Description
Book SynopsisJust over 100 years ago Columbia's John Erskine started a General Honors program that was the precursor of the Great Books programs popularized by his student, Mortimer Adler. As a set term Great Books has elicited more than some controversy, especially because most relatively short lists of such works mostly features dead white men. However, most any group in America has made the Great Ideas their own. This book explores the benefits of reading Great Books, and is virtually unique in detailing what a series of Great Books classes has looked like over the past decades.
Trade Review"A comprehensive and lively guidebook to the Great Books that will benefit intellectual adventurers young and old. Gose invites readers to seek truth and beauty through an ascent into the masterworks of the past, providing instructions and advice for the journey with the wit and insight of a master teacher."
-- Shilo Brooks, Ph.D., Assistant Director, James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, lecturer in politics, Princeton University
What's so great about the great books? They bring us into conversations with great thinkers and ideas, teaches reading, analysis, conversation and writing. The program lays a liberal arts foundation for the very best college education. One of the best things we did when I was president of Pepperdine University was to encourage Michael Gose and his colleagues to begin a Great Books program for the first two years of the undergraduate experience. The only thing better would have been to require every student to take it. Following the lead of the great Robert Maynard Hutchins at the University of Chicago, one of the best things a college president can do is start and support a Great Books program. The model is out there, it only takes excellent teachers, like Michael Gose, and community support to accomplish it.
-- David Davenport, Research Fellow Emeritus, Hoover Institution, Stanford, California
Michael Gose was my Great Books professor. He helped me navigate the great conversation. Now he’s poured his wisdom from forty years of teaching Great Books into one place. This book should be given to every novice and veteran teacher of the Great Books so that they may learn or remember how to continue the tradition that was started not merely by Erskin and Adler in the twentieth century but began with Homer, Plato and Aristotle millennia ago.
-- Jessica Hooten Wilson, Seaver College Scholar of Liberal Arts, Pepperdine University, author of "The Scandal of Holiness"
Table of ContentsTable of Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Preface
Becoming a Reader
My Qualifications
75 Word Preamble
Acknowledging My Bias
Resistance and Obstacles
Maya Angelou and an Inclusive Great Conversation
Musings on Great Books
Introduction
Everyone’s Inheritance
Including Students and Alumni Writing
The Prospect of the Erskine/Adler Great Books
The Chapters
Observations for Specific Reader Groups
Everyone’s Inheritance
Zena Hitz
Chapter One. History
A Brief History of the Great Books Idea
A Brief History of Great Books Initiatives
Who, What, When, Where, Why, How
What Great Books Is and Is Not
Chapter Two. Curriculum: Content
Context 47
Content 48
Four Great Books Lists
John Erskine’s Original General Honors List of Great Books
The List of Books with Consensus for Inclusion
The Pepperdine University List for the Great Books Colloquium
The Martin Luther King, Jr. List
The Erskine/Adler Approach
The Four Cornerstones of Western Culture
Translations
Chapter Three. Curriculum: Skills
Reading a Difficult Book
Essential Ideas
10 Key Ideas/Issues/Questions
Seeing the Forest and Not the Trees
How to Mark a Book
Writing
Medea Essay Exam
Divine Comedy Term Paper
Captain Fantastic Term Paper
Virtues
Patience
Engagement
Flexibility
Chapter Four. Curriculum: Methods
Shared Inquiry
Socratic Dialogue and Socratic Pedagogy
Go to Life for Help in Understanding a Difficult Text
Pavez Story
10 Commandments
The Discussant and the Discussion
Autodidactic Learning and/or Discussion Group
How to Contribute to a Seminar Discussion
Teaching For Wisdom
Kanako Suzuki
Complementary Teaching Strategies
Chapter Five. Curriculum: Evaluation
Evaluating Great Books
The Taxonomy of Engagement
A Retrospective Essay by a Great Books Alum
What Other Former Students Say About Great Books
Chapter Six. Issues and Controversies
Specialized vs. General Knowledge
Works in Conversation with Each Other
Plato/Augustine/Dante
The Purview of the Text
Readiness for the Particular Book
Even Homer Nods
Diversity
The Venn Diagram
Are the Books Simply Too Difficult?
Authority and the Canon
“None of it is true.”
Elective or Required? 152
Secondary Sources 152
John Seery on Great Books Issues 153
MacIntyre and Lacy 153
Repository for Wisdom? 155
Excerpts or Whole Books? 156
Reason and Emotion 156
Aesthetics 157
Existence and Essence 157
Analyzing vs. Judging 158
Anika Prather and Martin Luther King, Jr.: Making the Exclusive, Inclusive 159
Censorship 161
The Battle of the Books (with apologies to Jonathan Swift) 162
Creating the Right Attitude 164
The Canon in Perspective, Michelle Liu Carriger 170
Chapter Seven. Benefits
The Experts Takes on the Benefits of Great Books
Good Citizen and Thoughtful Human
Ambiguity, Agency
Large Mindedness
Expanded Capacities
Other Potential Benefits
Warnings
Paradigm
The Constellation of the Canon
Snapshots from Great Books Alumni
Why Take or Not Take Great Books
Chapter Eight. Limitations and Potential Downsides
Limitations and Downsides
Shakespeare Insults
Student and Alumni Reflections
Chapter Nine. This Book’s Underlying Assumptions
CS Lewis
The Particular and the Universal
The Constellation
The Polyfocal Conspectus
The Student as the Heart of the Education Enterprise
Inclusive
Laughter
Balance
Truisms
Informing Ideas
Christina Littlefield
Alexis Allison
Chapter Ten. Conclusions
Great Books Deserve More Attention
The Obstacles of Academic Disciplines
Getting the Student Started
Resentment
Sunday Conclusions
Brenden Fereday
Julie Jang
Jane Travis
Julie Howe
Bibliography
Appendix.
A Checklist on Being Prepared for Great Books
Become a Super Hero
Glossary of Hundred Dollar Words and Expressions
Adler’s List of 102 Ideas
Gose’s List of Ten Ideas/Issues
A Time Line by Mia Maddy
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