St.

John’s College Great Books Reading List

St. John’s College was founded Freshman Year Reading List Pascal: Generation of Conic Kant: Critique of Pure Reason, Kierkegaard: Philosophical Fragments,
Sections Foundations of the Fear and Trembling
Homer: Iliad, Odyssey Hebrew Bible
in 1696 and is the third oldest Bach: St. Matthew Passion, Metaphysics of Morals Wagner: Tristan and Isolde
Aeschylus: Agamemnon, Libation New Testament
Inventions Mozart: Don Giovanni Marx: Capital, Political and
college in the United States. Bearers, Eumenides, Aristotle: De Anima,
Haydn: Quartets Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Emma Economic Manuscripts of
Prometheus Bound On Interpretation,
Mozart: Operas Hawthorne: The Scarlett Letter 1844, The German Ideology
Sophocles: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Prior Analytics, Categories
Following are the books on which Beethoven: Third Symphony Dedekind: Essays on the Theory of Dostoevsky: Brothers Karamazov
Colonus, Antigone, Apollonius: Conics Schubert: Songs Numbers Tolstoy: War and Peace
the St. John’s program is based. Philoctetes, Ajax Virgil: Aeneid Monteverdi: L’Orfeo Articles of Confederation, Melville: Benito Cereno
Thucydides: Peloponnesian War Plutarch: “Caesar,” “Cato the Younger,” Declaration of Independence,
Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms O’Connor: Selected stories
The great books curriculum at Euripides: Hippolytus, Bacchae “Antony,” “Brutus” Constitution of the United William James: Psychology, Briefer Course
Herodotus: Histories Epictetus: Discourses, Manual States of America
St. John’s includes works in Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil
Aristophanes: Clouds Tacitus: Annals Junior Year Reading List
Hamilton, Jay, Freud: Introductory Lectures on
Plato: Meno, Gorgias, Republic, Ptolemy: Almagest Cervantes: Don Quixote
philosophy, literature, political Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Plotinus: The Enneads
and Madison: The Federalist Psychoanalysis
Galileo: Two New Sciences Twain: The Adventures of Baudelaire: Les Fleurs du Mal
science, psychology, classics, Sym­posium, Parmenides, Augustine: Confessions Hobbes: Leviathan Huckleberry Finn Booker T.
Theaetetus, Sophist, Maimonides: Guide for the Perplexed Descartes: Meditations, Rules for the Wordsworth: The Two-Part Prelude Washington: Selected writings
history, religion, economics, math, Timaeus, Phaedrus Anselm: Proslogium Direction of the Mind of 1799 Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk
Aristotle: Poetics, Physics, Aquinas: Summa Theologiae Milton: Paradise Lost Essays by: Young, Taylor, Euler, D. Husserl: Crisis of the European
chemistry, physics, biology, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Dante: Divine Comedy La Rochefoucauld: Maximes Bernoulli, Ørsted, Ampère, Sciences
Ethics, On Generation and Chaucer: Canterbury Tales La Fontaine: Fables Faraday, Maxwell
astronomy, music, language, Heidegger: Basic Writings
Corruption, Politics, Parts Machiavelli: The Prince, Discourses Pascal: Pensées Einstein: Selected papers
and more. of Animals, Generation of Copernicus: On the Revolutions of Huygens: Treatise on Light, On the Senior Year Reading List Conrad: Heart of Darkness
Animals the Spheres Movement of Bodies
Supreme Court Opinions Faulkner: Go Down Moses
Euclid: Elements Kepler: Epitome IV by Impact
Goethe: Faust Flaubert: Un Coeur Simple
Lucretius: On the Nature of Things Livy: Early History of Rome Eliot: Middlemarch
Darwin: Origin of Species Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway, To the
Plutarch: “Lycurgus,” “Solon” Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli Spinoza: Theologico­-Political Treatise
Hegel: Phenomenology of Mind, Lighthouse
Contact Ptolemy: Almagest Montaigne: Essays Locke: Second Treatise of
“Logic” (from the Poems by: Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Wallace
60 College Avenue Pascal: Treatise on the Equilibrium Viète: Introduction to the Government Encyclopedia) Stevens, Valéry, Rimbaud
of Liquids Analytical Art Racine: Phèdre
Annapolis, MD 21401 Lobachevsky: Theory of Parallels Essays by: Faraday, J. J. Thomson,
Nicomachus: Arithmetic Bacon: Novum Organum Newton: Principia Mathematica Millikan, Minkowski,
410-263-2371 Lavoisier: Elements of Chemistry Shakespeare: Richard II, Henry IV, The Kafka: The Metamorphosis
Leibniz: Monadology, Discourse on Rutherford, Davisson,
Harvey: Motion of the Heart and Tempest, As You Like It, Plato: Phaedrus
Metaphysics, Essay on Schrödinger, Bohr,
1160 Camino Cruz Blanca Blood Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Tocqueville: Democracy in America
Dynamics, Philosophical de Broglie, Heisenberg,
Santa Fe, NM 87505 Essays by: Archimedes, Fahrenheit, King Lear, and Sonnets Documents from
Essays, Principles of Mendel, Boveri, Sutton,
505-984-6000 Avogadro, Dalton, Cannizzaro, Poems by: Marvell, Donne, and other American History
Nature and Grace Hamilton, Jay, Morgan, Beadle & Tatum,
Virchow, Mariotte, Driesch, 16th- and 17th-century Swift: Gulliver’s Travels Sussman, Watson & Crick,
Gay-Lussac, Spemann, poets and Madison The Federalist
sjc.edu Hume: Treatise of Human Nature Jacob & Monod, Hardy
Stears, J.J. Thomson, Descartes: Geometry, Discourse on Lincoln: Selected speeches
Rousseau: Social Contract, The Origin F. Douglass: Selected speeches
Mendeleyev, Berthollet, Method of Inequality
J.L. Proust
Molière: Le Misanthrope
Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations

Recent preceptorial books have included: Melville: Moby Dick Dostoevsky: The Devils Essays, Poetry,
For seven weeks in junior and senior years, seminar is suspended so O’Connor: Wise Blood Avicenna: The Metaphysics Music,
that students may choose elective classes called preceptorials. Gibbon: The History of the Decline and Fall Zhuangzi: Zhuangzi and Art by: Einstein, Manet, Al-Farabi, Dickinson,
of the Roman Empire Flaubert: Madame Bovary Al-Razi, Locke, Voltaire, Ibn Majja, Duchamp,
Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude Heidegger: What is Metaphysics? Bach: St. Matthew Passion Ibn Sina, Hill, Hume, Al-Ghazali, Rousseau,
Russell: An Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy Proust: Remembrance of Things Past Feynman: QED Ibn Tufayl, Montaigne, Ibn Rushd, Herbert,
Shakespeare: Measure for Measure Nietzsche: Gay Science Camus: The Stranger Donne, Hopkins, Stravinsky
Laozi: Daodejing Arendt: The Human Condition Borges: Ficciones
Hegel: Philosophy of Nature James: The Portrait of a Lady Lorenz: Studies in Animal and Human Behavior