COURSES > LIFELONG | COURSES > ONLINE

University of Chicago president (and later, chancellor) Robert Hutchins was one of the great theoreticians of liberal education in general and of “Great Books” in particular. Thus, when the 54-volume set Great Books of the Western World was published by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1952, Volume 1 was devoted to Hutchins’s defense of Great Books and liberal education as the intertwined foundation of Western Civilization on the one hand and of individual self-actualization on the other. In this short course, we will consider Hutchins’ essay in its own right as well as use it as a jumping off point for thinking about what we ourselves do when we read and discuss “Great Books.” Think of it as group therapy for the thoughtful.

Texts

• Hutchins, The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education [Volume 1 of Great Books of the Western World (1952)]

TAUGHT: JUNE 2025