Introducing
The Great Books Program at UWM

A new certificate program is scheduled to begin operating at the end of the fall semester, 1995. Its formal title is: Certificate Program in the Study of the Liberal Arts through Great Books. This certificate will be awarded at the time of graduation to UWM students who have fulfilled a set of course requirements that amount to the nucleus of a rigorous education in the traditional liberal arts.

What courses are required for the certificate?

Students must pass fairly advanced courses in mathematics and foreign language, a two-semester survey of Western Civilization, and 15 credits in Great Books courses. (Please see the reverse side of this sheet for an exact description of Course requirements.)

What are "Great Books Courses?"

Great Books courses are courses in which the students' primary responsibility is to master one or more books that have gained the status of acknowledged classics in their field. Each semester, the Certificate Program's Steering Committee will compile a list of upcoming Great Books courses. A list of approved Great Books courses offered at UWM during the 1995-96 academic year is attached. The steering committee is also actively encouraging the development of new Great Books courses on highly regarded works that are not currently represented in UWM's curriculum.

What is the goal of the program?

The program provides an incentive for students to devote their college years to the development of broad intellectual abilities through meeting the most difficult challenges that undergraduate education has to offer. Course requirements have been designed with an eye towards increasing general verbal and quantitative abilities rather than imparting narrow skills needed for particular jobs. In addition, certificate holders will have an intimate knowledge of some of the best books ever written and their historical contexts. Sponsoring faculty members believe that such an approach to education yields the greatest returns in personal satisfaction as well as practical success. Many leaders of business and the professions agree. Certificate winners will have the satisfaction of knowing that their educations rival the best available anywhere; prospective employers will soon learn that the certificate is a sure sign of intellectual ability and a capacity for hard work.

Though challenging, the certificate is well within the ability of average students. Students who begin working towards a certificate early in their career will normally be able to earn it and fulfill the requirements of their major program without increasing the number of credits needed for graduation.

How can I become involved?

If you are interested in this certificate program, please contact the chairman of the steering committee as soon as possible. He is David Mulroy, Department of Classics and Hebrew Studies, 805 Curtin Hall, 3243 North Downer Avenue, Milwaukee, WI. 53211; phone: (414) 229-4711. A reception is being planned for the first group of students to sign up for the program. It will be held at 4:00 P.M., Sunday afternoon, December 17.

Retroactive Credit.

Since all the courses needed to earn the Great Books Certificate are already part ofthe curriculum, some students may have already fulfilled the requirements or have come close to doing so. Students will be given full credit for relevant work done before the official beginning of the program. The steering committee is especially anxious to identify students who have already completed all or most ofthe program's requirements. We believe that such students deserve recognition for their acheivements, and we would like to cite them as inspirational models for others. If you are in this category, please contact Professor Mulroy in the Classics Department.

Requirements for a UWM Certificate in the Study of the Liberal Arts through Great Books

To earn the certificate, students must fulfill the requirements listed below with an average GPA of 2.75 or better. At least half of the courses must be completed at UWM.

  1. Both option A* and option B** of the College of Letters and Sciences "special requirement." Option A must be fulfilled with courses offered by the Department of Mathematical Sciences.
  2. Either an additional three credits of courses in Mathematics at the 200-level or above or an additional six credits of foreign language study at the 300-level or above.
  3. History 101 and 102 (Survey of Western Civilization).
  4. 15 credits in courses designated as Great Books courses by the program coordinator acting on advice of the participating faculty.
*(Option A): "Two courses (at least 6 credits) at the 200 level or above chosen from mathematics courses. Philosophy 2311 or 212, or Letters and Sciences statistics courses.

** (Option B): "Two courses (at least 6 credits) in a single foreign or Native American language (not including literature-in-translation) at the 200-level or above."


Approved Great Books Courses

Semester I, 1995-96

Classics 302: Life and Literature of Classical Athens; Mulroy (Thucydides, History; Plato, Republic)

Comparative Literature 207 and 208: Masterpieces of Literature; Skalitzky and Katchoudourian (207: Iliad or Odyssey; Aeschylus Oresteia; Dante, Inferno; 208: works by Balzac, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Ibsen).

