Category Archives: Liberal Arts

Posts concerning the core of humane learning.

The Wrath of Heaven against the Roman State

Posted on May 20, 2013 by

We’ve now completed the Annals of Tacitus and are poised to finish Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class this week. I’m going to celebrate by reading another Shakespeare play, something particularly appropriate in light of Shakespeare’s role in the T.S. … Continue reading →

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Fiddling While Rome Burned?

Posted on May 15, 2013 by

Now that we’ve finished Dante’s epic, we can read commentary on it from one of the 20th century’s great minds. It’s a nice way to pass our 4,000th page of Imaginative Literature this week. Here are the readings for the … Continue reading →

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“I Smile at Your Childish Thought”

Posted on May 11, 2013 by

Welcome to a very tardy Great Books post. This week we take a break from Epictetus in order to read a short treatise by Aristotle (yes, such a thing does exist). Here are the readings for the coming week: The … Continue reading →

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How Many Psychoanalysts Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

Posted on May 3, 2013 by

How many do you think it takes? (Get it?) Here are the readings for the coming week: The Divine Comedy: Paradiso by Dante Alighieri, Cantos I-XVI (GBWW Vol. 19, pp. 90-111) “In How Many Ways Appearances Exist” by Epictetus (GBWW … Continue reading →

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If the World Stinks, It’s Not God’s Fault

Posted on April 26, 2013 by

This week we pass 13,000 pages in the Great Books Project. And I don’t care who you are; you have to admit that a program where you read Dante, Freud, and Plato all in the same week is at least … Continue reading →

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It Only Counts If Others Are Watching

Posted on April 20, 2013 by

This week we are closing in on 13,000 pages of total reading in the Great Books Project. Simply typing that makes me tired. Here are the readings for the coming week: The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri, Cantos I-XVI … Continue reading →

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Midway in the Journey of Our Life I Found Myself in a Dark Wood

Posted on April 8, 2013 by

Have you noticed that reading the Great Books inevitably affects other areas of your life?For example, the most pressing question I’m dealing with after beginning Dante last week is whether this thing deserves my attention. (OK, actually that’s not the … Continue reading →

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Being an Emperor’s Heir is a Dangerous Job

Posted on April 2, 2013 by

While I wasn’t paying attention last week, we passed the 3,000-page mark in the Man and Society category of the Great Books Project. We should hit 13,000 pages overall in the next few weeks. Here are the readings for the … Continue reading →

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Let Us Sit upon the Ground and Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Kings

Posted on March 27, 2013 by

After the heaviness of Ptolemy, Aristotle, and Hegel, I figured we could lighten things up by reading a socialist. That should be good entertainment! Here are the readings for the coming week: Six Characters in Search of an Author by … Continue reading →

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The Owl of Minerva Spreads Its Wings Only with the Falling of the Dusk

Posted on March 21, 2013 by

We’re reaching another milestone in the Great Books Project this week: upon completion of the Claude Bernard reading below, we’ll have completed five of the ten volumes of the Gateway to the Great Books series. I believe that makes nine … Continue reading →

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