Upcoming Events
- March 17 - 21 - Spring Break
- April 24-25 - Preview Conference
The College at Southwestern Reading List for Life and Thought Seminars
First Year
Early Western Civilization
Fall Semester
| Aristotle | Rhetoric Nichomachean Ethics |
| Plato | Republic Timaeus and Critias |
| Sophocles | Oedipus Rex Antigone |
Church and Empires Seminar
Spring Semester
| Athanasius | On The Incarnation |
| Augustine | Confessions The City of God |
| Cicero | On Duties |
| Aquinas | Summa Theologiae |
Second Year
World Religions Seminar
Fall Semester
| Buddhism | The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha |
| Confucianism | The Analects of Confucius |
| Hinduism | The Bhagavad-Gita |
| Islam | The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an |
| Judaism | The Talmud |
***Some leeway has been give to choose other texts in the realm of world religions. You may choose from Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Shinto, Taoism. Sikhism, Jainism, and Baha’i.
Renaissance and Reformation Seminar
Spring Semester
| Calvin | Institutes of the Christian Religion |
| Copernicus | On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres |
| Erasmus/Luther | Captivation of the Will |
| Hubmaier | On the Christian Baptism of Believers; Catechism |
| Machiavelli | The Prince |
| Shakespeare | Hamlet |
***Recommended strongly that C. S. Lewis’s work Discarded Image be used for the as an introduction to this seminar.
Third Year
Enlightenment and Romantic Seminar
Fall Semester
| John Bunyan | Pilgrim’s Progress |
| Rene Descartes | Discourse on Method |
| John Locke | Two Treatises on Gov’t |
| Blaise Pascal | Pensees |
| Jean Rousseau | Emile |
| John Wesley | Selected Works |
***Recommend reading Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections in corresponding history Course.
The 19th Century Seminar
Spring Semester
| Charles Darwin | Origin of the Species |
| Dostoyevski | Brothers Karamazov |
| Charles Finney | Lectures on Revivals of Religion |
| Karl Marx | The Communist Manifesto |
| Friedrich Nietzsche | Beyond Good and Evil |
| Spurgeon | Lectures to My Students (selected) |
| Tocqueville | Democracy in America (volume 2) |
***Recommend reading the Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, and other important political treatises in the corresponding history course.
Fourth Year
The Early 20th Century Seminar
Fall Semester
| G. K. Chesterton | Orthodoxy |
| Joseph Conrad | Heart of Darkness |
| John Dewey | Experience and Education |
| T. S. Eliot | The Waste Land |
| Sigmund Freud | Civilization and Its Discontents |
| William James | Pragmatism |
| Bertrand Russell | Why I am Not a Christian |
***Recommend reading Churchill’s Second World War in corresponding history course.
The Late 20th Century Seminar
Spring Semester
| Karl Barth | The Word of God and the Word of Man |
| C.S. Lewis | Mere Christianity |
| Aldous Huxley | Brave New World |
| H. Richard Niebuhr | Christ and Culture |
| Vatican | Vatican II Texts (selected) |
| Derrida | Deconstruction in a Nutshell |
***Recommend reading Between Heaven and Hell by Peter Kreeft in the corresponding history course.