation, artistic ambition, and deep societal change that defined America’s emergence as a modern economic and cultural power. But in true EverScholar fashion, in the era’s epicenter where this history still lives, and led by our world-renowned faculty, we will go far beyond the popular, even clichéd, understanding of the era, delving into the art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and of course the history of this transformative era.
Together we will convene, reside, study, dine, and socialize in NYC’s most impressive examples of Gilded Age architecture and history: brilliant and exclusive private clubs designed by the era’s most prestigious firm of McKim, Mead & White. In these storied settings—once frequented by the very elites we’ll be studying—you’ll engage in nine highly-participatory seminar-style sessions led by world-class faculty from Yale, Princeton, and CUNY. And more of the city’s Gilded Age gems will extend our ambit on our daily afternoon field trips to special places and collections available only to true scholars.
Our study topics will include Henry James’ visionary and nostalgic literature, his brother, William’s, spawning of American psychology; the rise of international financial and cultural networks (and, significantly, the emergent role of women in the latter); the creation of public spaces, philanthropic cultural institutions, and national identity; and the more socially troubling aspects around “conspicuous consumption,” immigration, race, and labor division. But this barely scratches the surface.
As always with EverScholar, you’ll join your intellectually curious peers in an intimate, discussion-based setting. This is a rare opportunity (I should mention that each experience is bespoke and typically one-time-only) to study history where it happened, with direct access to exclusive private spaces, rare artifacts, and the estimable scholars who bring them to life. Whether you’re drawn to art, architecture, politics, literature, philosophy, or maybe even gardening ;-), this course is for you. Noting that the roller coaster was invented in this era, and that spaces are extremely limited, get ready to studiously hop on board for our own intellectual wild ride together this November.
Machiavelli’s Continuous Renaissance
Professors: Steven B. Smith, David Ragazzoni, Vickie Sullivan, Francesca Trivellato, and Michelle Clarke
October 9-12, 2025
Course is full; registration for waitlist is available
Boston/Cambridge, MA
Widely associated with the idea of power politics, Machiavelli’s name has become synonymous with deceit, cunning, lying, and betrayal. He is conventionally associated with a hard-hearted realism, and a belief that what ultimately matters in politics is the ability of leaders to prove successful, no matter how ruthless their actions might be. Our purpose in this course will be to explore the many dimensions of Machiavelli’s novelty, reclaiming its complexity and nuance against simplistic and one-dimensional readings. We will analyze and compare his different writings (The Prince, Discourses on Livy, Florentine Histories, among others) against the backdrop of Renaissance Florence and its political and intellectual history under the (in)famous Medici dynasty. We will study Machiavelli’s ideas on political founding, greatness and decline, the relationship between morality and politics, the importance of public opinion for political leaders, and the role of chance and virtù in human affairs. We will discuss his views on socio-economic conflict in ancient and modern republics, the nature and perils of factions, the role of religion in politics, and his overall philosophy of history. Finally, we will trace the afterlives of his ideas both in political philosophy and on the battleground of political ideologies over the centuries, discussing countless appropriations, (mis)readings, and critical encounters with his work into our present.
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 learners.