St. John’s College Summer Academy
About Summer Academy
St. John’s Summer Academy is a college summer program for high school students (ages 15 to 18), modeled after St. John’s discussion-based, interdisciplinary method of teaching great books. A genuine introduction to college life, Summer Academy helps students hone their reading, critical thinking, and discussion skills in classes led by St. John’s faculty. This summer, we are offering week-long programs on our campuses in Annapolis, Maryland, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and online programs from your own home. Summer Academy is perfect for high school students who want to immerse themselves in books, ideas, and a community that loves learning as much as you do. And it is fun!
Applications for Summer Academy 2025 will be open, early November! Join our mailing list for future sessions!
Summer Academy Sessions 2025
Sessions are hosted on both St. John’s campus locations, in Annapolis, MD and Santa Fe, NM, and online. Scroll through the different summer academy sessions happening next June and July, 2025.
Santa Fe
Technology and Transcendence
Sunday, July 6 – Friday, July 11, 2025: Scientific Ambition and the Human Condition- Should there be limits to the pursuit of technology? In the Greek myth, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to human beings. In Aeschylus’ classic, it is a blessing and a curse for us, and Prometheus is punished for his transgression. This myth is archetypal for the deepest questions that surround our ambivalent experience of technology.
American Experiment
Sunday, July 13 – Friday, July 18, 2025: In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln posed a question: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” What kind of test, what kind of experiment, does American democracy represent?
Shakespearean Drama and Poetry
Sunday, July 20 – Friday, July 25, 2025: An exploration of the human soul and its condition through readings in tragedy, comedy, and the short poem. The action of both Oedipus Rex and Macbeth is propelled by prophecies, which Oedipus attempts to avoid and Macbeth attempts to fulfill, both becoming kings in the process, each with problems at home, the former caught up in a fateful situation from which there is no good way out, the latter in a situation seemingly brought about by a series of free and culpable choices.
Annapolis
A Week with Pascal
Sunday, June 22 – Friday, June 27, 2025
Stoics
Sunday, June 29 – Friday, July 4, 2025
Nature and Law
Sunday, July 6 – Friday, July 11, 2025
Summer Academy Weekends
Thinking about enrolling in two or three consecutive sessions of Summer Academy? Students may spend the weekend on either campus in between two consecutive Summer Academy weeks. Most students spend this time preparing for the upcoming week of classes and enjoying the down time in between sessions. More details regarding the weekend experience can be found within the student registration forms for Summer Academy.
Online Sessions 2025
Sessions will be hosted in June, 2025. Online sessions will cover some of the following books and selections:
- Homer’s, The Odyssey
- Shakespearean plays: Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra
- Selections by James Baldwin
- Charles Darwin’s “The Voyage of the Beagle”
What is the Great Books Reading Program?
We take great pride in our great books curriculum, which was adopted in 1937. The tradition of all students reading fundamental texts of Western civilization is the foundation of our education. Our Great Books Reading List includes classic works by Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Cervantes and more.
Our goal with the Summer Academy is to introduce high school students to the world of critical thinking and discussion while reading great books in subjects like philosophy, literature, psychology, history, religion, economics, science, astronomy, language, and more.
Spend a week of your summer among fellow lovers of intellectual inquiry examining great works, either in Santa Fe or online! Our seminar offerings are lively, in-depth, and highly participatory conversations on enduring works that span fiction and nonfiction, math and science, poetry and philosophy, as well as visual, cinematic, and performing arts.