Western Canon

[close] Most of the world's modern thinkers and leaders started with a classical education. Our own Founding Fathers drew inspiration from the works of Plato, Cicero, Plutarch, Tacitus, Montesquieu, and Machiavelli to only name a few. They focused on big ideas and, on this board, we will too. Each month we will aim to cover a work or partial work included in the Great Books of Western Culture. Through discussion I hope to grow in understanding, conviction, and confidence in our beliefs outside the realm of party politics, religion, or other modern institution. Feel free to invite others, and welcome to the Great Conversation.

[close] This is a group to read and discuss those books generally referred to as “the classics” or “the Western canon.” Books which have shaped Western thought over the years; books which Robert Hutchins, in his essay for the Great Books of the Western World series, considered important works in “The Great Conversation.” As one participant noted, "the goal of this group is to make reading the classics an enjoyable and enlightening but non-threatening process."

[close] The selections in this group are based on a reading plan traversing the complex landscape of the great books through space and time: Philip Ward's "A Lifetime's Reading: The World's 500 Greatest Books" http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/lit_body2.jpg and at http://www.vox.com/maps/2015/9/25/9397237/literature-map "Peregrinations": An ambitious attempt to traverse space and time through the literary landscape of the great novels, epics, plays and poetry. Ready to travel? " ... I have at one time or another glanced across a library to see a man or woman of eighteen to twenty daunted - even bewildered - by the sheer richness of the library treasures that are waiting to be enjoyed, the great minds to be understood, the poets' voices to be heard, the characters of fiction to be encountered. My heart has been touched by the magnitude of their choice. I long to offer them the plays of Euripides and the stories of Isaac Babel, the love songs of Dante and the wisdom of Mencius. But I know help must be given only when sought. A maturity that is bullied into life is not worth having." "So I have written this book - fruit of a lifetime's reading happily not quite over - in the hope that it will serve as a literary guide to readers looking forward to many thousands of hours of pleasure." You may also want to check out https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/217505-the-story-of-civilisation

[close] As the third oldest college in the United States, St. John's College has campuses located in Annapolis, MD and Santa Fe, NM. At the heart of St. John’s College undergraduate program is a liberal arts curriculum focused on the most important books and ideas of the last 2000 years. Following a reading list that includes many Great Books, all classes are conducted seminar-style, with faculty facilitating the discussion. Our liberal arts undergraduate program is a truly comprehensive education that is perhaps the most rigorous in America. See our full reading list at https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/great-books-reading-list