Reading Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms

Register Now for Reading Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms

Price: $60
Date: Wednesdays, June 18, July 2 - 23
Time: 9:00 a.m.
Location: SOBA Basement; SB-71
Instructor: Mark Cirino, PhD

We will read Ernest Hemingway’s great war novel, A Farewell to Arms (1929), over the course of five classes. We will read it for the power of the prose, the profundity of its ideas, its investigation into character, its historical scope, and its meditation about love. We will also discuss how this novel demonstrates Hemingway’s writing style and his techniques for making this narrative so timeless. It is also likely that we might extend our discussion to consider how artists transmute their personal lives into their work. We will also observe the contemporary relevance of this 96-year-old novel, and how Hemingway’s notions about war and government and leadership might apply to our current moment.

Knowledge of Hemingway (or World War I or American literature) is completely unnecessary. If you are curious, that will be sufficient. Even slow readers should not feel intimidated: by reading this novel over five weeks, there will be an average reading load of only fifty pages per week. I will also provide reading questions in advance of each class to focus your reading and our class discussion.

Although any edition of A Farewell to Arms is acceptable, Dr. Cirino recommends the inexpensive paperback to be published by the Norton Library in June 2025 (which he edited, introduced, and annotated). [ISBN: 978-1-324-05942-4]

Materials/readings: A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway (Norton Library)

Dr. Mark Cirino received his PhD at the Graduate Center-CUNY. Of his eight books about American literature as writer or editor, his most recent is One True Sentence: Writers & Readers on Hemingway’s Art (2022), with Michael Von Cannon. He serves as the General Editor for Kent State University Press's “Reading Hemingway” series, for which he wrote the volume on Across the River and into the Trees (2016) and co-edited Reading Winner Take Nothing (2021) with former UE student Susan Vandagriff. He has edited an edition of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (Norton, forthcoming in May 2025), which he hopes to develop into his next CLUE offering. Dr. Cirino also hosts the popular Hemingway Society-sponsored podcast, One True Podcast.

Summer Solstice Creative Writing Workshop

Register Now for Summer Solstice Creative Writing Workshop

Price: $60
Time: 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.
Location: Room 203, University Library
Instructor: Julia Gregg

Do you have a creative writing project you’d like to begin—or maybe even finish?

For five Wednesdays, starting the week of the Summer Solstice, we will shape our stories into non-fiction, fiction, or poetry—your choice. You may want to write a family history, a children’s story, short story, or other collection tailored to your interest.

Don’t worry if you have no idea how to begin or complete a project that others might want to read. That will be our journey together.

Any materials or reading you need for background or inspiration will be provided. You need only a paper writing tablet or laptop for creating.

There will be special break-out sessions at UE’s Writing Center (Clifford Library, Room 253) on June 19 and 20 for enrichment, but these are optional.

Ms. Julia Gregg is a writer and instructor for Freshman Seminar students at the University of Evansville. She has led writing workshops for StoryCorps in Evansville, directed the Summer Soulstice Writers Series, and presented at Virginia Festival of the Book and the Alabama Book Festival.

Her published works include Wild Sweet Orange Ride, published by Vineyard Stories, and Send Me a Light, published by Finishing Line Press. She holds a BS from Auburn University, an MS from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, and an MFA from Murray State University.