The Class of the Unclassifiable
(or, What is Menippean Satire?)
A course with Dr. Robert Scott Dupree
Four Tuesdays, March 3, 10, 17, & 24, 2026
6:00 PM–8:00 PM
Reception at 5:30 PM
Educator Members: Free
Non-Educator Members: $64
Non-members: $80
Includes reception food and beverages
Location: The MacMillan Institute | 518 East Wheatland Road | Duncanville, Texas 75116
The materials for the class will be available the first week of class. They are available as pdfs, or you can order a binder of printed materials. The cost of the binder is $10 and can be added to the cost of the registration. Email Erin Teague at eteague@macmillaninstitute.org to arrange for receipt of readings.
Join us for a class in which the eminently brilliant university professor and polymath of rare intellectual breadth—Dr. Robert Scott Dupree—will introduce us to the unclassifiable comedies that fall into the ragged range of “Menippean satire.”
Dante’s Paradiso
A course with Dr. Larry Allums
Four Tuesdays, April 7, 14, 21, and 28, 2026
6:00 PM–8:00 PM
Reception at 5:30 PM
Educator Members: Free
Non-Educator Members: $64
Non-members: $80
Location: The MacMillan Institute | 518 East Wheatland Road | Duncanville, Texas 75116
Syllabus and Schedule of Readings
April 7 Introduction: background material and xeroxes. Cantos 1-3 of the Paradiso
April 14 Paradiso 4-13
April 21 Paradiso 14-23
April 28 Paradiso 24-33
In this final canticle of the Divine Comedy, Dante completes his journey as pilgrim and poet upward toward God. The territory Beatrice guides him through is the mundus imaginalis, the world of the imagination, the way of Affirmation through Images. Dante understands creation itself as the work of the Divine Imagination. All creation reflects the Will of God, whose power and motivation reside in His love, Amor. Will we, Dante’s fellow pilgrims, see God in the last canto?
Text: Dr. Allums will be using Allen Mandelbaum’s translation in the Bantam Classics series (but other translations will do).
Dante’s Purgatorio: The Common Journey
A course with Dr. Larry Allums
Four Mondays, January 12, 19, 26, and February 2, 2026
6:00 PM–8:00 PM
Reception at 5:30 PM
Educator Members: Free
Non-Educator Members: $64
Non-members: $80
Location: The MacMillan Institute | 518 East Wheatland Road | Duncanville, Texas 75116
Syllabus
January 12 Introduction: recapitulation of the Inferno. The idea and tradition of Purgatory in Western culture. Cantos 1-3 of the Purgatorio.
January 19 Purgatorio 4-13
January 26 Purgatorio 14-23
February 2 Purgatorio 24-33
In the three parts of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Purgatorio is unique in being “betwixt and between”: unlike Inferno and Paradiso, where there is motion but no movement, in Purgatorio there are both, as Dante the Pilgrim climbs the sacred mountain. Its truths are meant for us the living in our drama of the flesh: Inferno is the realm to be avoided; Paradise the realm to be achieved. Purgatory is the realm in which we learn how to do both.
Text: Any translation of the Purgatorio will do. I will be using Allen Mandelbaum’s translation in the Bantam Classics Series, ISBN 978-0-553-21344-7.