Great Books Program Readings
Courses 3,000 Years in the Making
“To read is an act of creation in which no one can do our work for us.” —Proust
| Great Books of the Ancient Greeks Weekly Readings | |
|---|---|
| Great Books of the Ancient Greeks I First Semester | Great Books of the Ancient Greeks II Second Semester |
| Weekly Readings | Weekly Readings |
| Before the first class read the article The Great Conversation; Theogony by Hesiod; and Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus (we will send you links to these). |
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| Week 1 Orientation: Intro to the Great Books Theogony - Hesiod Prometheus Bound -Aeschylus | Week 17 Peloponnesian War* -Thucydides |
| Week 2 The Iliad - Homer | Week 18 Peloponnesian War* -Thucydides |
| Week 3 The Iliad - Homer | Week 19 Fragments* - Presocratic Philosophers |
| Week 4 The Odyssey - Homer | Week 20 Ion, Meno - Plato |
| Week 5 The Odyssey - Homer | Week 21 Gorgias - Plato |
| Week 6 Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides - Aeschylus | Week 22 Republic* - Plato |
| Week 7 Trojan Women, Alcestis - Euripedes | Week 23 Republic* - Plato |
| Week 8 Aesop’s Fables* -Aesop | Week 24 Symposium - Plato |
| Week 9 Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus -Sophocles | Week 25 Apology, Euthyphro - Plato |
| Week 10 Antigone - Sophocles, Hippolytus - Euripides | Week 26 Crito, Phaedo - Plato |
| Week 11 Histories* - Herodotus | Week 27 Poetics, On the Heavens*, On the Soul* - Aristotle |
| Week 12 Histories* - Herodotus, Lycurgus, Solon - Plutarch | Week 28 Ethics*, Metaphysics* -Aristotle |
| Week 13 Thanksgiving week, no classes | Week 29 Spring Break – April 4-12 |
| Week 14 Lycurgus, Solon - Plutarch, Pericles, Alcibiades -Plutarch | Week 30 Aristotle - selections |
| Week 15 Pericles, Alcibiades -Plutarch | Week 31 Aristides, Alexander -Plutarch |
| Week 16 Oral Exams | Week 32 The Oath, On Ancient Medicine, On Airs, Waters, Places - Hippocrates |
| Week 33 Elements*, Euclid |
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| Week 34 Oral Exams |
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| *Selections | |
| Great Books of the Ancient Romans Weekly Readings | |
|---|---|
| Great Books of the Ancient Romans First Semester | Great Books of the Ancient Romans to the Early Middle Ages Second Semester |
| Weekly Readings | Weekly Readings |
| Week 1 Aeneid - Virgil | Week 17 New Testament; St. Matthew |
| Week 2 Aeneid - Virgil | Week 18 New Testament, St. John |
| Week 3 Livy* | Week 19 New Testament; Acts of the Apostles |
| Week 4 Plutarch: Romulus, Numa Pomulus, Coriolanus, Caesar | Week 20 Confessions - Augustine |
| Week 5 Conquest of Gaul -Caesar | Week 21 Confessions - Augustine |
| Week 6 Plutarch: Brutus, Cicero | Week 22 Consolation of Philosophy - Boethius |
| Week 7 On Friendship, On Duties – Cicero | Week 23 City of God* - St.Augustine |
| Week 8 Annals* - Tacitus | Week 24 City of God* - St.Augustine |
| Week 9 On the Nature of Things* - Lucretius | Week 25 Qu’ran* - Muhammed |
| Week 10 Discourses*- Epictitus Meditations* - Marcus Aurelius | Week 26 History of the English People - Bede |
| Week 11 Plutarch: Cato the Younger, Antony | Week 27 Sir Galahad - Tennyson Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |
| Week 12 On the Natural Faculties - Galen | Week 28 Imitation of Christ -Kempis |
| Week 13 Thanksgiving week, no classes | Week 29 Spring Break – April 4-12 |
| Week 14 Enneads* - Plotinus | Week 30 Guide for the Perplexed - Maimonides |
| Week 15 Old Testament -Genesis, Job | Week 31 The Divine Comedy- Dante |
| Week 16 Oral Exams | Week 32 The Divine Comedy- Dante |
| Week 33 The Divine Comedy- Dante |
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| Week 34 Oral Exams |
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| *Selections |
| Great Books of the Middle Ages Weekly Readings | |
