It was our first year of Yale, and we’d all enrolled in Directed Studies, a selective one-year introduction to the Western canon. Six seminars, three lectures, four hundred pages of reading, plus a five-page paper, every week––truthfully, it was a bit of a cult.

That first semester, we all ended up around the same table, all somehow dressed in different shades of black, all pretending to appreciate the complexity of Homer.

We should’ve hated each other. But week after week, battling through those pages and papers, we couldn’t help becoming close. Before long, we began chatting after class; then studying together, editing each other’s papers; eventually, we even managed to have fun.

But our friendship always came back to these books. For our bond wasn’t merely a trauma bond, forged within the crucible of learning. No, what united us was more than the slog––it was the common passion that drove us in the first place. We wanted to be there, communing with these texts. And we wanted to be with people who wanted that too.

You see, these books are an occasion for learning, yes, for individualistic, intellectual self-improvement. But they are also an occasion for connection. To become conversant in their ideas is to be inducted into an ancient, international community, including some of the greatest minds that ever thought––and those around you, trying to grapple with them too.

That year, there were really two “great conversations” taking place––between us and the books, but also between ourselves. Each was immeasurably enriched by the other. We wouldn’t have gotten so much out of Homer if we hadn’t had each other to discuss him with; and we wouldn’t have gotten so much out of each other if we hadn’t had Homer to unite us.

By May, we could justly claim to appreciate Homer. And a few of us were experimenting with color in our wardrobe. But we also knew the journey had just begun.

We founded The Humanities Project for three reasons––to widen that community; to contribute to the sum total of learning in the world; and to keep reading these books with each other. 

We hope you’ll join our conversation soon.