Overview

Just over 100 years ago Columbia’s John Erskine started a General Honors program that was the precursor of the Great Books programs popularized by his student, Mortimer Adler. As a set term “Great Books” has elicited more than some controversy, especially because most relatively short lists of such works mostly features “dead white men”. However, most any group in America has made the Great Ideas their own. This book explores the benefits of reading “Great Books,” and is virtually unique in detailing what a series of Great Books classes has looked like over the past decades.

Full Product Details

Author:   Michael Gose
Publisher:   Rowman & Littlefield
Imprint:   Rowman & Littlefield
Dimensions:   Width: 15.90cm , Height: 2.20cm , Length: 23.70cm
Weight:   0.508kg
ISBN:  

9781475872972

ISBN 10:   1475872976
Pages:   214
Publication Date:   24 December 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents Acknowledgments Foreword Preface Becoming a Reader My Qualifications 75 Word Preamble Acknowledging My Bias Resistance and Obstacles Maya Angelou and an Inclusive Great Conversation Musings on Great Books Introduction Everyone’s Inheritance Including Students and Alumni Writing The Prospect of the Erskine/Adler Great Books The Chapters Observations for Specific Reader Groups Everyone’s Inheritance Zena Hitz Chapter One. History A Brief History of the Great Books Idea A Brief History of Great Books Initiatives Who, What, When, Where, Why, How What Great Books Is and Is Not Chapter Two. Curriculum: Content Context 47 Content 48 Four Great Books Lists John Erskine’s Original General Honors List of Great Books The List of Books with Consensus for Inclusion The Pepperdine University List for the Great Books Colloquium The Martin Luther King, Jr. List The Erskine/Adler Approach The Four Cornerstones of Western Culture Translations Chapter Three. Curriculum: Skills Reading a Difficult Book Essential Ideas 10 Key Ideas/Issues/Questions Seeing the Forest and Not the Trees How to Mark a Book Writing Medea Essay Exam Divine Comedy Term Paper Captain Fantastic Term Paper Virtues Patience Engagement Flexibility Chapter Four. Curriculum: Methods Shared Inquiry Socratic Dialogue and Socratic Pedagogy Go to Life for Help in Understanding a Difficult Text Pavez Story 10 Commandments The Discussant and the Discussion Autodidactic Learning and/or Discussion Group How to Contribute to a Seminar Discussion Teaching For Wisdom Kanako Suzuki Complementary Teaching Strategies Chapter Five. Curriculum: Evaluation Evaluating Great Books The Taxonomy of Engagement A Retrospective Essay by a Great Books Alum What Other Former Students Say About Great Books Chapter Six. Issues and Controversies Specialized vs. General Knowledge Works in Conversation with Each Other Plato/Augustine/Dante The Purview of the Text Readiness for the Particular Book Even Homer Nods Diversity The Venn Diagram Are the Books Simply Too Difficult? Authority and the Canon “None of it is true.” Elective or Required? 152 Secondary Sources 152 John Seery on Great Books Issues 153 MacIntyre and Lacy 153 Repository for Wisdom? 155 Excerpts or Whole Books? 156 Reason and Emotion 156 Aesthetics 157 Existence and Essence 157 Analyzing vs. Judging 158 Anika Prather and Martin Luther King, Jr.: Making the Exclusive, Inclusive 159 Censorship 161 The Battle of the Books (with apologies to Jonathan Swift) 162 Creating the Right Attitude 164 The Canon in Perspective, Michelle Liu Carriger 170 Chapter Seven. Benefits The Experts Takes on the Benefits of Great Books Good Citizen and Thoughtful Human Ambiguity, Agency Large Mindedness Expanded Capacities Other Potential Benefits Warnings Paradigm The Constellation of the Canon Snapshots from Great Books Alumni Why Take or Not Take Great Books Chapter Eight. Limitations and Potential Downsides Limitations and Downsides Shakespeare Insults Student and Alumni Reflections Chapter Nine. This Book’s Underlying Assumptions CS Lewis The Particular and the Universal The Constellation The Polyfocal Conspectus The Student as the Heart of the Education Enterprise Inclusive Laughter Balance Truisms Informing Ideas Christina Littlefield Alexis Allison Chapter Ten. Conclusions Great Books Deserve More Attention The Obstacles of Academic Disciplines Getting the Student Started Resentment Sunday Conclusions Brenden Fereday Julie Jang Jane Travis Julie Howe Bibliography Appendix. A Checklist on Being Prepared for Great Books Become a Super Hero Glossary of Hundred Dollar Words and Expressions Adler’s List of 102 Ideas Gose’s List of Ten Ideas/Issues A Time Line by Mia Maddy Links

