Creating a 'Great Books' Curriculum From the Core

Two decades after Vietnam and just a few years after the fall of European communism, the values of Western civilization are out of the doghouse and back at the center of educational debate in the form of a "Great Books" program.

Great Books officially surfaced in the debate over reform of Harvard's Core during the May 6 meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), where it received fairly little attention in a meeting dedicated to modifying but preserving the existing Core.

Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield '53 rose during that meeting to advocate a curriculum that deals with what he calls the "Great Questions," using a standardized canon of works.

"These would be works which were by common consent necessary to the education of civilized people," Mansfield says. "They would include non-Western works not merely because they are non-Western, but because they are good or great."

Civilization survey classes are a large part of the curriculum at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, but some negative reaction would be expected from Harvard students who have grown accustomed to the flexibility and cultural relativism of the Core.

"I've seen the Great Books list and I don't like it because people whine enough about diversity on campus, and this would just make it worse, and this gives a very Western-centric view," says Merrick Tien '97.

"Students should be free to follow that kind of curriculum, but to be forced to do Great Books--I think that's backsliding into isolationism," he adds.

More practical concern centers around the selection of a Harvard canon, which Faculty and students say could cause massive controversy--Buttenweiser University Professor Stanley H. Hoffman predicts an incredible battle.

"I just finished my generals in the English department, and there was enough concern there about a canon of great works that I think finding a canon of Great Books for the entire school would be very difficult," says Susannah J. Voigt '97.

St. John's College, the country's most prominent "Great Books College," with campuses in Maryland and New Mexico, offers a curriculum taken by many to be a definitive canon of great works.

Using Core course reading lists on file at the Coop for the '96-'97 school year, a course list emerges that allows students contact with St. John's great works within the current system.

Literature and Arts C-14: "The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization," includes works by "Great Authors" Homer, Plato and Herodotus. Literature and Arts B-51, "First Nights: Five Performance Premieres," includes music by Beethoven and Stravinsky. Literature and Arts A-40, "Shakespeare: the Early Plays," or A-41, including the later plays, take care of The Bard.

Foreign Cultures 23a and 23b, (two semesters to meet one requirement,) cover readings from Wagner, Nietzsche, Kafka, Einstein and Freud. Moral Reasoning 22: "Justice," includes Kant and Locke.

Historical Studies A-12: "International Conflicts in the Modern World," covers Thucydides. Social Analysis 52: "The Great Transformation," has readings from Marx. Finally, Science B-16: "The History of Life," offers readings from Darwin.

Of course, this schedule would still miss the vast majority of the more than 200 works on St. John's Great Books list.

In spite of the criticisms leveled at the idea of a Great Books curriculum, Joyce M. Greening '72, a veteran of General Education, offers her support of Mansfield's program.

"I have a daughter in college, and I often feel bad that there are so many wonderful things to which she will not be exposed," Greening says.

"I think of all the 19th-century novels she's not going to read, and all the basic works of history and philosophy," Greening adds. "It's kind of a shame."

'Great Books' in the Core Curriculum

Harvard students can take these classes to read some of the "Great Books":

* Literature and Arts C-14: "The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization"

* Literature and Arts B-5: "First Nights: Five Performance Premiers"

* Literature and Arts A-40: "Shakespeare: the Early Plays"

* Historical Studies A-12: "International Conflicts in the Modern World"

* Moral Reasoning 22: "Justice"

* Foreign Cultures 23: "Die Kultur Deutschlands: Bom Kaiserreich bis zur Nazizeit, 1890-1931."

* Science B-16: "The History of Life"

* Social Analysis 52: "The Great Transformation"