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Tag Archives: Socratic Method
Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov
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Reading Beckett’s Waiting for Godot … Twice!
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Milton’s Paradise Lost
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Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse . . .
This course is devoted to a close reading of the Milton’s epic supplemented by selections from the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), the New Testament, and the Qur’an, as well as C. S. Lewis’s famous A Preface to Paradise Lost. Continue reading
Reflecting on What We Do: Robert Hutchins and “The Great Conversation”
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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. Continue reading
Three Social Contracts: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau
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As part of the transition from the medieval world to the modern world, political legitimacy was reconceived and inverted. Where tradition and the Church had once proclaimed a top-down “divine right” to rule emanating from God, secular political philosophers substituted a bottom-up “consent of the governed” emanating from the People. As the Preamble to the United States Constitution of 1787 expressed this novel notion:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
This course will be devoted to taking a close look at three famous articulations of the “social contract” idea — Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan (selections), John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract — in order to get a sense of what they have in common, how they differ, and how they paved the way to the Preamble. Continue reading
How to Read and Discuss Great Books
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Solitary reading will enable a man to stuff himself with information; but without conversation his mind will become like a pond without an outlet — a mass of unhealthy stagnature. It is not enough to harvest knowledge by study; the wind of talk must winnow it, and blow away the chaff; then will the clear, bright grains of wisdom be garnered for our own use or that of others.
— William Mathews, “Literary Clubs” (1874)
Good reading is hard work. Moreover, “good reading” almost always entails “good re-reading” facilitated by “good discussion” of the initial reading. By synthesizing the highlights of Mortimer Adler’s well-known reading methodology with my own insights from over 30 years of reading and teaching classics, this short course will introduce a time-tested approach to effectively engaging great books dealing with profound ideas. Because reading in a skill and, as with other skills, knowledge improves practice. Continue reading
The Philosophy Behind A Raisin in the Sun
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A landmark of American and African-American theater since its debut on Broadway in 1959 and as a Hollywood film in 1961, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is a disarmingly simple play that uses traditional techniques to craft a revolutionary message. It is also an extremely subtle work whose meaning lies largely in its unspoken sub-texts, assumed con-texts, and unacknowledged co-texts. This course will explore some of the implicit philosophical influences — including Aritotle’s Poetics and Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex as well as the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus — that form part of the foundation beneath Hansberry’s work. We will also consider some of Hansberry’s thoughts about her own art. Students may wish to see Court Theatre’s concurrent production of A Raisin in the Sun in conjunction with this course and/or prepare for the course by taking the preceding course, “A Raisin in the Sun Deep Dive”. Continue reading
Comedies of Aristophanes
(Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk)
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Sometimes known as “the Father of Comedy”, Aristophanes was a fixture of ancient Athens at the time of Peloponnesian War and of Socrates. Indeed, in one of his plays Aristophanes lampoons Socrates himself. (Plato returned the favor by having Socrates allude to that play in the Apology and by including Aristophanes in the Symposium alongside Agathon, the great tragedian of the day.) This course will look closely at three of the master’s plays: The Clouds (about Socrates and his “Thinkery”); The Wasps (often considered the finest example of “Old Comedy”); and Lysistrata (in which the women of Greece go on a sex strike in order to force the men of Greece to end the Peloponnesian War). A final session will be devoted to a consideration of Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, a modern adaptation of Lysistrata whose tagline is, “No Peace; No Piece”. Continue reading
Huck / James: Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Percival Everett’s James
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Modern authors have something of a penchant for writing various types of “replies” to classic works of yore. Think: Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead as an expansion of Shakespeare’s Hamlet; Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad as a response to Homer’s Odyssey; and John Gardner’s Grendel as a retelling of Beowulf. Now, Percival Everett has “replied” to Mark Twain’s classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with his latest novel, James. This course will be devoted to a close reading of both Twain’s original classic and Everett’s modern “reply”, with a view to understanding each work in its own right as well as appreciating the “conversation” between them. Continue reading