Reviews

"""A comprehensive and lively guidebook to the Great Books that will benefit intellectual adventurers young and old. Gose invites readers to seek truth and beauty through an ascent into the masterworks of the past, providing instructions and advice for the journey with the wit and insight of a master teacher.""--Shilo Brooks, Ph.D., Assistant Director, James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, lecturer in politics, Princeton University Michael Gose was my Great Books professor. He helped me navigate the great conversation. Now he's poured his wisdom from forty years of teaching Great Books into one place. This book should be given to every novice and veteran teacher of the Great Books so that they may learn or remember how to continue the tradition that was started not merely by Erskin and Adler in the twentieth century but began with Homer, Plato and Aristotle millennia ago.--Jessica Hooten Wilson, Seaver College Scholar of Liberal Arts, Pepperdine University, author of ""The Scandal of Holiness"" What's so great about the great books? They bring us into conversations with great thinkers and ideas, teaches reading, analysis, conversation and writing. The program lays a liberal arts foundation for the very best college education. One of the best things we did when I was president of Pepperdine University was to encourage Michael Gose and his colleagues to begin a Great Books program for the first two years of the undergraduate experience. The only thing better would have been to require every student to take it. Following the lead of the great Robert Maynard Hutchins at the University of Chicago, one of the best things a college president can do is start and support a Great Books program. The model is out there, it only takes excellent teachers, like Michael Gose, and community support to accomplish it.--David Davenport, Research Fellow Emeritus, Hoover Institution, Stanford, California"

"""A comprehensive and lively guidebook to the Great Books that will benefit intellectual adventurers young and old. Gose invites readers to seek truth and beauty through an ascent into the masterworks of the past, providing instructions and advice for the journey with the wit and insight of a master teacher."" -- Shilo Brooks, Ph.D., Assistant Director, James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, lecturer in politics, Princeton University What's so great about the great books? They bring us into conversations with great thinkers and ideas, teaches reading, analysis, conversation and writing. The program lays a liberal arts foundation for the very best college education. One of the best things we did when I was president of Pepperdine University was to encourage Michael Gose and his colleagues to begin a Great Books program for the first two years of the undergraduate experience. The only thing better would have been to require every student to take it. Following the lead of the great Robert Maynard Hutchins at the University of Chicago, one of the best things a college president can do is start and support a Great Books program. The model is out there, it only takes excellent teachers, like Michael Gose, and community support to accomplish it. -- David Davenport, Research Fellow Emeritus, Hoover Institution, Stanford, California Michael Gose was my Great Books professor. He helped me navigate the great conversation. Now he’s poured his wisdom from forty years of teaching Great Books into one place. This book should be given to every novice and veteran teacher of the Great Books so that they may learn or remember how to continue the tradition that was started not merely by Erskin and Adler in the twentieth century but began with Homer, Plato and Aristotle millennia ago. -- Jessica Hooten Wilson, Seaver College Scholar of Liberal Arts, Pepperdine University, author of ""The Scandal of Holiness"""

Author Information

Michael Gose was a student at Mission Bay High School, Occidental College, Pepperdine University, Stanford University, and as such, he had the great good fortune of reading and discussing the classics. After a visit to campus by Mortimer Adler, Gose initiated a Great Books program at Pepperdine University, and has been teaching Great Books, and writing about Socratic pedagogy, for almost forty years

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