Course Description

Program Description We offer students the opportunity to study the classic texts, or great books, of the Western world. Books that we normally read include Homer’s Odyssey, Plato’s Republic, Dante’s Divine Comedy and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. We believe that these books are important because they shed light on who, we, as individuals in Western society, are, but, more importantly, provide us with a lens through which to think about questions that continue to be of perennial importance to living a happy life. For example, in one of our classes, Love and Friendship, we read books that offer differing perspectives on the nature of love. In the end, we don’t prescribe to any single answer, but intend, instead, to give you the tools by which you might determine for yourself the nature of the theme in question. Students who are interested in Great Books often take the first-year Aquinas: Great Books Program, as it operates on similar principles. Our classes are team-taught by at least two different professors and sufficiently small (36 students maximum) to allow for discussion.

Intake