Eclipse: Reading the Classics in Dark Times

By Ariela Freedman

During a time of crisis and polarization, can great literature help us find our way?

In October 2023, Ariela Freedman was teaching at a university when the shock and grief of the war in Gaza gave way to outrage, division, and hate. As her campus fractured around her, Freedman turned to books, art, and friendship to try to make sense of a complicated world.

From the ancient world of Virgil's Aeneid to James Joyce's Ulysses, from the university classroom to the Venice Biennale and the streets of Jerusalem, Freedman searches for ways of seeing beyond the certainties of the moment, using books as a compass through uncharted territory. What can literature teach us when history seems to be repeating itself? Can art help make room for contradiction? And how do we hold on to empathy when rage threatens to overwhelm us?

Provocative, deeply personal, and ultimately hopeful, this is a book about finding a way through the dark, and back to one another.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1997701960
• ISBN13: 9781997701965
• Release Date: March 2027
• Publisher: Sutherland House
• Length: 164 Pages
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 6.0"