TOC Sets Time and Place for 2003 Summer Seminar

Mark your calendar! The Objectivist Center will hold its fourteenth annual summer seminar at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts, from Saturday June 28 to Saturday July 5, 2003. Outstanding resources and a convenient location just ten miles west of Boston make Bentley a splendid destination for this year's event.

Bentley's close proximity to Boston means easy access to a world-famous tourist destination. For the culturally minded, there are attractions such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Symphony Hall, and the Shubert Theater. Faneuil Hall, the Old North Church, and the USS Constitution top the area's long list of historical sites. World-class shopping awaits in the boutiques of Newbury Street, Copley Plaza, and the Prudential Center. Come mealtime, nearly every taste can be indulged superbly, whether at the seafood houses of Long Wharf, the trattorias of the North End, or the gardens of Chinatown.

Those with children will be pleasantly surprised by the amount of kid-friendly recreational activities in the city and surrounding areas. Summertime offers special historic walking tours for little feet. The Boston Commons and Public Gardens, both in the heart of the city, provide picnicking, kite-flying, and exciting playgrounds. Young tax protesters may enjoy a trip to the Boston Tea Party Ship and Museum, and the Franklin Park Zoo with its African tropical rainforest is only minutes away.

Currently, the center's staff is working out the details of this year's seminar schedule. As always, the foundation will be a strong program of lectures, courses, and workshops covering a wide range of topics including philosophy, politics and culture, arts, and applications of Objectivism. "The conference is the perfect way to refresh your intellect in a relaxing atmosphere with rational people," said James Henderson, who attended last year's seminar. And Michael Huemer averred, "The seminar boasts constant intellectual discussion about almost any topic you might be interested in, at all hours of the day."

But the lecture program is only one aspect of the seminar. Also important ingredients in the success of the seminar are the people who attend and the social environment they create. The seminar now attracts top students and scholars, successful professionals, leaders of local Objectivist organizations, and political activists-people from all walks of life who have come together to form a new and vibrant community. To make it easy for people to get to know each other, the center hosts a reception for first-time attendees and an opening-day barbecue. Every evening, the common room is abuzz with conversation and debate. And the conference ends with a gala banquet that includes dinner and dancing. As Heather Demarest put it: "Yet again, the week of the summer seminar was the best of the entire year. I love the concentration of intellectual horsepower. I never met a group with such a terrific sense of life as I did this week. The seminar gives me fuel to 'go back' to the rest of the world."

It's virtually impossible not to have a great time at TOC's summer seminar—so get swept up in the excitement and let the spirit of Boston enthrall you. Join TOC at its fourteenth annual summer seminar.

A brochure with full information about the seminar will be mailed in late January and posted on TOC's Web site.