| Announcing our 2025–2026 NYRSeminars Series:
“Drama Queens” with Daniel Mendelsohn and “The Political Novel” with Edwin Frank Daniel Mendelsohn, Editor-at-Large of The New York Review of Books, returns this fall with a four-seminar series on great literary heroines, beginning with Homer’s Odyssey. Edwin Frank, Editor of our New York Review Books Classics series and the author of Stranger than Fiction: The Lives of the Twentieth Century Novel, conducts his first seminar series on political novels from the 19th and 20th centuries. Seminars, to be conducted online, will meet weekly. We are offering memberships at two levels: Full Members will have the opportunity to discuss the work with the seminar leaders during the live sessions, while Auditors will be able to listen in on the discussion. Both membership levels will have access to our online Canvas platform, which features supplemental materials and discussion boards, as well as recordings of all sessions. The figure of the tragic heroine—suffering, abject, grandiose, vengeful, self-sacrificing, murderous, noble, seductive—has gripped the Western imagination for nearly thirty centuries, from the Homeric epics to 20th century cinema and theater. Our cultural obsession with these characters raises a compelling question: Why have male authors focused so consistently on the representation of suffering females—often for the benefit of male audiences? In this four-part NYRSeminar, Daniel Mendelsohn will take participants through a series of close readings of major works that established and then developed our female literary archetypes— from Homer’s Odyssey to dramas by the great Greek tragedians, and from the nineteenth-century novel and opera to four major works of twentieth-century theater—as we explore the aesthetic nature and age-old roots of this cultural preoccupation. The first seminar series on Homer’s Odyssey will consist of six weekly sessions beginning Wednesday, September 10, 2025. We live in a political world, per Bob Dylan, and the song suggests that is not such a good thing. The modern novel grew up alongside the modern political world, and has kept a fascinated and incredulous eye on it for the last few centuries. In this seminar, Edwin Frank, editor of the NYRB Classics series, will look at four novelists—Anthony Trollope, Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, and Ursula K. Le Guin—and their different visions of politics. The first seminar series on Anthony Trollope will consist of four weekly sessions beginning Monday, September 8, 2025. For a limited time, we are offering a $10 discount for each of Edwin Frank’s first series of NYRSeminars. Register for all seminars in both seriesEach seminar requires separate registration Drama Queens with Daniel Mendelsohn Reading Daniel Mendelsohn’s new translation
Six sessions, starting Wednesday, September 10, 2025 Agamemnon, Electra, Hecuba, and Trojan Women
Three sessions, starting Wednesday, November 5, 2025 Madame Bovary, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Traviata, and Madame Butterfly
Three sessions, starting Wednesday, January 7, 2026 Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee
Four sessions, starting Wednesday, January 28, 2026 The Political Novel with Edwin FrankFor a limited time, we are offering a $10 early bird discount for each of Edwin Frank’s first NYRSeminars. Discounts end soon! Phineas Finn, Phineas Redux, and Prime Minister
Four sessions, starting Monday, September 8, 2025 Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent
Four sessions, starting Monday, October 6, 2025 The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The Dispossessed
Three sessions, starting Monday, November 3, 2025 You are receiving this message because you signed up
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