Program Overview

Over 36 weeks, students study in an intimate group, working cumulatively through the alphabet, morphology, grammar, and syntax of classical languages, all the while attending to overarching questions of rhetoric and poetics, translation, and reception history. Unique to the BISR model, Language Courses are paired with an eclectic Lecture Series that brings scholars from a variety of disciplinary and linguistic backgrounds into lively and generative conversation, providing a wide view of linguistic and literary traditions, both ancient and modern.

Language acquisition is only the beginning. BISR Language Learning and Critique fosters and sustains the skills and curiosities of new readers in other languages through an ongoing series of Reading Groups. With the guidance of faculty, students put their new knowledge to work reading classic works of literature in original languages—from ancient epic and drama to modern poetry and literary prose, philosophical dialogues, writings in natural philosophy, ethics, politics, and more. Our aim is not only to learn a language, but also to learn how to read—and to ask how original sources can teach us to read anew.

In Fall 2025, BISR Language Learning and Critique is launching a course in Modern German, with plans for a course in Classical Chinese to launch in 2026.

Language Courses

Designed with the needs of working adults in mind, our year-long intensive language courses meet weekly over 36 weeks. Beginning with the alphabet and basic morphology, students proceed, via a combination of textbook exercises and readings drawn from canonical texts, to the study of complex grammatical and syntactical forms—including their historical appearance and development as well as their poetical and rhetorical values and applications. Capped at 15 students, our language courses cultivate an intimate learning environment ideally suited for students who wish to pursue broader questions pertaining to their interests in ancient and modern literature—from philology to translation, philosophical concepts, political theory, gender and sexuality, psychoanalysis, and more. By program’s end, students are equipped to read with the aid of a dictionary; to produce savvy and informed translations; and to continue their study in Reading Groups.

Lecture Series

Alongside the in-class language-learning component, our interdisciplinary lecture series brings scholars doing critical work at the cutting edge of classics and the contemporary world into conversation. From comparative explorations of myth and genre, to ancient poetics and contemporary performance, to studies in critical reception—from the Frankfurt School to contemporary queer, feminist, and critical race theory—the series investigates the myriad uses the present has made, and continues to make, of the past, both ancient and modern. What kinds of throughlines can we draw, not only between the philosophical and poetic traditions of ancient regions, but between a distant past and the ways we live and think today? Designed as a space of integrated critical inquiry, students enrolled in all language courses come together to participate in up to 9 lectures annually, with continuing access for alumni and students enrolled in Reading Groups. 

Reading Groups

A space of practice and continuing study, Reading Groups not only put new language skills to work through reading works of literature in original languages. They also serve, seminar style, to open up foundational texts to critical insights arrived at through close reading. In intimate groups of up to 12, with the guidance of faculty, students spend 6 weeks in concentrated study of individual texts and excerpts of larger works, from Sanskrit Vedas to modernist poetry, from Socratic dialogues to Brechtian theater. More than simply fine-tuning and enriching our fluency in other languages, Reading Groups prompt us to ask: How do linguistic structures produce a particular poetics? How do keywords evolve into concepts that take on new lives and dimensions in historically specific contexts?

Current Offerings

To view all current course offerings and forthcoming lectures, please visit the Language Learning and Critique course page

Program Head: Bruce King

Bruce M. King‘s teaching and research focuses on the ancient Greek and Roman world. He is especially engaged by anthropological, psychoanalytic, queer, comparative, and materialist appraches to the ancient world. He has published articles on Homer, the pre-Socratics, Sophocles, and Plato, as well as on reception history. He recently co-authored an article on the queer reception of Achilles and Patroclus, including in the tv show Hannibal and the video game “Hades.” Forthcoming work includes a book on the Iliad, entitled Achilles Unheroic, and a co-edited volume on radical materialism and the archaic Greek world. Bruce has a PhD in Classics from the University of Chicago; he has been a Fellow of the Center for Hellenic Studies (Washington DC) and of the Reid Hall Center for Scholars in Paris, as well as the Blegen Fellow at Vassar College.

Language Faculty

Bruce King: Critical Ancient Greek

Michael Stevenson: Language Program Fellow, Core Faculty in Philosophy

Arti Mehta: Critical Sanskrit

Erin Petrella: Critical Latin, Critical Ancient Greek

Ginan Rauf: Critical Arabic

James Redfield: Critical Ancient Hebrew

James Wagner: Critical Modern German