Fall 2026 Course Descriptions
From Belief to Uncertainty: Part I
Early Modern Age (GTX 3321)
Dr. Barry Harvey – MW 2:30 – 3:45
It has been said that in the year 1500 in Western society it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, while in the twenty-first century many find this not only easy, but in some ways inescapable. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a time of considerable social, intellectual, religious and political change that created a sense of uncertainty about matters that once were simply assumed: how we understand the place of women and men in the given order of things, what are the powers in the social, natural, and supernatural worlds with which we must deal, how we should understand suffering and death, and what constitutes a good life and what makes for a poor life. Read from among such noted authors as Bartolomé de Las Casas, René Descartes, Martin Luther, Thomas More, Teresa of Avila, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, John Milton, William Shakespeare, and Philipp Spener.
Great Texts in the Origins of Science (GTX 3343)
Dr. Eric Martin – MW 4:00 – 5:15
If humans have always sought to understand the world, what is distinctive about the methods, philosophies, or institutions that developed from antiquity to the Early Modern period that we recognize today as “science”? What characterizes scientific inquiry, and does science have the ultimate authority to pronounce on matters of reality? How were religious world views entwined in the beginnings of scientific thought, and has science now superseded religious understanding? This course will investigate such questions through engagement with primary texts in the origins of science, including selections from Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, Newton, and Boyle. The class will help students navigate difficult questions about science’s multifaceted history, its place in society, and its philosophical significance.
Remembering Words, Wisdom, and Eloquence
Great Texts on the Practice of the Liberal Arts (GTX 3361)
Dr. Phillip Donnelly – TR 3:30 – 4:45
One source of confusion in contemporary culture is the inability to distinguish between a metaphoric and non-metaphoric use of certain terms, such as “language,” “memory,” and “intelligence” as they are applied to digital technology. This seminar focuses on ancient and medieval treatments of the verbal arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, in order to discern how those pre-digital treatments of those liberal arts speak into present concerns. The readings will include texts on the verbal arts by Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Hugh of St. Victor, and St. Bonaventure, among others. We shall give particular attention to the ways that our present cultural assumptions regarding the character of language, memory, and intelligence shape assumptions regarding the character of the speaking “self,” formerly known as a “person.”
Solitude and Contemplation
Great Texts Capstone (GTX 4343)
Dr. Scott Moore – TR 11:00 – 12:15
In this course we will read some of the great texts which have addressed the importance of cultivating solitude and practicing contemplation. Not to be confused with isolation, exile, or alienation, the cultivation of solitude is an extraordinary practice which slows down the frantic pace of our lives by opening up the riches which come from silence, introspection, and reflection. We will read ancient authors like Aristotle and Seneca, medieval and renaissance figures such as Petrarch, Montaigne, and Julian of Norwich, and modern authors like Pascal, Thoreau, Merton, Weil, Pieper, Berry, and Dillard. Come join us to learn how powerful silence can be.
Who am I? Souls, Selves, and Searching
Confession and Autobiography (GTX 4351)
Dr. Kristen Drahos – TR 9:30 – 10:45
This course explores the many and various ways that people write the stories of their lives. Who am I? What is my story? Do I even have a story? If so, in what way can I tell it? To whom do I address it? To answer these questions, we will delve into various ways that narratives embrace coherence, chaos, witness, self-understanding, knowledge, and wisdom.
Christian Renaissance of the 20th Century
Special Topics in Great Texts (GTX 4V99)
Dr. Alan Jacobs – TR 2:00 – 3:15
By the end of the 19th century, close observers of elite culture were confident that Christianity was soon to be dead among the intellectuals of the Western world. Those observers couldn’t have been more wrong. The twentieth century witnessed a great intellectual and artistic flourishing among Christians, a flourishing that altered the entire cultural landscape. In this class we will explore this signal development. Figures studied may include: Novelists: G. K. Chesterton, J. R. R. Tolkien, Walker Percy, Marilynne Robinson; Poets: T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden; Composers: Olivier Messiaen, Arvo Pärt; Theologians and philosophers: Karl Barth, Simone Weil, Hans Urs von Balthasar, C. S. Lewis; Visual artists: Georges Rouault, Arcabas; Filmmakers: Robert Bresson, Terrence Malick. The goal here is not to give a comprehensive survey — that would be too vast a challenge for our course — but rather to understand how Christian thinkers and artists changed, and are still changing, our cultural world.