Syllabi

Courses in the Great Books Program at St. Thomas University are team-taught, discussion-based, and organized around a theme. Here are some syllabi representative of my recent teaching.

Great Books 4903: Aristotle's Philosophy of Human Affairs (Honours Seminar)

A seminar offering a close reading of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and Politics.

Great Books 2006: Quest for the Good Life

What is the best life for a human being? We investigate this question with some help from Homer, Plato, Shakespeare, Augustine, Franklin, Woolf, Dubois, Alison Bechdel, and more.

(co-taught with Dr. Andrew Moore, online delivery Fall 2020)

Great Books 2206: Human Nature and Technology

A course asking: what is nature? how do humans relate to nature? what happens when humans combine--or conflate-- art (techne) with logos? Writers covered include: Aristotle, Lucretius, Bacon, Swift, Shelley, Heidegger, Arendt, Lorde, and Stoppard.

(co-taught with Dr. Rodger Wilkie, in-person Winter 2020)

Great Books 4903: The Problem of Socrates (Honours Seminar)

A seminar considering the "problem" of Socrates as formulated by Aristophanes, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, before turning to Plato's depiction of his civil and philosophical trials in the Sophist, Euthyphro, Apology, and Phaedo.