All Program Dates
March 2, 2026 | 6:00pm - 7:30pm ET
March 9, 2026 | 6:00pm - 7:30pm ET
March 16, 2026 | 6:00pm - 7:30pm ET
March 23, 2026 | 6:00pm - 7:30pm ET
Registration
Tuition for this course is $220. Members receive exclusive discounts on our programs and courses. Not a member? Learn more.
Please check your spam folder for your email confirmation. If you have questions, please call (215) 732-1600 or email rsvp@rosenbach.org.
This program is for those 18 and older.
Registration opens for Delancey Society members on Friday, November 14, for Rosenbach members on Friday, November 21, and for the general public on Wednesday, November 26.
Description
Many of today’s readers know Stendhal’s classic novel The Red and the Black (1830) but few are familiar with his crowning literary achievement, The Charterhouse of Parma (1839). Balzac hailed the book as “the masterpiece of the Literature of Ideas;” Henry James and André Gide rated it as one the best novels of all time; and Tolstoy raided it to create indelible battle scenes in War and Peace. This course is designed for the “happy few” to whom Stendhal dedicated both novels: those who can recognize and appreciate the passionate and specific purpose that underlay his fictions—especially that of The Charterhouse of Parma. This book is more than a romance, more than a slice of history brought to life— it’s a detailed demonstration of how individuals of art and wit can preserve their agency in eras when it’s under attack from oppressive societal forces. In close reading, we will explore the lasting power of Stendhal’s vision and the legacy of The Charterhouse of Parma.
Sponsors
The Rosenbach’s Reading The Charterhouse of Parma program is sponsored by Lenni H. Steiner & Perry A. Lerner.
Instructor
Liesl Schillinger is a New York-based literary critic, a professor of journalism at The New School, and a translator of fiction from French, German and Italian. She was on the editorial staff of The New Yorker for nearly two decades and is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of France.