Comparative Literature 321: Literature of the Renaissance; Swanson (More, Utopia; Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel; Erasmus, Praise of Folly.)

English 452 and 453: Shakespeare I and Shakespeare II; Chang and Haas. (Shakespeare's works are divided between the two courses. Each semester students in each section collectively select six or seven plays to read.)

English 685-002: Chaucer and Malory; Jesmok (Selected Canterbury Tales and Le Morte D'Arthur read in Middle English).

Hebrew Studies 231: Books of the Old Testament in Translation; Szpek.

Honors 200-001/2: Heroism in Spiritual and Physical Warfare; Kornman (Homer, Iliad; Vergil, Aeneid; Aristotle, Poetics; Horace, Ars Poetica).

Honors 200-003: Introduction to Political Thought; Harvey (Plato, The Republic; Locke, Two Treatises of Government; Rousseau, Social Contract and Discourses.)

Honors 200-006: Politics and Morality; Callan (Freud, Civilization and its Discontents; Machiavelli, The Prince; Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto; Mill, On Liberty: Plato, selected Dialogues).

Philosophy 349: Great Moral Philosophers; Wainwright (Plato, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno; Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics; Kant, Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals; Mill, Utilitarianism).

Philosophy 381: The Greeks: Dialogue and Drama; Weiss (Plato, Symposium; Aristotle, Poetics; Sophocles, Oedipus Rex; Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy).

Spanish 353: Introduction to Spanish American Literature (in Spanish); Daydi-Tolson (Works by Marquez, Neruda, and others).


Semester II, 1995-96

* = no prerequisites; + = only junior standing required. Honors Program courses require consent of Honors Program Director

+Classics 301: Greek Life and Literature; Ross (Herodotus, History; selected Greek tragedies), TR 2:05-3:20.

+Classics 303: Life and Literature of the Roman Empire; Shey (Vergil, Aeneid, Petronius, Satyricon; Apuleius, Golden Ass; Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy), TR 8:05-9:20 AM.

*Comparative Literature 207 and 208: Masterpieces of Literature; Skalitzky and Katchoudourian: 207 (Iliad or Odyssey; Aeschylus Oresteia; Dante, Inferno) TR 9:30-10:45; 208 (works by Balzac, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Ibsen) MWF 9:30 and TR 12:30.

+English 452 and 453: Shakespeare I and Shakespeare II; Chang and Haas. (Shakespeare's works are divided between the two courses. Each semester students in each section collectively select six or seven plays to read.) 452, TR 8:05-9:20 AM; 453, TR 9:30-10:45.

*Comparative Literature 309: Masterpices of Twentieth-Century Literature; Swanson (Proust, Swann's Way; Hamsun, Growth of the Soil; Dinesen, Out of Africa) MWF 10:30.

+English 507: Studies in Twentieth Century Literature: Freud; Gallop (Seven of Freud's principal essays, e.g., Interpretation of Dreams and Totem and Taboo are assigned.) TR 12:30-1:45.

English 685 (Honors Seminar): The Novel, Structure, and Technique; Bontley (Austen, Emma; Twain, Huckleberry Finn; Fitzgerald, Great Gatsby) TR 12:30-1:45.

Honors 200-003,4: Passion, Love and Marriage; Kornman (Plato, Symposium; Goethe, Sorrows of Young Werther; Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice) TR 9:30-10:45 and 12:30-1:45.

Italian 333: The Divine Comedy in Translation; Baldassaro MWF 10:30. (Prerequisite: 5cr in lit-in-trans and/or 200-level English lit courses.)

Philosophy 349: Great Moral Philosophyers; Weiss (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics; Bacon, Essays; Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals). MW 4:30-5:45. (Prerequisite: junior standing and 3 cr. in Philos)

Philosophy 450: Plato; Weiss (Plato, Republic and Phaedo) T 3:30-6:10 (Prerequisite:junior standing; 3 cr in Philo; Philos 430).

*Spanish 380: Masterpieces of Spanish Literature; Flynn (El Cid; Cervantes, Don Quixote) W 5:30-8:10.


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David Mulroy, dmulroy@csd.uwm.edu
Last Update: 11/9/95