(upbeat music) - The Tanner Humanities Center invites the public to sample its great books course through short faculty talks over dinner and drinks.

Director Scott Black shares what makes this a unique experience.

Hi Scott, welcome back.

You always have great programs.

- Thanks Mary.

Thanks for having us.

- And now you have a great program on great books.

- Yeah, this'll be a really fun event.

So the event grows out of the College of Humanities at the U's course on great books, which is taught by a range of different faculty, each of whom chooses a book and gives a couple lectures to students.

Last year I started the evening with great books, really 'cause I wanted to take the class.

And so I asked all the faculty if they would come in and give just short 10 minute overviews, presentations of their books to the community.

And last year the event was one of our most popular events of the season.

So we're doing a larger, more expanded version of it at the Alta Club this year.

- And I love that you're doing it over dinner.

- Of course, because you have to eat.

So it's a tasting menu of great books over drinks and good food.

- I think, what a good idea you had here.

- Yeah.

- Okay, so I wanna know who some of the faculty are and what books they picked.

- Okay, so Jordan Johansen is a classics professor.

She will be talking about "The Odyssey."

So people who heard Daniel Mendelssohn a couple weeks ago will be able to continue those conversations.

Richard Price is an English professor talking about "Richard III."

A very timely play for our moment.

- Yes.

- Robert Carson, who's our Associate director at the Tanner Humanity Center, will be talking about Oscar Wilde's brilliant and witty novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray," Nadia Durbak is a history professor who'll talking about Carlo Ginzburg's "The Cheese and The Worms."

- Some great titles and a great evening.

So thank you so much first for thinking of doing it, and thanks for being here.

- Thanks very much for having me, Mary.

- And if you'd like to know more about that upcoming evening with the Tanner Humanities Center, An Evening with Great Books, it's October 16th at 6:00 PM at the Alta Club downtown in Salt Lake City.

You need tickets, so go to tanner.utah.edu.

tanner.utah.edu.

I'm Mary Dickson, thanks for watching "Contact."

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