Booking and details
RegisterSave money on multiple courses Buy a course package
Dates Wed, Oct 1 & Wed, Oct 8, 2025
Venue Folger Shakespeare Library
Tickets $150 / $135 for members
Duration 5:30pm - 7pm
Feed your curiosity, grow your mind, and enjoy smart conversation with the Humanities Lab, a two-session course where you can talk with scholars, get up close with the Folger collection, and see a play. It’s fun, and there’s no homework!
Want to learn more about Julius Caesar and why people are still talking about this play 400 years after it was first performed (and more than 2,000 years after the infamous assassination)? If you love history, literature, and drama, this course is for you.
Everyone’s welcome, whether you’re completely new to Shakespeare or a total nerd. And the time commitment is minimal: two Wednesday evenings, with a week in between for all that clever thinking to properly marinate.
For our October course, Folger curators will share items from our world-famous Shakespeare collection to illuminate Julius Caesar’s themes, characters, and varying interpretations over time. Our program leaders will even get you up on your feet and speaking lines from the play. (No acting experience necessary, we promise!)
Your course fee includes a ticket to go see Folger Theatre’s production of Julius X, which provides the perfect opportunity for reflecting on the ongoing resonance of Julius Caesar. In Julius X, playwright Al Letson blends Shakespeare’s tragedy with the story of Civil Rights leader Malcolm X.
We’re keeping the class small, so space is limited – register today!
Please note: These classes are for adults. Participants should be at least 18 years old.
Guest scholar
Tanya Pollard
Tanya Pollard is Professor of English at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She has written and edited 8 books and collections, most recently the Arden Edition of Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist (Bloomsbury, 2023), Reader in Tragedy: An Anthology of Classical Criticism to Contemporary Theory, co-edited with Marcus Nevitt (Bloomsbury, 2019), and Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages (Oxford, 2017), which won the 2018 Roland H. Bainton Literature Book Prize for best book in English on Renaissance literature. She has received awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEH Public Scholars Fellowship, a Whiting Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching, an NEH Research Fellowship, and a Rhodes Scholarship. She is Chair of the Council of Scholars at Theater for a New Audience, and works with other New York theater companies, including the Red Bull, the Public, and the Roundabout.
About the Humanities Lab
We are offering two more Humanities Lab courses in March and June. Get details about the course topics and take advantage of our discounted three-course package.