ISF 10
Enduring Questions and Great Books of the Western Tradition
This course is a broad survey of major canonical works ("Great Books") emphasizing from the premodern traditions of Western Civilization since the Greeks. These texts offer responses to central questions that, across the disciplinary divides, continue to inform contemporary work in the social sciences and the humanities. By considering these enduring questions and the responses of writers in Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern, and Modern Europe, we seek to examine core issues of the liberal arts as they find expression across what would later become disciplinary divisions.
Topics
- To offer students an intense engagement with canonical thinkers of the western tradition, demonstrating the enduring nature of their queries and questions across the disciplines of the social sciences and humanities.
- Students are expected to acquire a familiarity with many core debates in the western intellectual tradition, and to be able to identify the pre-disciplinary and interdisciplinary roots of contemporary inquiries in the social sciences and humanities.
Official catalogue course objectives and student learning outcomes
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027