April 29, 2008

The Great Ideas: The University of Chicago and the Ideal of Liberal Education
An Exhibition in the
Department of Special Collections
The University of Chicago Library
May 1, 2002 - September 6, 2002

April 26, 2008

The Mike Wallace Interview
Mortimer Adler
9/7/58

Mortimer Adler, president of the Institute for Philosophical Research, former professor of the philosophy of law at the University of Chicago, and author of The Idea of Freedom, talks to Wallace about conceptions of freedom, capitalism, socialism, and the American worker.

April 25, 2008

Britannica Web Share opens up The Encyclopaedia Britannica to "web publishers, including bloggers, webmasters, and anyone who writes for the Internet". When you link to something, your readers get that article for free as well.  So I'm testing it out here.
 
Perhaps you'd like to take a peek at the entry for, say, David Foster Wallace.

April 16, 2008

The Invitation to Learning Reader series published the discussions of Great Books and significant ideas that were broadcast weekly on the CBS radio network in the early to mid 1950s.

Volume 1, No. 1

CONTENTS:

Aeschylus, PROMETHEUS

Shakespeare, HAMLET

Sextus Empiricus, OUTLINES OF PYRRHONISM

David Hume, AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDER-
STANDING

Lucian, DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD

Rabelais, GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL

Aristotle, ETHICS

John Stuart Mill, UTILITARIANISM

Aristophanes, COMEDIES

Moliere, COMEDIES

Marcus Aurelius, MEDITATIONS

Calvin, INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 93

Virgil, THE AENEID
-------

MEET THE PARTICIPANTS:

LYMAN BRYSON, permanent chairman of Invitation To Learning, is a Professor of Education, at Teacher's College, Columbia University.

STRINGFELLOW BARR, former President of St. John's College, author of the recent pamphlet, Let's Join The Human Race, and chairman of the original Invitation To Learning program, eleven years ago.

GEORGE BOAS, Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University, and author of Wingless Pegasus.

PALMER BOVIE, Instructor in English, Columbia University.

JOHN MASON BROWN, Associate Editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, author of Still Seeing Things and other works

JOHN CARRADINE, Actor.

IRWIN ED MAN, Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, author of Philosopher s Quest and other works.

BERGEN EVANS, Professor of English Literature, Northwestern University, and author of The Natural History of Nonsense.

CLIFTON FADIMAN, Noted critic, editor, radio and television personality; member of the board of judges of the Book-of-the-Month Club, and a member of the Board of Directors of The Great Books Foundation.

HIRAM HAYDN, editor for the Bobbs-Merrill Co., editor of The American Scholar, and author of The Counter-Renaissance.

ROLPHE HUMPHRIES, poetry critic for The Nation, and author of a newly published translation of Virgil's Aeneid.

LOUIS KRONENBERGER, Drama critic, Time Magazine.

MAX LERNER, economist for the New York Post, Professor of American Civilization, Brandeis University, and author of Actions
and Passions.

ANDRE MICHALOPOULOS, Counsellor to the Greek Embassy, noted lecturer and critic.

WHITNEY J. GATES, Professor of Classics, Princeton University, and editor of The Basic Writings of St. Augustine.

HOUSTON PETERSON, Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University, editor of Great Teachers, and a forthcoming Treasury of Great Speeches.

JOHN E. SMITH, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Barnard College, Columbia University.

CARL HERMAN VOSS, Lecturer, New School for Social Research.

WILLIAM LINN WESTERMANN, Professor Emeritus of Ancient History, Columbia University.
============

Vol. 5, No.1

CONTENTS:

Dickens, OLIVER TWIST

Spinoza, ETHICS

Twain, HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Proust, REMEMBRANCES OF THINGS PAST

Conrad, LORD JIM

Dostoevsky, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Whitman, LEAVES OF GRASS

Meredith, THE ORDEAL OF RJCHARD FEVEREL

Schopenhauer, THE WORLD AS WILL AND Idea

Masters, THE SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY

James, WHAT MAlSIE KNEW

Juvenal, SATIRES

Edwards, FREEDOM OF WILL
--------

MEET THE PARTICIPANTS:

LYMAN BRYSON, Permanent Chairman of Invitation to Learning; Professor Emeritus of Education, Teachers' College, Columbia University; Counsellor on Public Affairs programming to the Columbia Broadcasting System.

