The primary reading for this seminar will be from Plato's dialogue, The Symposium. This is a relatively short work, but it is one that you will find is quite dense and rich, so you will likely need to go back over what you're reading multiple times. You may want to take notes as you are working through the text's sections.

As your instructor for the class, I will be generally referencing the Jowett translation (which will be provided free here in pdf form), as well as the Joyce translation that can be found in Plato’s Collected Dialogues (Hamilton and Cairns, eds.), and the Nehamas and Woodruff translation that can be found in Plato’s Complete Works (Cooper, ed.) I will also be referencing and explaining the original Greek text as well. You are free to read and consult whatever translations you would like.

You likely will want to read through the Symposium as a whole before we meet for our 1-day seminar. That might give you some sense of where Plato is going with the work as a whole. You'll also notice how the different sections, and the arguments, distinctions, and ideas worked out in them, intersect with and build upon each other