The Greeks: Old Western Culture

Old Western Culture is a Christian approach to the Great Books. The Greeks is a 3-credit integrated humanities course designed to lead the student through Western Civilization’s foundational works of history, literature, and philosophy in a true liberal arts fashion. Students in The Greeks course will learn to read and appreciate the Great Books from Homer to Aristotle, think critically about, and cultivate answers to, perennial human questions, and expand their imaginative faculties to envision truth in a context outside of reason alone. This 32-week course consists of four eight-week quarters. Each quarter students will be assigned a weekly pre-recorded lecture, reading appropriate for the week, relevant reading questions, a weekly 1.5 hour live recitation, one 1200-word essay, and a quarterly exam. In the course of the year, the students will read all the texts listed below, listened to 32 lectures, write four essays and attended a minimum of 30 (ideally 32) live recitations to discuss the texts in Socratic fashion.

(This course is eligible for dual enrollment credits with New Saint Andrews College).

Course Objectives:

1. To become proficient in the conversational approach to learning: close readings, interpretive questions, and Socratic discussions of the texts.
2. To gain a grasp of the literary figures and the historical framework of the time period.
3. To develop lateral thinking skills by analyzing and synthesizing themes and motifs.
4. To cultivate an appetite for learning as a way of life (the life of the mind).
5. To cultivate a desire to pursue the highest things.
6. To be able to think Christianly and write persuasively about perennial human questions.

Texts and Required Materials:

Students taking this course will need to purchase the Old Western Culture: The Greek's lectures and readers (students may access the PDFs of the readers free of charge). Roman Roads Media provides Kepler students with a 25% discount on all OWC Materials. See the link below for details.

• Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey
• Aeschylus, The Oresteia
• Sophocles, Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus
• Aristophanes, The Clouds and The Frogs
• Euripides, The Medea and The Trojan Women
• Sappho & Pindar, Various poems and odes
• Theocritus, Idyls I, VI, VII, and XI
• Hesiod, Works and Days
• Quintus of Smyrna, The Fall of Troy
• Apollonius of Rhodes, The Argonautica
• The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories
• The Landmark Thucydides
• Xenophon, The Persian Expedition
• Plato, Six Greek Dialogues
• The Basic Works of Aristotle