The Right Time: On Freedom

Course Time

10:30–12:00

Room

Online

Audience

Adults

Teacher

Maya Kucherskaya

Course Title

The Right Time: On Freedom

Course Description

This year, our book club is taking on a new name:

The Right Time.

It is the right time to finally read those long, essential books that have been waiting on your shelf. And to talk about them in good company.

For the year, we will explore the theme of freedom in life and in art. What does it mean to be free? Where are the boundaries of freedom? Can a person remain free within an unfree world?

Each novel in our reading list offers a distinct perspective on this question: fear and resistance, choice and refusal, love and solitude, creativity and constraint, and the body and language.

But we will not stop discussing ideas. We’ll also pay close attention to how they’re expressed in the text, through character systems, narrative structure, stylistic devices, and symbolic patterns.

Each session will be devoted to close reading and thoughtful discussion:

  • How is the question of freedom refracted through the novel’s plot, form, and language?
  • How is conflict constructed? Why are particular characters introduced? How do symbols work?
  • What historical and cultural contexts shape the story?

This attention to literary form will help us understand freedom not as an abstract ideal, but as something shaped by concrete artistic choices.

Reading List

  • Søren Kierkegaard — The Concept of Anxiety
  • Vladimir Nabokov — Invitation to a Beheading
  • Albert Camus — The Plague
  • Thomas Mann — Doctor Faustus
  • John Williams — Stoner
  • M. Coetzee — Life and Times of Michael K.
  • Toni Morrison — Beloved
  • S. Byatt — Possession
  • Kazuo Ishiguro — An Artist of the Floating World
  • Your choice (selected by the group at the final session)

Format

We meet once a month, on Saturdays, from January through June, in an online format during the Spring 2026 semester. Each session begins with a brief introduction to the author and their context, followed by an in-depth group discussion.

Bonus

  • Extra reading materials
  • Links to films and articles
  • Ongoing conversation in a shared chat space

Registration Information

When signing up, please select “Parent” as your status. The next step is to enroll in Maya’s course. Once you have enrolled, the website will generate an invoice, which you can pay via PayPal.

For all organizational questions, please get in touch with Alina Kostrichenko: