“A lifetime of working with people, learning how to think about great works of literature and art, has convinced me that there’s no way to learn to think well without undergoing a certain amount of struggle, hard work, and even humiliation before the word—humility and awe at the power of language we are trying to develop some small degree of mastery over, and which we only come to appreciate by wrestling with it, as Jacob did the Angel.”
— David Carl
Academic Director
David spent his career teaching at the Santa Fe campus of St. John’s College, joining the faculty there in 2000. He holds a BA in philosophy from Pomona College, an MA in philosophy from the Claremont Graduate School, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Davis. In addition to his teaching at St. John’s College, he helped found the St. John’s College Film Institute and has led visual arts and Great Books seminars for adults in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America. He has published several volumes of poetry as well as monographs on aesthetics; cinema as a liberal art; the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche; the poetics of William Blake, Wallace Stevens, Fernando Pessoa, and Gertude Stein; and the cinematic work of Sergio Leone and David Lynch. Contact David at dcarl.ici@protonmail.com.
Musician in Residence
Melissa is a scientist with a career that has spanned academia, industry, and government. Formerly a lecturer at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani and a field scientist for the petroleum industry in Iran, her denouement has been as a sub-contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy. Melissa studied the Arabic oud with Hamdi Başar in Ankara, Türkiye before transitioning to the lute and guitar. She primarily plays Renaissance and Baroque compositions with particular fondness for Dowland, Purcell, and Bach. She is working toward her Ph.D. in music in the UK with a focus on the role of sacred music in secular society. Melissa holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Otago (New Zealand), a postgraduate degree from St. John’s College (Santa Fe), and professional certificates from Hamad bin Khalifa University (Qatar) and University of London (UK). Contact Melissa at musician.ici@protonmail.com.
