Twelve Videos on Ursula K. Leguin’s The Farthest Shore

free video lectures exploring themes, plot, characters and the narrative world of Leguin’s third Earthsea novel

Fall classes are just coming to a close. This semester, one class I’ve been teaching at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design is called “Philosophy and Fantasy: Ursula K Leguin’s Earthsea”. The textbook we have been using is the recently published omnibus volume that gathers all the books and stories of Earthsea along with Charles Vess’ illustrations and Leguin’s own reflections and reminiscences.

Since it’s an online class, I’ve been developing an entire sequence of relatively short (10–20 minutes long) lecture videos for my students. These examine in this case the events, characters, relationships, plot points, themes, peoples , and the imaginary geography of Earthsea. I’ve also been releasing them to the general public who might have some interest in the Earthsea novels and stories.

The Farthest Shore was originally intended to be the last of the Earthsea novels, the culminating story in a trilogy. So it represents an ending of sorts, bringing matters to a close, with a confrontation between powerful mages, interactions between dragons and humans, and closing a breach between the realms of life and death. It would become the third of four books of Earthsea when Tehanu came out nearly twenty years later, continuing the stories of Ged, Tenar, Ogion, and Lebannen, and introducing a number of other characters and problems as well.

Earlier, I assembled the ten videos covering A Wizard Of Earthsea, and the eleven devoted to The Tombs of Atuan. Here is the full set of twelve lecture videos, offered for anyone interested in continuing on with the narrative, reading The Farthest Shore. If you haven’t read the book, and just want to watch the videos, you can do that as well — but I hope the videos will entice you into reading the novel. I hope that you enjoy them!

• Arren’s Commitment to the Archmage
• Roke’s Masters and the Crisis
• Despair in Hort Town & Lorbanery
• The Mage Cob and the Pelnish Lore
• Arren’s Confusion, Anger, & Fear
• Ged On Action, Choice And Balance
• The Children Of The Open Sea
• The Dragon Orm Embar
• The Dragons of The Run
• Within The Dry Land of Death
• Closing The Hole In Existence
• Ged, Lebannen, and Kalessin

If you’re a subscriber to my YouTube channel, or you follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, you’ll see the next sets of videos on the later books, Tales From Earthsea and The Other Wind as I release them.

If you’d like to see the sets of videos on the other four books released so far, here they are.

I’m Gregory B. Sadler, the president of ReasonIO, the editor of Stoicism Today, a speaker, writer, and a producer of highly popular YouTube videos on classic and contemporary philosophy. I teach at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and offer classes to the wider public in my Study With Sadler online academy. I also produce the Sadler’s Lectures podcast and co-host the Wisdom for Life radio show