the Books

While not an exhaustive list, these works are required in their respective Great Books (GBK) courses.

GBK 101: Among Gods and Heroes

HOMER: The Iliad and The Odyssey
AESCHYLUS: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides
SOPHOCLES: Oedipus the King and Antigone or Oedipus at Colonus
THUCYDIDES: History of the Peloponnesian War (selections)
PLATO: Euthyphro and Apology

GBK 202: Classical Cultures

PLATO: The Republic and Meno
ARISTOTLE: Nicomachean Ethics (selections)
EUCLID: The Elements (selections)
VIRGIL: The Aeneid

GBK 203: The Hebrew and Christian Traditions

HEBREW BIBLE: Genesis 1-11, Exodus 1-24, Jeremiah 1-33, Isaiah 40-55 and Job
NEW TESTAMENT: Two Gospels, Galatians, and Romans
AUGUSTINE: Confessions (selections)
AQUINAS: Summa Theologica (selections)

GBK 304: Order and Ingenuity

DANTE: The Divine Comedy (selections)
CHAUCER: The Canterbury Tales (selections)
MACHIAVELLI: The Prince
CERVANTES: Don Quixote (selections)
LUTHER or CALVIN: Selections
GALILEO: “The Two Chief World Systems” (selections)
MONTAIGNE: Essays (selections)

GBK 305: The Modern Worldview

SHAKESPEARE: Hamlet and King Lear
BACON: The New Organon (selections)
DESCARTES: Discourse on Method
PASCAL: Pensees (selections)
HOBBES: Leviathan (selections)
NEWTON: Principia (selections)
LOCKE: Second Treatise of Government
HUME: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (selections)
MILTON: Paradise Lost

GBK 306: Reason and Revolution

ROUSSEAU: The Social Contract
GOETHE: Faust
SMITH: Wealth of Nations (selections)
JEFFERSON: “Declaration of Independence”
HAMILTON: The Federalist Papers (selections)
ROMANTIC POETS: Selections
KANT: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (selections)
TOCQUEVILLE: Democracy in America (selections)
MARX and ENGELS: The Communist Manifesto
AUSTEN: Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion
EMERSON: Essays: First Series or THOREAU: Walden
DARWIN: The Origin of Species (selections)

GBK 407: The Age of Ambivalence

DOSTOEVSKY: The Brothers Karamazov
PEIRCE: “How to Make Our Ideas Clear”
MENDEL: “Experiments in Plant Hybridizations”
FREUD: Civilization and its Discontents (or another selection)
WEBER: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
NIETZSCHE: Twilight of the Idols (or another selection)
DU BOIS: The Souls of Black Folk

GBK 495: Special Topics (Subtitle)

The special topics course is not being offered this academic year.