This is a partial Shimer College reading list, based on the recent version of the core curriculum published here.
Most classes will have slightly different readings, because the curriculum is constantly in flux, and also because instructors enjoy a certain measure of autonomy with respect to the specific texts assigned.
In addition, of course, this does not account for the 1/3 of the curriculum that is made up of electives chosen by students.
Links currently point to relevant Wikipedia articles.
Humanities 1: Art And Music[]
- Josef Albers, Interaction of Color
- Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting
- Grosvenor Cooper, Learning to Listen
- Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks
- Plato, Ion
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Cezanne
- Leo Steinberg, Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper
- Joshua C. Taylor, Learning to Look
- Leo Tolstoy, What is Art?
- Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists
Humanities 2: Poetry, Drama And Fiction[]
- The Norton Anthology of Poetry
- Aristotle, Poetics
- Erich Auerbach, Odysseus’ Scar
- Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
- Homer, Odyssey
- Sophocles, Oedipus the King, Antigone
- Shakespeare, Hamlet
- Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Humanities 3: Philosophy And Theology[]
- Anselm, Proslogion
- Aquinas, Summa Theologica
- Aristotle, Metaphysics
- Augustine, Confessions
- The Bible: Genesis, Gospel of John, I Corinthians
- Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
- Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
- John Locke, Essay on Human Understanding
- Blaise Pascal, Pensées
- Plato, Apology, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium
- Teresa of Ávila, Autobiography
Humanities 4: Modern Currents In The Humanities[]
- Simone de Beauvoir, Ethics of Ambiguity
- Martin Buber, I and Thou
- Jacques Derrida, Dissemination
- Franz Kafka, The Trial
- Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
- Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics
Social Sciences 1: Society, Culture, And Personality[]
- Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture
- Nancy Chodorow, Family Structure and Feminine Personality
- W.E.B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folk
- Emile Durkheim, Suicide
- Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
- Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice
- William James, Psychology: The Briefer Course
- Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
- Jean Piaget, Moral Feelings and Judgments
- Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments
- Max Weber, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Social Sciences 2: The Western Political Tradition[]
- Aristotle, Politics, Nicomachean Ethics
- Frederick Douglass, Story of My Life
- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
- John Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government
- Machiavelli, The Prince
- Plato, Republic
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Emile
- Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women
- U.S. Declaration of Independence
- U.S. Constitution
- Federalist Papers
Social Sciences 3: Modern Theories Of Society And Politics[]
- Arendt, The Human Condition
- Beauvoir, The Second Sex
- Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
- Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, Philosophy of Right
- Marshall, Principles of Economics
- Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Manifesto of the Communist Party
- Mill, On Liberty
- Sarte, Essays on Existentialism
- Smith, Wealth of Nations
- Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Social Sciences 4: Social Perspectives And Social Action[]
- Emile Durkheim, Rules of Sociological Method
- Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality
- Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
- Clifford Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures
- Sandra Harding, ed., Feminism and Methodology
- Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities
- Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia
- Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority
- Max Weber, Objectivity in the Social Sciences
Natural Sciences 1: Laws And Models In Chemistry[]
- Aristotle, Physics
- Bacon, New Organon
- Cannizzaro, Sketch of a Course in Chemical Philosophy
- Lucretius, On the Nature of Things
- Pascal, Scientific Treatises
- The Presocratics
- Selections from Boyle, Priestley, Lavoisier, Thompson, Dalton, Avogadro, Joule, Faraday, Mendeleev, Curie
Natural Sciences 2: Evolution, Genetics, Animal Behavior[]
- Aristotle, On the Soul, On the Parts of Animals
- Sergei Chetverikov, On Certain Aspects of the Evolutionary Process
- Georges Cuvier, Revolutionary Upheavals on the Surface of the Globe
- Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, Descent of Man
- Jane Goodall, Chimpanzees of Gombe
- G. H. Hardy, Hardy-Weinberg Law
- Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Zoological Philosophy
- Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression
- Gregor Mendel, Experiments in Plant Hybridization
Natural Sciences 3: The Nature Of Light[]
- Descartes, Optics
- Galileo, Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences
- Huygens, Treatise on Light
- Newton, Opticks, Principia
- Selections from DuFay, Franklin, Faraday, Hertz, Maxwell, Oersted, Young
Natural Sciences 4: Modern Scientific Revolutions[]
- Carroll, Endless Forms Most Beautiful
- Dyson, Origins of Life
- Einstein, Relativity, "Photoelectric Effect"
- Feynman, QED, Character of Physical Law
- Gamow, Thirty Years that Shook Physics
- Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy
- Schrödinger, What is Life?, "Four Lectures on Wave Mechanics"
- Selectrions from Crick, Davisson, Millikan, Spermann
Integrative Studies 1: Analysis, Logic, and Rhetoric[]
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”
- Raymond Smullyan, excerpt from What Is the Name of This Book?
- George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”
- William Shakespeare, Sonnets (in Complete Works, ed. Bevington, or any edition)
- Galileo Galilei, The Starry Messenger
- Edwin Abbott, Flatland
- Constitution of the United States and related documents
- U.S. Supreme Court cases and related documents
- Martin Luther King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
- Lewis Thomas, Lives of a Cell
- Plato, Meno (in Complete Works, ed. Cooper)
Integrative Studies 2: Foundations Of Mathematics And Logic[]
- Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Prior Analytics, On Interpretation
- Descartes, Discourse on the Method
- Einstein, Relativity
- Euclid, Elements
- Lobachevsky, "Theory of Parallel Lines"
- Nagel and Newman, Gödel’s Proof
- Newton, Principia
- Venn, On the Diagrammatic and Mechanical Representation of Propositions and Reasonings
Integrative Studies 5: History And Philosophy Of Western Civilization[]
- Epic of Gilgamesh
- Aeschylus, Oresteia
- Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles
- Aristotle, On the Heavens
- Augustine, City of God
- The Bible, Genesis, The Gospels
- Dante, Inferno
- Herodotus, Persian Wars
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Homer, Iliad
- Plato, Republic
- Ptolemy, Almagest
- Sappho, Poetry
- Thucydides, Peloponnesian War
- Virgil, Aeneid
Integrative Studies 6: History And Philosophy Of Western Civilization[]
- Chaucer, Canterbury Tales
- Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
- Galileo, On the Heavens
- Goethe, Faust
- Hume, Treatise on Human Nature
- Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysic of Morals
- Kepler, Epitome of Copernican Astronomy
- Luther, Three Treatises
- Milton, Paradise Lost
- Pisan, Treasure of the City of Ladies
- Shakespeare, Tempest