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St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

sjc.edu

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Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#121

Post by mistercheph »

thwayunion wrote: post #106
34611 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Great Books" is mired in fairly a ridiculous fetishism of the Greek classics, the Enlightenment era, the American founding, and the Anglo view of the western world. The webpage clearly states that the list is of foundational books of greco-roman civilization. And SJC is an american university. What do you expect? Also, fetishism? Greek classics are the foundation of european civilization. That's like going to a ch…

Yeah, yeah, Evropean, we get it. You know that even SJC grads eye-roll at that stuff, right? One of them even does in this comment section. Anyways. Even then -- typical Great Books curricula still sample from a tiny subset of literature that fits the mold of "greco-roman civilization". It was chosen by a very particular set of people at a very particular point in time. Some choices work more or less well enough. Oth…

The section on Russel is brief, and is read as complement to Lobochevsky and background for the Goedel readings.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#122

Post by mistercheph »

swhalen wrote: post #58

Do they genuinely expect someone in their third year of undergraduate study to read and even partially understand Newton's Principia Mathematica? It is famously unintelligible to modern readers, even those with knowledge of physics.

As can be detected by the disdain that other commenters have shown towards even the suggestion that someone might read the Principia Mathematica as opposed to a more modern treatment of the same subject, it is a lack of interest more than a lack of capacity that makes it unintelligible for modern readers. It is utterly comprehensible to any reader who has time, paper and pencil, and a copy of Euclid.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#123

Post by dabiged »

stbullard wrote: post #79
dabiged wrote: post #63

Not an alum, but in an effort to improve my written and spoken english, I picked up the list and read the about 80% of the content. I was kind to myself and skipped any book that I absolutely found a slog (there were only a few, Aristotle's metaphysics and some early of the dark age Christian philosophy). The book list is really good at telling you to skip the really irrelevant bits of ancient books. I found that rea…

RE 3: as an SJC alum, I found my reading speed slowed drastically both during and after four years spent reading and discussing these books. I found myself thinking while reading more often, making more connections within and between works. That said, reading alone misses the meat of “The Program” (always capitalized!) - it’s the searching, pointed, urgent discussion of a work with others who share a common language…

It was extremely disappointing to finish a book which truly altered the way you saw the world, and not have a cohort of people to share it with.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#124

Post by wyclif »

WillAdams wrote: post #80

A co-worker's son visited St. John's, since it was one he was considering, and it was sufficiently interesting that he mentioned it when we were discussing education in general. I looked up the reading list, and have been reading the texts, trying to patch up my rather spotty education --- it also makes me wonder how many of these texts would have been a part of Edmund Dante's (from _The Count of Monte Cristo_) educa…

Try Internet Archive or Google Books. I think most of them can be found there, though maybe not in the corresponding editions.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#125

Post by wyclif »

manesioz wrote: post #99

Remarkably missing many works of Christian theology... No St. Augustine, Aquinas, St. John of Chrysostom, Calvin, etc.

Yes, it's missing crucial works like Cur Deus Homo and On the Incarnation by St Athanasius as well as some of the ones you mention, but I think some of those are in the curriculum if you look a little harder. One needn't be a Christian to benefit from such works; they are foundational to Western civilisation.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#126

Post by wyclif »

Gatsky wrote: post #84
garrisonj wrote: post #67

I wanted to find the list without the fancy styling and found this: https://fs.blog/great-books/ Much easier to copy and paste.

This is not identical to the SJC list.

I think that's an older list from SJC before recent revisions of the list.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#127

Post by wyclif »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #87
earthboundkid wrote: post #74

Okay but they’ll never beat Navy at ultimate frisbee.

Croquet? Edit: I take it back. Apparently Navy is in the habit of losing the croquet match.

The reason Johnnies always win the croquet match is because they practice. I'm not sure if Navy cadets have time to do that.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#128

Post by wyclif »

sys32768 wrote: post #12
transfire wrote: post #2

Highly recommend this school.

Tried to get my oldest to go here. She reads super fast with high comprehension and loves to debate, but she's so terrified of going into debt that she's now in a state college taking computer science and saying Chat GPT is way more helpful than her professor for understanding or fixing code.

She should check out Phind if she hasn't already: https://phind.com/

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#129

Post by amanaplanacanal »

prepend wrote: post #93
dabiged wrote: post #63

Not an alum, but in an effort to improve my written and spoken english, I picked up the list and read the about 80% of the content. I was kind to myself and skipped any book that I absolutely found a slog (there were only a few, Aristotle's metaphysics and some early of the dark age Christian philosophy). The book list is really good at telling you to skip the really irrelevant bits of ancient books. I found that rea…

> rocinante in 'the expanse' comes to mind The reference is called out in the first book as Don Quixote’s horse. So it seems hard to miss unless you don’t know that Don Quixote is an old story.

I don’t remember if they called that out in the tv show.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#130

Post by dwighttk »

prepend wrote: post #93
dabiged wrote: post #63

Not an alum, but in an effort to improve my written and spoken english, I picked up the list and read the about 80% of the content. I was kind to myself and skipped any book that I absolutely found a slog (there were only a few, Aristotle's metaphysics and some early of the dark age Christian philosophy). The book list is really good at telling you to skip the really irrelevant bits of ancient books. I found that rea…

> rocinante in 'the expanse' comes to mind The reference is called out in the first book as Don Quixote’s horse. So it seems hard to miss unless you don’t know that Don Quixote is an old story.

Perhaps OP is saying that that reference means a little more if you've read Don Quixote?
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