Biography
The Reading Odyssey uses the simplest technology to help adults play with the great books and ideas of humanity.
Our projects include:
1. Large web campaigns
Our large campaigns typically reach thousands and hundreds of thousands of people on Facebook, Twitter and the web. This includes the Darwin Facebook project with over 250,000 members to date.
Find out more here:
http://Darwin150.com
2. Phone/web-based lecture series
We host lectures from leading scholars in the classics, humanities, science and math.
This fall the Darwin Facebook project is launching a four-part phone/web-based lecture series for the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species." The first lecture, by Professor Emeritus John Mendelsohn, was in front of a live audience at Harvard University, broadcast remotely via web and phone and recorded for future podcasts.
To see the webcast or sign up for future Darwin150 lectures, go here:
http://Darwin150.com
3. Reading groups or "tutorials"
The heart of the Reading Odyssey experience, the phone-based reading groups are led by trained moderators and take a small group of readers through a reading experience over a 3-6 months period.
Current reading groups include:
- two sections of Homer
- a section of Aristotle
- a section of Darwin
Each group reads about a chapter a month and spends 90 minutes a month by teleconference discussing that chapter. The calls are recorded and uploaded to this website in mp3 format. Anyone in the world can then listen to the archived discussions. Past books and authors include Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Euripides, Aeschylus, Old Testament, Plato, Aristotle, Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger, Innumeracy and Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals.
4. Live conferences
We just co-hosted a live conference at NYU on Xenophon and many of our Darwin150 events have a live audience. We are also working on plans for a major celebration of the 2,500 year anniversary of the famous Battle of Marathon.
Sponsored by Citrix Online, HiDefConferencing, and Constant Contact, Reading Odyssey is always looking for additional help from sponsors or volunteers.
What else would you like to know?
How did we get started?
Inspired by the 1940s book - "How to Read a Book" - my close friend, Pat Wictor, and I decided to start a reading group with the goal of tackling the great books of the Western tradition.
Since we began in the spring of 2005 with a small but dedicated group of friends and colleagues, the Reading Odyssey has blossomed into a large community of adults passionate about ideas and reading great books.
The Reading Odyssey, Inc. is a nonprofit corporation currently applying for 501c(3) status from the IRS.
Thanks -
Phil Terry
Founder
Reading Odyssey
pterry at reading odyssey dot com
P.S. If you are interested in my professional background, you can view my business biography here:
http://www.creativegood.com/team/phil.html
P.P.S. Reading Odyssey also runs a separate website dedicated to supporting U.S. public libraries:
http://BorrowABook.org (www.borrowabook.org)
