The Torch

Last spring, our last Torch of the school year was about the Great Conversation. You’re welcome to read the entire entry here, but I will give a little snippet to segue into the Great Books:

The Great Conversation is a term used by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler (editors of The Great Books of the Western World) regarding the stories that resonate in our lives, and is a cornerstone for classical education. Mortimer Adler said, “What binds the authors together in an intellectual community is the great conversation in which they are engaged. In the works that come later in the sequence of years, we find authors listening to what their predecessors have had to say about this idea or that, this topic or that. They not only harken to the thought of their predecessors, they also respond to it by commenting on it in a variety of ways”.

The simplistic answer to “What Are the Great Books?” is the 54 volume set that consists of works from Homer to Freud. I stood in front of these books early this week and recognized many of the works that we teach at Nova Classical: Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Plutarch, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Milton, the American State Papers, Darwin, Marx, and Dostoevsky, not to mention multiple readings from the mathematicians and scientists in the collection. That is the simple answer of what the Great Books are and their context in our school, but it is not the complete answer.

The second edition of the Great Books of the Western World came out in 1990 and expanded to 60 volumes. It still lacks contributions from non-European authors, and only highlights four female authors. Much has been written on this already, so I will highlight three major takeaways about this collection I find important for our Nova Classical community:

• The title of the collection is the Great Books of the Western World because Hutchins and Adler admitted that they were not experts on nor should speak for the Eastern world, and hoped “that editors who understand the tradition of the East will do for that part of the world what we have attempted for our own tradition . . . Few things could do as much to advance the unity of mankind”.

• Instead of being a collection that is finished, as in not to be altered, Hutchins and Adler encourage that the collection should always be in flux: “It is the task of every generation to reassess the tradition in which it lives, to discard what it cannot use, and to bring into context with the distant and intermediate past the most recent contributions to the Great Conversation.” Unfortunately, the Great Books of the Western World continues to be perceived as untouchable by many in education, but there are pioneers in fortitude we can learn from in this arena.

• I would like to introduce you to one such pioneer, Dr. Anika Prather, and even better, give you an opportunity to hear her speak about her own lens with the Great Books of the Western World. Her research focus is on building literacy with African American students through engagement in the books of the Canon. She will be the keynote speaker at the MN Classical Conference Parent Night on Wednesday, October 19th, from 6-7:30. The title of her Parent Night talk is Why Classical Education is the best education for our children: My personal testimony. You can find details and RSVP through the QR code here. We are excited and honored to have Dr. Prather at the 6th annual conference!

May we continue to advance our unity together,

Dr. Missy Johnson