These include not only the great Western classics, but also important Eastern works.
Courses consist of lectures and seminars taught by full-time professors.
The seminars are small, in order to allow for intensive study in a context that promotes a lively interchange of ideas. Included here are seminal works from the Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman worlds, art and literature from the Far and Middle East, and readings from Christianity and the medieval world. The second year begins with the Renaissance and traces the exhilarating, comic, beautiful, and dangerous ideas that have shaped the modern world. Jr. Humanities courses in the Core Curriculum aim at providing new levels of insight and power through exploring the origins of modern science, the rise of individualism, the incandescent flowering of the great masters of the English language, wave upon wave of rebellion against tradition, and the rediscovery by generations of the timeless power and value of great ideas. The curriculum includes not only works of philosophy, literature, and art, but also enduring music from the medieval, classical, and romantic periods.