Oxford, England Summer Studies 2010

Seminars on lyric poetry and lectures on C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, 

English history and architecture

Each year the College of St. Thomas More in Fort Worth, Texas invites students, associates, friends of the College, and entering freshman to travel to England to participate in seminars, lectures, and tours given by Tutors of the College in the unique environment of the university city of Oxford. The program gives participants an opportunity to immerse themselves in this historic place and introduces them to the enduring tradition of English-speaking arts and letters begun in Oxford in the twelfth century.

The group will stay at St. Benet’s Hall, a Permanent Private Hall of the University of Oxford located in the center of Oxford on the beautiful, tree-lined street of St. Giles.

Participants take an intensive three-credit course in Lyric Poetry, meeting in the mornings, and attend occasional lectures on important places, dates, and people from English history. Some afternoons are reserved for tours and excursions, with day-trips to London and Canterbury. The cost of the program for students and prospective students is $1350, for non-students, $2350, and includes course tuition, room accommodations, and daily breakfast. Participants are responsible for airfare, bus and train fares, lunch and dinner, and museum fees.

The deadline for registration is June 1. Space is limited. Register now.

For more information or to register for the program, please call Stephen Shivone in the College office at 817-923-8459 or write to him at sshivone@cstm.edu.

Audit or earn three-hours of college credit. Some scholarships available.

Oxford Summer Studies / July 12-25, 2010
817-923-8459
sshivone@cstm.edu
www.cstm.edu

Impunity. With or Without?

 "That capering buffoon shall not escape with impunity

though he were favoured by the whole human race . . . " 

Don Quixote

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I have lived most of my adult life wondering if I'll ever get to use the word notwithstanding in daily conversation. Just once I would like to say, "that notwithstanding, I think . . ."

There is another word I admire from a distance and that is the word impunity.

It's best understood breaking up the syllables and their Latin origins. Im is a Latin prefix denoting the absence of and the syllable punity from the Latin punire meaning to punish. So, impunity means the absence of consequences or punishment.

Even in the appropriate setting, when someone or something is wrongly going unpunished, I always want to say "without impunity," instead of  the correct "with impunity." Probably, because it would be correct to say "without punishment."  

There may be a proper use of the phrase without impunity but I am certain I will never understand the proper use of this double negative.  There are things I just can't wrap my mind around. Like the space/time continuum in the movie Back to the Future when they go back in time and then come forward to the present and the person that went back into the past is watching the person in the present.

Young Tomato Plants with Patron

 

This is a poor excuse for a horticultural picture, especially compared to a couple other blogs I visit, but I like my tomato plants, so here you go. The good Saint Francis asked if I would crop him out of the photo but I didn't.