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Shimer Great Books School Required and Suggested Texts SHIMER GREAT BOOKS SCHOOL Required and Suggested Texts HUMANITIES 111: FUNDAMENTAL SUGGESTED TEXTS: SUGGESTED TEXTS: CONCEPTS OF ART AND MUSIC Enuma Elish Catherine of Siena, letters or Dialogue of Divine Providence Mahabharata REQUIRED TEXTS: al-Ghazali, Deliverance from Error Joshua C. Taylor, Learning to Look 1001 Arabian Nights Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed (selections) Alberti, On Painting Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji Upanishads Josef Albers, Interactions of Color Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus Bhagavad Gita Svetlana Alpers, Vexations of Art Other works of premodern literature from various Confucius, Analects world traditions Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form HUMANITIES 212: PHILOSOPHICAL Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Cézanne HUMANITIES 113: LITERATURE IN REASONING THE MODERN WORLD REQUIRED ARTWORKS AND MUSICAL REQUIRED TEXTS: PIECES: REQUIRED TEXTS: Plato, Apology, Phaedo, Phaedrus Renaissance paintings illustrating the use of Shakespeare, Hamlet, Othello or King Lear (if Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics perspective choosing Hamlet, Grammaticus’s Amleth may Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy Paintings by Cézanne and at least one be used) Locke, Essay on Human Understanding, or Hume, Impressionist Selections from Norton Anthology of Poetry Dialogues on Natural Religion Velazquez, Las Meninas At least one of the following major novels: Austen, Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Bach, Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould recording) Pride and Prejudice or Emma; Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, “On the Prejudices of the Philosophers” Brothers Karamazov or Crime and Punishment; (Beyond Good and Evil) Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition (piano Ellison, Invisible Man; Morrison, Beloved or Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations version and orchestration by Ravel) Song of Solomon Beauvoir, Ethics of Ambiguity SUGGESTED TEXTS AND OTHER COURSE At least one of the following works of shorter fiction: Chopin, The Awakening; Dostoevsky, SUGGESTED TEXTS: MATERIALS: Notes from Underground; Hurston, Their Eyes Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (with Plato, Ion Were Watching God; Woolf, To the Lighthouse; commentaries) Ovid, Metamorphoses short stories by Borges, James, Joyce, Kafka, Book of Equanimity Melville, or O’Connor Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? Dhammapada One modern play from the following list: Beckett, Tao Te Ching Boralsky, A Brief History of the Artist from God to Waiting for Godot; Chekhov, Three Sisters; Picasso Pinter, The Homecoming; Stoppard, Rosencrantz Aristotle, Metaphysics Vasari, Lives of the Artists (e.g., Uccello and and Guildenstern are Dead (to be used only in Ibn Tufayl, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan Michaelangelo) conjunction with Shakespeare’s Hamlet) Ralph Ellison, Jazz Writings HUMANITIES 213: CRITICAL HUMANITIES 211: RELIGIOUS ASSESSMENT IN THE HUMANITIES Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise REASONING Representative compositions from Western REQUIRED TEXTS: classical, jazz and other world musical REQUIRED TEXTS: Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy (with music by traditions Hebrew Bible: Genesis, with selected rabbinic Debussy and Wagner) Representative works of visual art from a range of literature Buber, I and Thou artistic traditions New Testament: Gospel of John, selected Pauline Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway Representative works of aesthetics and fine arts Epistle Heidegger, Origin of the Work of Art (with art by van Gogh) criticism Qur’an: early Meccan surahs, surahs retelling biblical stories Harlem Renaissance unit: visual art, jazz, texts by Locke, Schuyler and Hughes HUMANITIES 112: LITERATURE IN Augustine, Confessions THE ANCIENT WORLD Cone, God of the Oppressed and/or The Spirituals Anselm, Proslogion and the Blues (with music) REQUIRED TEXTS: Julian of Norwich, Showings or Teresa of Avila, Sontag, On Photography (with photography by Diane Arbus and others) Bible: David narratives Autobiography or Interior Castle Butler, Antigone’s Claim Homer, Odyssey Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (Preface, Exordium, Eulogy on Abraham) Sophocles, Oedipus and Antigone Pascal, Pensées Aristotle, Poetics Auerbach, Odysseus’ Scar Office of Admission | 30 North Brainard Street | Naperville, IL 60540 | 630-637-5800 northcentralcollege.edu/majors SUGGESTED TEXTS: Wheelwright, The Presocratics Descartes, Optics, On Light, On Refraction Derrida, Plato’s Pharmacy Black, Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry Huygens, Treatise On Light Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals Lavoisier, Memoir on the Calcination of Tin . ., Representative works of criticism on texts in the Elements of Chemistry (selections) REQUIRED LAB EXERCISES AND Humanities curriculum DEMONSTRATIONS: Macquer, excerpts from A Dictionary of Chemistry, The Theory and Practice of Chemistry Repeat Galilean experiments (pendulum, rolling LOGIC AND MATHEMATICS 121: balls, etc.) CLASSICAL FOUNDATIONS OF Pascal, Scientific Treatises Types and behaviors of waves LOGIC AND MATHEMATICS Priestly, On Depholgisticated Air Snell’s Law Stahl, excerpts from On Sulfur REQUIRED TEXTS: Reflection and refraction of light Thompson, Source of the Heat Which is Excited by “Bits and Bins” (faculty-authored logic problem) Friction Wave tank Aristotle, Posterior Analytics Du Chatelet, Dissertation on the Nature and Prisms Euclid, Elements, Book 1 Propagation of Fire Diffraction of light (one slit and two slits) Descartes, “Discourse on the Method” and/or REQUIRED LAB EXERCISES AND Measurement of distance between rulings in a “Rules for the Direction of the Mind” diffraction grating DEMONSTRATIONS: SUGGESTED TEXTS: Air and hydraulic pressure NATURAL SCIENCES 231: ATOMS Aristotle, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Topics, Weight of air AND ELECTRICITY Categories, Sophistic Refutations Boyle’s law Euclid, Elements, Book 5 REQUIRED TEXTS: Latent heat Nicomachus of Gerasa, Introduction to Shamos, Great Experiments in Physics Mathematics Mechanical equivalent of heat Avogadro, A Manner of Determining the Relative Diogenes Laertius, Book 7 of Lives of Philosophers “Dephlogistication” (burning) of Masses. (excerpts on Stoic Logic) magnesium Berzelius, excerpts: Electrochemical Theory, Descartes, “Geometry” Specific heats of different elements Chemical Symbols and Formulas Apollonius of Perga, Treatise on Conic Sections Supercooling Curie, 1911 Nobel Lecture, On Radioactivity Calcination of iron Cannizzaro, Sketch of a Course of Chemical LOGIC AND MATHEMATICS 122: Philosophy MODERN FOUNDATIONS OF LOGIC NATURAL SCIENCES 132: Clausius, On the Nature of the Motion that We AND MATHEMATICS EVOLUTION, CLASSIFICATION AND Call Heat ANIMAL BEHAVIOR REQUIRED TEXTS: Dalton, 1810 extract, Atomic Principles of Chemistry, Letter to Nicholson, 1808 Extract “A Little Reasoning about Reasoning and Logic” REQUIRED TEXTS: Dulong, Atomic Weights and Specific Heat (faculty-authored essay) Lamarck, Zoological Philosophy DuFay, The Two-Fluid Theory of Electricity Lobachevsky, Geometrical Investigations on the Darwin, Origin of Species, Descent of Man Franklin, The One-Fluid Theory of Electricity Theory of Parallel Lines Goodall, The Chimps of Gombe Newton, Principia Faraday, Decomposition of Tin Chloride, On some Lorenz, On Aggression Points of Magnetic Philosophy… Einstein, Relativity Tattersall, Masters of the Planet “On Paradox” (faculty-authored essay) Maxwell, On Action at A Distance (Faraday’s Point Aristotle, On the Soul of View), On Ether Nagel & Newman, Gödel’s Proof Cuvier, Revolutionary Upheavals on the Surface of the Globe REQUIRED LAB EXERCISES AND SUGGESTED TEXTS: DEMONSTRATIONS: Paley, Natural Theology Newton and/or Leibniz on fundamental theorems Simple quantitative analysis: Percent acid in a of calculus REQUIRED LAB EXERCISES AND mixture by weight using titration Boole, Laws of Thought DEMONSTRATIONS: Coin lab Venn, On the Diagrammatic and Mechanical Fastener Lab Measurements of specific heats of elements Representation of Propositions and Reasonings Observing and describing variation in Atomic motion (TBD) Foundational texts in statistics and probability (e.g., Bayles 1763, Laplace ca. 1820, Fisher » Nature Observation of elements and qualitative 1925) » Preserved specimens descriptions of metals and non-metals Cantor on infinite numbers Observing animal behavior (ape or fish, human) Electrostatics Dedekind, Essays on the Theory of Numbers Dominance lab Mapping of electromagnetic field Measurement of electromagnetic induction NATURAL SCIENCES 131: NATURAL SCIENCES 133: CLASSICAL Precipitation of tin PREMODERN SCIENCE AND THE PHYSICS, MOTION AND LIGHT CHEMICAL REVOLUTION The properties of electromagnetic waves REQUIRED COURSE MATERIALS: REQUIRED TEXTS: Galileo, Dialogues Concerning the Two New Aristotle, The Physics Sciences Bacon, The Novum Organum Newton, Principia: The Central Argument, Opticks Shamos, Great Experiments in Physics (selections) Shamos, Great Experiments in Physics Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe Newton, Newton’s Philosophy of Nature Office of Admission | 30 North Brainard Street | Naperville, IL 60540 | 630-637-5800 Be central. northcentralcollege.edu/majors NATURAL SCIENCES 232: SOCIAL SCIENCES 141: SOCIETY, SUGGESTED TEXTS: TWENTIETH CENTURY CULTURE, AND PERSONALITY Mann, writings on public education REVOLUTIONS IN PHYSICS REQUIRED TEXTS: Thoreau, Civil Disobedience REQUIRED TEXTS: Benedict, Patterns of Culture Douglass, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Shamos, Great Experiments in Physics James, Psychology: The Briefer Course Lincoln, selected speeches Feynman, The Character of Physical Law, QED: The Durkheim, Suicide Strange Theory of Light and Matter Alexander Stephens, Cornerstone
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