Gladstone’s Library runs an extensive and varied selection of residential courses each year. For periods ranging from overnight stays to week-long residencies, we invite you to retreat from the hustle and bustle and routine of everyday life and stay with us to find inspiration and contemplation. Our courses cover everything from the theological to the artistic and even, gasp, sex, and always attract an interesting, friendly and respectful crowd! Our courses are available as residential and non-residential options. Below we pick out some of the highlights of this year’s jam packed programme…
The Sexual Revolution and the Revolution of Sexuality
13th – 14th June
Professor Timothy Sedgwick of Virginia Theological Seminary leads an exploration of the experience of human sexuality throughout the ages from Marcus Aurelius to Freud and considers how human desire is shaped and to what end.
This two-day course promises an open forum for debate and discussion and includes a screening of the 2004 film Kinsey (dir. Bill Condon).
Residential prices start from £101 and non-residential from £80. For further information, please click here or view the course programme.
The Book of Job
27th June – 1st July
We take a fresh look at the Book of Job in this surprisingly subversive, almost comic, critique.
The first poetic book in the Christian Old Testament and of unknown authorship, the Book of Job raises issues such as whether people should stay faithful to God if they aren’t rewarded, or are unfairly punished, and, most importantly, why God allows evil to exist in the world. The book is a bewildering but rich theological work laying out a series of different perspectives on righteousness and keeping faith. Explore it in this five day course.
Residential prices start from £384 and non-residential from £290. Click here for the course programme.
A Little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That
1st – 3rd July
Ever wondered about the true scope of what we do here at the Library?
This course offers a compendium of typical discussion in which we cover elements from across the spectrum: contemporary novels, the life of Florence Nightingale, the poetry of R.S. Thomas, liberal theology, liberal values and even a glass of Pimms!
With author Salley Vickers (Miss Garnet’s Angel); Chairman of Gladstone’s Library and Victorian scholar, Michael Wheeler; theologian John McEllhenney and our very own Warden, Peter Francis.
Residential prices start from £202, non-residential from £150. Click here for the course programme.
Entertaining Judgement: The Afterlife in Popular Imagination
22nd – 24th July
The lyrics of Madonna and Sean Combs; the plotlines of TV’s Lost, South Park and The Walking Dead; the implied theology in films such as The Dark Knight, Ghost, and Field of Dreams; the heavenly half-light of Thomas Kinkade’s popular paintings – all speak to our hopes and fears about what comes next.
During this short course, author Greg Garrett (Shame) offers imaginative insights into our persistent absorption with the afterlife through film, television, novels, art, pop music, graphic novels and more.
Residential prices start from £192, non-residential from £150. For further information, please click here or view the course programme.
Greek in a Week
1st – 7th August
Marking the beginning of our programme of language courses back by popular demand, Kalyan Day teaches New Testament Greek in this week-long module.
Ideal for those wishing to learn New Testament Greek or for those wanting to revise or improve their knowledge of it, no prior knowledge of Greek is assumed - all we ask is that you try to learn the Greek alphabet before you arrive!
Residential prices (bed & breakfast, morning and afternoon coffee, lunch and dinner) start from £586, non-residential from £430. Click here for the course programme.
Details of our other language courses including Welsh, Latin and Biblical Hebrew can be found here.
Victorian Bestsellers
30th August – 1st September
In the late nineteenth century, the word ‘bestseller’ became particularly associated with books. This course explores a variety of popular Victorian novels, including Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, considering the ways in which these books responded to their historical context, and why they were bestsellers in their own time.
This course is led by the Library’s very own Katharine Easterby who holds a doctorate in Victorian Literature from the University of Liverpool.
Residential prices start from £202, non-residential from £150. Click here for the course programme.
Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy
20th – 22nd October
John Shelby Spong uses the Gospel of Matthew as a guide to explore the gospel’s grounding in Jewish culture, symbols, icons and story-telling tradition and to explain how the events of Jesus’ life, including the virgin birth, the miracles, the details of the passion story, and the resurrection and ascension were never written to be understood literally. Literalism is a gentile heresy.
Includes free entry to Matthew’s Passion Story: It’s Not History!, a public lecture by Bishop Spong.
Residential prices start from £202, non-residential from £150- view the course programme.
As ever, discount rates for students and clergy apply on all of the above courses. For more information or to book, please contact Reception on 01244 532350 or email [email protected].
We hope to see you at the Library soon!