the Idea

Why Great Books?

Great Books is instructor-led but student-centered.

Great Books courses are all seminar-based with class sizes typically fewer than twenty. Classroom discussion is the heart of the Program (click here to read a lecture about discussion), although careful reading and reflective writing are expected of students before and after class, respectively. Great Books instructors are passionate about the pedagogy and volunteer to teach in the Program. Every new Great Books instructor is required to observe a section of the course with a veteran teacher in order to learn how to lead a class with the distinctive pedagogy.

Great Books challenges us to face life’s important questions boldly.

From the first course, in which students read epics, plays, and philosophy, to the last course, in which students read some of the great novels, philosophy, and science of the 20th century, students are challenged to ask, debate, and ultimately come to their own conclusions about some of the most enduring questions of humanity, “What is morality?”; “Do we have free will?”; “What is the purpose of government?”; “What is justice?”; “What is the ‘Good Life,’ and how do I achieve it?”

The great books that are read, discussed, and written about in the program are among the most important books of the African, Asian, and European traditions. They record the inventions of the human imagination, the discoveries of the human intellect, and the inquiry that gave rise to and shaped them. They are original in two senses: they present novel ideas near their original sources in time and they record these ideas in forms shaped by the original minds that conceived them. These books continue to illuminate the human condition in ways that engage our minds, hearts and spirits.

Great Books helps students succeed in our rapidly changing world.

Through this survey of political, religious, philosophical, and scientific thought, students can increase their skills in disciplined and critical thinking and effective writing, can heighten their moral and ethical reflectiveness, and can understand how the seminal ideas of the past have formed our twentieth and twenty-first century selves. The approach is text-centered, student-focused, and writing-intensive. It trusts in the power of the classic text to communicate and in the power of active discussion to sophisticate. Approximately a tenth of the Mercer student body chooses to participate. Our Great Books graduates are notably successful in graduate and professional studies and major in every discipline, including the natural sciences.