Perspectives on Western Culture
Perspectives on Western Culture is a year-long, twelve credit course focused on the classic writings of Western culture, and guided by the fundamental question of the best way to live.
Students will grapple with some of the most important philosophical, religious, political, and ethical questions of human life: What is the purpose of human life? Does God exist? How do we distinguish good from evil? True from false? What do we owe others?聽As a way to contribute to the formation of a campus-wide intellectual community, all sections of Perspectives on Western Culture assign many of their texts from a Common Reading List of classic texts. In addition to these, a variety of other works and thinkers are found across the many sections of the course, reflecting the diverse scholarly interests and commitments of our instructors.聽Perspectives on Western Culture is a year-long course for students who want to read, think and talk about the big questions of life, and the most enduring perspectives that have been brought to bear on them.
- Homer, Iliad
- Hesiod, Theogony
- The Hebrew Bible (selections)
- Confucius, Analects
- Sophocles, Antigone or Oedipus the King
- Plato, Apology, Republic and other dialogues
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
- Epictetus, Handbook
- The New Testament (selections)
- Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
- Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina
- Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy
- Anselm, Proslogion
- Thomas Aquinas, selections from the Summa Theologiae
- Gertrude of Helfta, Herald of Divine Love
- Dante, selections from The Divine Comedy
- Julian of Norwich, Showings
- Machiavelli, The Prince
- Luther, 鈥淎 Treatise on Christian Liberty鈥澛
- Ignatius of Loyola, Autobiography
- Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
- Bartolom茅 de las Casas, History of the Indies
- Teresa of Avila, Autobiography
- Hobbes, Leviathan
- Descartes, Meditations
- Pascal, Pens茅es
- Locke, Letter Concerning Toleration
- Kant, Grounding for a Metaphysics of Morals
- Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Hegel, The Philosophy of History
- Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
- Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto
- Douglass, selected speeches and writings
- Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality
- Thoreau, Walden
- Freud, Civilization and its Discontents
- Beauvoir, The Second Sex
- Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
- King, 鈥淟etter from a Birmingham Jail鈥
- Francis, Laudato Si鈥
- Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree
- Mills, The Racial Contract