Great Books and Films
Course Credits: 10
Course Curriculum
Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life
Video Lectures Taught by J. Rufus Fears
University of Oklahoma
Ph.D., Harvard University
Course Description
What makes a written work eternal-its message still so fundamental to the way we live that it continues to speak to us, hundreds or thousands of years from the lifetime of its author?
In this course, Professor J. Rufus Fears presents his choices of some of the most essential writings in history. These are books that have shaped the minds of great individuals, who in turn have shaped events of historic magnitude.
In addition to listening to the lectures, student will build a life long reading habit by freely choosing books that compel him to read. Each book will be discussed and student will be encouraged to join or form a book group.
The other half of the course will deal with great films. Armed with a list of films that have won the Academy Awards Best Picture Show throughout history, and an alternate list of popular movies, student will choose films to view, rate, and discuss on a weekly basis.
Course Lecture Titles
Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison
Homer, Iliad
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Bhagavad Gita
Book of Exodus
Gospel of Mark
Koran
Gilgamesh
Beowulf
Book of Job
Aeschylus, Oresteia
Euripides, Bacchae
Plato, Phaedo
Dante, The Divine Comedy
Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
George Orwell, 1984
Vergil, Aeneid
Pericles, Oration; Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
Confucius, The Analects
Machiavelli, The Prince
Plato, Republic
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Sir Thomas Malory, Morte d'Arthur
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part 1
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part 2
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Lord Acton, The History of Freedom
Cicero, On Moral Duties (De Officiis)
Gandhi, An Autobiography
Churchill, My Early Life; Painting as a Pastime; WWII
Lessons from the Great Books