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great books, great ideas!

Scholars seminars tackle great books and great ideas. The first two seminars, HNRS 190 and 191, train students in college-level writing and research. The third seminar, HNRS 195, provides resources for thinking about and practicing the arts of leadership. The next three seminars—HNRS 220, 230, and 320—survey the history and culture of western civilizations (ancient, medieval, and modern). The seventh seminar, HNRS 297, examines art history and the nature of creativity. The final seminar, HNRS 393, studies 20th-century history and culture from a literary and social-scientific perspective.

Although the reading lists in these seminars change, the lists below indicate some of the texts that have been studied in them in recent years.

HNRS 190 First-Year Colloquium I
The St. Martin’s Handbook
Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

HNRS 191 First-Year Colloquium II
Plato, Republic
More, Utopia
Booth, The Craft of Research

HNRS 195 Organizational & Group Dynamics
Schermerhorn, Management
Spears, Insights On Leadership
Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

HNRS 220 The Mediterranean World
Plato, Apology and Crito
Genesis and Exodus
The Gospel of Matthew
Virgil, Aeneid

HNRS 230 The Baptism of Europe
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae
Bede, Ecclesiastical History
Augustine, City of God
Song of Roland
Beowulf

HNRS 320 Converging Hemispheres
de las Casas, Of the Island of Hispaniola
Luther, The Ninety-five Theses
Smith, Wealth of Nations
Marx, The Communist Manifesto
Darwin, On the Origin of Species

HNRS 297 Art, Creativity, & Culture
Freud, Leonardo da Vinci
Tolstoy, What is Art?
Gombrich, Art & Illusion

HNRS 393 Global Interdependence
Homer, The Iliad
Crane, Red Badge of Courage
Wiesel, Night