|---|---|
| Great Books of the High Middle Ages to the Renaissance First Semester | Great Books of the Renaissance to the Enlightenment Second Semester |
| Weekly Readings | Weekly Readings |
| Week 1 Canterbury Tales -Chaucer | Week 17 A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare |
| Week 2 Canterbury Tales -Chaucer | Week 18 The Taming of the Shrew - Shakespeare |
| Week 3 Aquinas* | Week 19 Coriolanus - Shakespeare |
| Week 4 Aquinas* | Week 20 Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila |
| Week 5 Aquinas* | Week 21 Julius Caesar - Shakespeare |
| Week 6 Aquinas* | Week 22 Othello - Shakespeare |
| Week 7 Aquinas* | Week 23 Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare |
| Week 8 The Prince -Machiavelli | Week 24 Henry V - Shakespeare |
| Week 9 Utopia - Sir Thomas More | Week 25 Rules for the Direction of the Mind*, Discourse on Method*, Meditations - Descartes |
| Week 10 Praise of Folly- Erasmus | Week 26 The New Atlantis and Novum Organum* - Bacon |
| Week 11 On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres*- Copernicus | Week 27 Leviathan* - Hobbes |
| Week 12 Institutes of the Christian Religion* - Calvin | Week 28 Spring Break - (April 15 - 19) |
| Week 13 Essays* - Montaigne | Week 29 Paradise Lost - Milton |
| Week 14 Don Quixote* - Ceravantes | Week 30 Paradise Lost - Milton |
| Week 15 Oral Exams - (Dec. 12 - 23) | Week 31 Pensees* - Pascal |
| Week 16 Don Quixote* - Cervantes | Week 32 Romeo & Juliet - Shakespeare |
| *Selections |
| Great Books of the Moderns Weekly Readings | |
|---|---|
| Great Books of the Enlightenment to the Modern Era First Semester | Great Books of the Modern Era Second Semester |
| Weekly Readings | Weekly Readings |
| Week 1 Hamlet - Shakespeare | Week 17 Emma - Jane Austen |
| Week 2 MacBeth - Shakespeare | Week 18 Critique of Pure Reason*; Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals* Immanuel Kant |
| Week 3 King Lear - Shakespeare | Week 19 Faust - Goethe |
| Week 4 Tartuffe - Moliere Phaedra, Racine | Week 20 Philosophy of Right* The Philosophy of History* -Georg Hegel |
| Week 5 The Tempest - Shakespeare | Week 21 War and Peace* - Tolstoy |
| Week 6 Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift | Week 22 War and Peace* - Tolstoy |
| Week 7 Essay Concerning Human Knowledge* Second Essay on Civil Government* Letter on Toleration* -John Locke | Week 23 The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Mikailovich Dostoevsky |
| Week 8 Essay Concerning Human Knowledge* Second Essay on Civil Government* Letter on Toleration* -John Locke | Week 24 The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Mikailovich Dostoevsky |
| Week 9 Life of Samuel Johnson - Boswell | Week 25 Wealth of Nations* - Adam Smith Communist Manifesto - Marx, Engels |
| Week 10 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding* Treatise of Human Nature* Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion* - David Hume | Week 26 1st & 2nd Inaugural Addresses Gettysburg Address Emancipation Proclamation - Abraham Lincoln |
| Week 11 The Social Contract* On the Origin of Inequality* - Jean-Jacques Rousseau | Week 27 Representative Government - Mills; Civil Disobedience- Henry David Thoreau |
| Week 12 U.S. Declaration of Independence Articles of Confederation | Week 28 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain |
| Week 13 Thanksgiving week, no classes | Week 29 Spring Break – April 15-19 |
| Week 14 The Federalist Papers*; – The Constitution; Q 105, Art. 1 - Aquinas | Week 30 The Origin of Species* -Charles Darwin |
| Week 15 Democracy in America*, - De Tocqueville | Week 31 1984, George Orwell |
| Week 16 Oral Exams (December 12 - 13) | Week 32 Relativity: The Special and General Theory - Einstein |
| Week 33 My Antonia - Willa Cather |
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| *Selections |