ANE Tours the City of Lights
By Sam Samuels, Director of Development, Antioch New England

It’s a warm May morning on the Left Bank of Paris. All is quiet in the Latin Quarter, the cobblestones of the ancient and impossibly narrow Rue de la Harpe enjoying a brief rest between the pounding they took under a thousand feet last night and the pounding they will take under a thousand more tonight. An occasional solitary walker turns down this sunlit street: a woman airing a dog, a man in search of the cigarettes that Parisians smoke in such careless defiance of the odds. Now and then, one stops to peer through the plate glass window of the Hotel du Levant. Inside, the management has set up a display of historic women’s hats, a gaudy, feathery tribute to la Belle Epoque.

Those who peer further behind those hats might be able to make out a group seated in the deep chairs of the hotel lounge, hotly engaged in that most Parisian of pastimes, intellectual discussion. The topic is France’s own Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which means the topic really is the bonds that tie individuals together into a society, the meaning of government, the morality and immorality of war, and the nature of freedom.

And oh yes, the group is made up of Antioch New England alumni, faculty, and staff. Last Memorial Day weekend, President Peter Temes led the Antioch New England “Paris in the Spring” seminar. Participants spent three days in a mixture of structured activities and free time exploring the City of Lights. The formal agenda included two restaurant dinners as a group, a guided visit to the Louvre, and a daily diet of conversation on selected writings from Rousseau. It was a packed schedule, but there was still time to sightsee, shop, dine, and visit other museums.

The readings for the seminar, despite being upwards of two and a half centuries old, were selected for their timeliness. Rousseau’s The Social Contract was a major influence on the American Revolution, and his writings deal with many topics our nation is grappling with even today: war, elections, state’s rights, separatism, the use of force, and liberty.

“I’m a person who likes to look at things in depth,” said Judy Young ’94 MA Counseling Psychology, one of the alumni who attended. “This was a nice opportunity to consider real things in a context that was broader than you get on the news or in the coffee room. And because it was with Antioch folks, I knew it would be rich, positive – not a closed-minded – discussion.”

The event kicked off on Friday, May 23, with a walk led by Peter Temes through the Jardin de Luxembourg, where the palatial Senate building is located, to the seminar room of Ried Hall, a building owned by Columbia University and used by numerous American colleges for study-abroad events and classes. After an afternoon discussion session, the group proceeded to dinner at the brasserie La Coupole, an eatery that retains its art-deco flavor from the 1930s and features original paintings by different artists on each of the massive pillars that support the ceiling. On Saturday, the discussion was followed by a quick taxi trip to the Louvre, where an English-speaking tour guide, with special expertise in the paintings of Rousseau’s period, met the group.

“It was so important to have a person to give private instruction about the paintings,” Young said. “She knew her stuff and gave it in detail. It added one more modality to the information we’d gotten and deepened the experience.”

Sunday was given over mostly to individual free time, and many of the participants took in the spectacle of a mass at the Cathedral de Notre Dame, just a stone’s throw from the hotel. The final discussion session was held on Monday morning, after which the group disbanded, some to return home, others to linger for an extra day or two on their own.

“We had a group from around New England – a mixture of alumni, faculty, and staff,” Peter said.

This was a pilot seminar, with an eye toward becoming an annual event. Next time, Peter said the reading would again focus on “some theme related toward the broader mission of Antioch, which is, ‘How we create a more just society?’

As for the feasibility of a repeat trip? “I heard everyone say that they’d come again,” Peter said. “I’m more convinced than ever that we want to do this every year.”

Paris 2004
Watch for news on a joint trip to Paris planned for Antioch New England and Antioch College in 2004!

[ Top of Page ] [ Top Stories ] [ University News ] [ Campus News ]
[ Alumni News ] [ Book Notes ] [ Class Notes ] [ Obituaries ] [ Antiochian Home ]
[ Fall 2003 Site Map ] [ Send Us Your News ]