Often cited as one of the most celebrated defenses of free speech ever written, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty makes its case on the basis of utility rather than natural rights. But is Mill’s argument sound? We’ll attempt to find out as we consider his argument in detail. Please read chapter 1 prior to the first class. Continue reading
Using the strategy laid out in Mortimer Adler’s classic How to Read a Book, this course is devoted to developing a thorough understanding of Plato’s Republic by reading it once quickly to get an overview and then again more slowly to figure out the details. Along the way, we’ll pay careful attention to both the dramatic and the philosophic features that Plato interweaves to create a Socratic “one man show” (think Fonda as Darrow or Holbrook as Twain) “on justice”. Whether you’ve attempted the Republic before or never cracked the cover, this course is for you. Please skim Books 1-4 of the Republic before the first class session. You may also want to read Adler’s How to Read a Book before or during the course but that is not required.
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You read it as a kid. Now understand it as an adult. You’ll be sorry when you’re done (but in a good way). Please read Part One prior to the first class.
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Through close reading and discussion of a number of modern classics this course will seek to better understand two lines of African-American thinking about racism today. The more mainstream, “liberal” school of thought contends that America has always been — and is still today — a fundamentally racist nation. The less known, “conservative” school of thought contends not only that America has made great racial progress, but that the greatest obstacle to further progress is the “liberal” narrative itself. Readings includes works by Derrick Bell, Shelby Steele, Ta-Nehisi Coates, John McWhorter, Ibram Kendi, and Glenn Loury. Prior to the first class, please do the readings indicated on the syllabus and watch the 2020 documentary What Killed Michael Brown? … with as much “critical empathy” for each work as possible. Continue reading
The causes and consequences of the rise and fall of Nazi totalitarianism are arguably among the most important lessons of the 20th century. This course will grapple with these issues through close readings of Hannah Arendt’s controversial classics The Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil alongside Adolph Hitler’s notorious Mein Kampf. Prior to the first class, please read the short assignments noted in the syllabus and watch Charlie Chaplin’s famous 1940 film, The Great Dictator. (Please do not watch any of the other films used later in the course.) Continue reading
Writing just before and just after the second world war, Margaret Mitchell and Simone de Beauvoir depicted two types of feminism in two types of text. De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) combines source data to make an explicit philosophical case for what might be called “progressive feminism”, while Mitchell’s romance Gone With the Wind (1936) makes an implicit case for what might be called “reactionary feminism” through its depiction of Scarlett O’Hara’s coming of age during and after the Civil War. The course will explore both works in an effort to understand each in its own right as well to appreciate the similarities and differences between the two feminisms. Please do the assigned readings listed on the syllabus prior to the first class session.
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Inspired by W.E.B. DuBois’s famous thesis that “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line”, this course will try to understand a variety of 20th-century perspectives on race through a sympathetic examination of a selection of classic works of fiction, nonfiction, and cinema by authors and directors Black and White, including: DuBois himself, Rudyard Kipling, Frantz Fanon, Thomas Dixon, Jr., James Baldwin, and Joseph Conrad, as well as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Prior to the first class, please do the short readings and watch D.W. Griffith’s (in)famous 1915 silent film, The Birth of a Nation … from a perspective as “critically empathic” as possible. Continue reading
Like its counterpart How to Read Classic Texts, this course aims to help students improve their reading skills as they approach reading religious texts as literature. Continue reading
One of the foundational premises of the Basic Program is that reading is a skill. And that like many skills, one can get better at reading through theoretically-informed practice. In this short course, we will examine the theoretical perspective on good reading contained in Mortimer Adler’s famous How to Read a Book, which we will practice through a close examination of the beginnings of a range of classic texts. After all, if we don’t understand the beginning of a work, how can we hope to understand the ending? Continue reading
In a time when many believe that contemporary events are unfolding in ways that bode ill for the future, the dystopian classics of youth are the focus of renewed interest as possible guides to “what might happen”. This course will be devoted to a careful, mature consideration of one such classic, It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (the first American writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930) as we seek both to understand the text as a literary work originating in its own time and place and to glean possible insights into our own time and place. For the first class, please read chapters 1-13.
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