GAY WILSON ALLEN, Professor of American Literature at New York University; author of The Solitary Singer, a biography of Walt Whitman.

DAVID DAICHES, Lecturer in English at Cambridge University. EDWARD DAVISON, Poet, critic, and Director of the School of General Studies at Hunter College.

CLIFTON FADIMAN, Critic, literary essayist for Holiday, and author of Party of One.

CLARENCE FAUST, President of the Fund for the Advancement of Education.

CHARLES FRANKEL, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University.

MASON GROSS, Provost of Rutgers University.

LEO GURKO, Chairman of the Department of English at Hunter College; author of Heroes, Highbrows and the Popular Mind.

STUART HAMPSHIRE, Fellow of New College, Oxford University; author of Spinoza in the Pelican Philosophers series.

GILBERT HIGHET, Anthon Professor of Latin at Columbia University; author of People, Places and Books and Juvenal the Satirist.

MILTON HINDUS, Associate Professor of English at Brandeis University; author of The Proustian Vision.

EDGAR JOHNSON, Chairman of the English Department of the College of the City of New York; author of Charles Dickens, His Tragedy and Triumph.

THOMAS H. JOHNSON, Chairman of the English Department at Lawrenceville School.

ALFRED KAZIN, Nielsen Professor of Literature at Smith College; author of On Native Grounds and A Walker in the City.

HELEN MAcINNES, Author of Above Suspicion and Pray for a Brave Heart.

ANDRE MICHALOPOULOS, Critic and lecturer.

MARY MOTHERSILL, Instructor in Philosophy at the University of Connecticut.

JUSTIN O'BRIEN, Professor of French at Columbia University; translator of The Journals of Andre Gide and author of Portrait of Andre Gide.

FRANK O'CONNOR, Author of The Short Stories of Frank O'Connor.

VIRGILIA PETERSON, Author, lecturer and critic.

GEORGE N. SHUSTER, President of Hunter College; author of Religion Behind the Iron Curtain.

ERNEST J. SIMMONS, Professor of Russian Literature at Columbia University; author of Dostoevsky, the Making of a Novelist.

JAMES THURBER, Humorist, cartoonist, and author of Thurber Country.

LIONEL TRILLING, Professor of English at Columbia University.

RAY B. WEST, JR., Professor of English at the University of Iowa; editor of The Western Revievj and author of The Short Story in America.

DAN WICKENDEN, Author of The Running of the Deer.

April 14, 2008

Columbia Professor Takes On Overhaul of Core Curriculum
By Sarah Garland
Staff Reporter of the Sun
April 14, 2008
 
Columbia University has taken the next step in its plan to add new multicultural classes to its core curriculum, the great books undergraduate program
 

April 08, 2008

Complete text of Robert M. Hutchins' No Friendly Voice, a collection of 24 addresses from 1930-1936.  (In nifty "flip book" format, kids!)

April 02, 2008

Apologia pro studio suo
By Brendan Carroll
Contributing Columnist, The Daily Princetonian
Published: Monday, March 10th, 2008

"My roommate will hate me for writing this, but it really should be said. Every student on this campus ought to take the four-course Humanities Sequence (HUM 216-219), Princeton's best method of introducing its undergraduates to 26 centuries of the Western canon..."

On learning and the liberal education
By Michael Medeiros
Columnist, The Daily Princetonian
Published: Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

"Though I think it's wonderful that Princeton offers the HUM sequence, I must respectfully disagree with Carroll's argument that every student ought to pursue it..."

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From Princeton course infomation regarding the above: Message to students (pdf) interested in Humanistic Studies 216-219: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Western Culture, from Antiquity to the Modern Period: History, Philosophy, Religion, Literature and the Arts