{"channel":"education","content":"I cannot endorse the St. John's College approach (all college students, for all 4 years, in the same curriculum, largely based around reading of >100 year old works). But it is interesting enough (and for some students, effective enough) that I also have no interest in arguing against it.\r\n\r\nI am also not sure if the work selection is better or worse than similar lists, such as the 1952 << Great Books of the Western World >> series.\r\n\r\nBut, as a reference, here is the first-year curriculum.\r\n\r\n <<< https://www.sjc.edu/application/files/4115/4810/0934/St_Johns_College_Great_Books_Reading_List.pdf\r\n\r\nHomer: Iliad, Odyssey\r\nAeschylus: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides, Prometheus Bound\r\nSophocles: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Philoctetes, Ajax\r\nThucydides: Peloponnesian War\r\nEuripides: Hippolytus, Bacchae\r\nHerodotus: Histories\r\nAristophanes: Clouds\r\nPlato: Meno, Gorgias, Republic, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Sym\u00adposium, Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Timaeus, Phaedrus\r\nAristotle: Poetics, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, On Generation and Corruption, Politics, Parts of Animals, Generation of Animals\r\nEuclid: Elements\r\nLucretius: On the Nature of Things\r\nPlutarch: \u201cLycurgus,\u201d \u201cSolon\u201d\r\nPtolemy: Almagest\r\nPascal: Treatise on the Equilibrium of Liquids\r\nNicomachus: Arithmetic\r\nLavoisier: Elements of Chemistry\r\nHarvey: Motion of the Heart and Blood\r\nEssays by: Archimedes, Fahrenheit, Avogadro, Dalton, Cannizzaro, Virchow, Mariotte, Driesch, Gay-Lussac, Spemann, Stears, J.J. Thomson, Mendeleyev, Berthollet, J.L. Proust >>>","created_at":"2025-03-18T15:26:08.572039","id":312,"llm_annotations":{},"parent_id":null,"processed_content":"

I cannot endorse the St. John's College approach (all college students, for all 4 years, in the same curriculum, largely based around reading of >100 year old works). But it is interesting enough (and for some students, effective enough) that I also have no interest in arguing against it.\r

\n

I am also not sure if the work selection is better or worse than similar lists, such as the 1952 Great Books of the Western World series.\r

\n

But, as a reference, here is the first-year curriculum.\r

\n

https://www.sjc.edu/application/files/4115/4810/0934/St_Johns_College_Great_Books_Reading_List.pdf\r

\n

\r

\n

Homer: Iliad, Odyssey\r

\n

Aeschylus: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides, Prometheus Bound\r

\n

Sophocles: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Philoctetes, Ajax\r

\n

Thucydides: Peloponnesian War\r

\n

Euripides: Hippolytus, Bacchae\r

\n

Herodotus: Histories\r

\n

Aristophanes: Clouds\r

\n

Plato: Meno, Gorgias, Republic, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Sym\u00adposium, Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Timaeus, Phaedrus\r

\n

Aristotle: Poetics, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, On Generation and Corruption, Politics, Parts of Animals, Generation of Animals\r

\n

Euclid: Elements\r

\n

Lucretius: On the Nature of Things\r

\n

Plutarch: \u201cLycurgus,\u201d \u201cSolon\u201d\r

\n

Ptolemy: Almagest\r

\n

Pascal: Treatise on the Equilibrium of Liquids\r

\n

Nicomachus: Arithmetic\r

\n

Lavoisier: Elements of Chemistry\r

\n

Harvey: Motion of the Heart and Blood\r

\n

Essays by: Archimedes, Fahrenheit, Avogadro, Dalton, Cannizzaro, Virchow, Mariotte, Driesch, Gay-Lussac, Spemann, Stears, J.J. Thomson, Mendeleyev, Berthollet, J.L. Proust

","quotes":[],"subject":"the St. Johns College Reading List, freshman year"}