How to Fall in Love with Classics is an exciting National Library Board lecture series by Gwee Li Sui that celebrates the classics. This series looks lovingly and thoughtfully at a few texts to understand the special pleasure we get from them. The study should help to ignite or rekindle your own passion for literature. You may grasp more firmly the importance of particular works and learn to appreciate them more.
Every lecture will explore one classic for its various forms of meaning. The text will be dissected to reveal connections to ideas in history, culture, and society. We will also observe how this can enhance our reflections on ourselves and the world. Series 10 will look at four self-help classics: Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book, Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, and Arthur Yap’s “there is no future in nostalgia”.
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden is a nineteenth-century journal following an experiment to simplify life and live deliberately in nature. The woods in Concord, Massachusetts, became the setting for a pursuit of self-reliance and a spiritual journey into the meaning of life. Gwee Li Sui will look into Thoreau’s guiding philosophy and the continuing charm this work presents to our technological society.
VENUE: Online
LINK: To be provided to registrants
EVENT WEBSITE: Eventbrite (for registration)
DATE AND TIME
26 Mar 2022, 7pm–8.30pm