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Can memory alone ground selfhood?

How does neuroscience respond to Aristotle?

This course follows Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man”, using the College’s own First Folio, to explore how a person develops across a lifetime. Pupils read Plato on love, Aristotle on habit, and Aquinas on friendship, and pair these with modern reflections from John Donne, Edith Hall and neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore.

Classic thought experiments, such as the Ship of Theseus or Parfit’s teletransporter, help pupils test whether identity can stay the same through change. The course also draws on visual culture through study of Chapel sculpture, Attic vases, the Trusty Servant and archival ‘entrances’ into the College. Scientific perspectives on embryo development and neuroplasticity enrich discussions of desire, dependence, freedom, honour, and friendship.

Some example essay titles (500–1000 words):

‘How do analogies (e.g. marble/sculpture) illuminate identity?’

‘Is a friend really another self?’

‘When and why do we resist learning?’

Core text: Plato. The Symposium. Translated and introdu­ced by Christopher Gill, Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, 2003. ISBN 978-0-14-044927-3.

Does scale in memorial architecture dignify conflict or distort it?

Should remembrance comfort or disturb?

This course examines how societies represent conflict through architecture, sculpture, and literature, using the memorials of the First World War as a starting point. They compare the serene heroism of Derwent Wood’s Machine Gun Corps Memorial with the raw grief of Jagger’s Royal Artillery Memorial, and contrast Lutyens’ stark Cenotaph with Winchester’s own War Cloister.

These monuments are explored alongside WW1 poetry, from Brooke’s idealism to Owen’s bitterness, to show how different eras have understood sacrifice, honour and trauma. From there, pupils move beyond the Western Front to works such as Ken Burns’ Vietnam, Douglas Gillespie’s memoir, the equestrian statue of Erasmo da Narni, Blenheim Palace, and other monuments such as the Wellington Arch, and the Arc de Triomphe, asking how each tries to make meaning out of violence and loss.

Some sample essay titles (500–1000 words):

‘Is a memorial ever morally neutral?’

‘How do architecture and poetry differently shape a nation’s memory of conflict?’

‘Can architecture ever escape the politics of the era that built it?’

Core text: Stallworthy, Jon (ed.). The New Oxford Book of War Poetry (Oxford Books of Prose & Verse). 2nd edn., Oxford University Press, 2014. ISBN 978-0-19-870447-8.

Why do some texts survive while others vanish?

Why do totalitarian regimes care about archives?

This course follows the long, fragile story of how information is made, stored, lost, and recovered. Guided by Richard Ovenden’s Burning the Books, pupils study turning points such as the shift from scroll to codex, the losses at Alexandria and Herculaneum, the monastic “citadel libraries” that preserved learning, and masterpieces like the Lindisfarne Gospels and Codex Amiatinus.

Visits to the College’s Eccles Room library, the Muniment Room, and archives show how texts physically survive. Literary works such as Borges’ “Library of Babel”, M. R. James’s ghost stories, and Old English poetry illuminate the imaginative life of libraries and the power they can exert. Pupils also explore censorship, heresy, and self-censorship, from the Index of Prohibited Books to Wycliffite translations, before debating modern threats such as digitisation, misinformation, and AI’s “infinite library”.

Some example essay titles (500–1000 words):

‘Why is the transmission of culture so fragile?’

‘Is book-burning more concerned for the past, the present or the future?’

‘How does Borges help us think about the future of the library?’

Core text: Ovenden, Richard. Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (and in the UK: John Murray), 2020. ISBN 978-1-529-37877-1

This course uses Vermeer’s palette as a lens through which to examine the symbolic potential and economic value of pigment. The journey follows ultramarine from the lapis mines of Afghanistan, across Europe, and ultimately into the luminous blues of Girl with a Pearl Earring. It then turns to the rediscovery of lead-tin yellow, a pigment long lost to history, but revealed again through modern analysis of Dutch paintings.

Drawing on resources from the Winchester College collections, the course situates Vermeer’s colour choices within a broader narrative of scientific discovery, global trade, cultural symbolism, and artistic technique. Pupils will investigate the collections, engage in art writing, and visit the art studios to apply their understanding of colour theory in their own still life painting.