The main texts used in the St. John's Program. They are sorted by class, and then by subject.
Photocopies, manuals, and lab materials are available for students and faculty only. If you are not enrolled in a class and attempt to purchase these materials, they will be cancelled and the funds will be returned to your credit card.
Program Books
Known to his contemporaries primarily as an art critic, but ambitious to secure a more lasting literary legacy, Charles Baudelaire, a Parisian bohemian, spent much of the 1840s composing gritty, often perverse, poems that expressed his disgust with the banality of modern city life.
First published in 1857, the book that collected these poems together, Les Fleurs du mal, was an instant sensation--earning Baudelaire plaudits and, simultaneously, disrepute. Only a year after Gustave Flaubert had endured his own public trial for published indecency (for Madame Bovary), a French court declared Les Fleurs du mal an offense against public morals and six poems within it were immediately suppressed (a ruling that would not be reversed until 1949, nearly a century after Baudelaire's untimely death). Subsequent editions expanded on the original, including new poems that have since been recognized as Baudelaire's masterpieces, producing a body of work that stands as the most consequential, controversial, and influential book of poetry from the nineteenth century.
Acclaimed translator and poet Aaron Poochigian tackles this revolutionary text with an ear attuned to Baudelaire's lyrical innovations--rendering them in "an assertive blend of full and slant rhymes and fluent iambs" (A. E. Stallings)--and an intuitive feel for the work's dark and brooding mood. Poochigian's version captures the incantatory, almost magical, effect of the original--reanimating for today's reader Baudelaire's "unfailing vision" that "trumpeted the space and light of the future" (Patti Smith).
An introduction by Dana Gioia offers a probing reassessment of the supreme artistry of Baudelaire's masterpiece, and an afterword by Daniel Handler explores its continued relevance and appeal. Featuring the poems in English and French, this deluxe dual-language edition allows readers to commune both with the original poems and with these electric, revelatory translations.
In this landmark work, the German philosopher asks what sort of maxim might function as a guide to appropriate action under a given set of circumstances. By universalizing such a maxim, would morally permissible behavior not become clear? Suppose that everyone were to behave in accordance with this maxim. If everyone followed the maxim in the same way without harm to civilized culture, then the behavior would be morally permissible. But what if no one followed the maxim? Would civilization thereby be at risk? In such a case, the behavior would be morally obligatory.
Kant's test, known as the Categorical Imperative, is a logical proof of the Golden Rule and the centerpiece of this work. It constitutes his best-known contribution to ethical discussion, and a familiarity with his reasoning in this book is essential to students of philosophy, religion, and history.
In fifteen essays, sigmund freud explains his most controversial theories exposing the darkest corners of the human psyche.
Best known for his research into the unconscious mind, Sigmund Freud challenged the mores of conventional American society during the early twentieth century. This collection presents many of Freud's revolutionary ideas, showing how his theories changed the way people think about their emotions and actions, opening a rich dialogue about the methods and science of the brain. In a series of essays written between 1911 and 1938, readers follow Freud through clear explanations of how neurology and psychology influence our actions and govern personality traits and emotions, including the libido, narcissism, mourning, repression, dreams, paranoia, and melancholy. This volume illustrates how Freud was not afraid to venture into unknown areas of the human mind and that he was superbly equipped to expose its secrets. Exploring the hypotheses of the most controversial psychologist of the twentieth century, in his own words, may help us understand our own behaviors.
This is one of the most important works in Indian literature and a source of religious inspiration in both medieval and contemporary Vaishnavism.
"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance." --William Faulkner, on receiving the Nobel Prize
Go Down, Moses is composed of seven interrelated stories, all of them set in Faulkner's mythic Yoknapatawpha County. From a variety of perspectives, Faulkner examines the complex, changing relationships between blacks and whites, between man and nature, weaving a cohesive novel rich in implication and insight.
An accessible explanation of Kurt Gödel's groundbreaking work in mathematical logic
In 1931 Kurt Gödel published his fundamental paper, On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems. This revolutionary paper challenged certain basic assumptions underlying much research in mathematics and logic. Gödel received public recognition of his work in 1951 when he was awarded the first Albert Einstein Award for achievement in the natural sciences--perhaps the highest award of its kind in the United States. The award committee described his work in mathematical logic as one of the greatest contributions to the sciences in recent times. However, few mathematicians of the time were equipped to understand the young scholar's complex proof. Ernest Nagel and James Newman provide a readable and accessible explanation to both scholars and non-specialists of the main ideas and broad implications of Gödel's discovery. It offers every educated person with a taste for logic and philosophy the chance to understand a previously difficult and inaccessible subject. New York University Press is proud to publish this special edition of one of its bestselling books. With a new introduction by Douglas R. Hofstadter, this book will appeal students, scholars, and professionals in the fields of mathematics, computer science, logic and philosophy, and science.
ONE OF THE GREATEST AMERICAN SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
In 1955, with this short story collection, Flannery O'Connor firmly laid claim to her place as one of the most original and provocative writers of her generation. Steeped in a Southern Gothic tradition that would become synonymous with her name, these stories show O'Connor's unique, grotesque view of life-- infused with religious symbolism, haunted by apocalyptic possibility, sustained by the tragic comedy of human behavior, confronted by the necessity of salvation.
With these classic stories-- including The Life You Save May Be Your Own, Good Country People, The Displaced Person, and seven other acclaimed tales-- O'Connor earned a permanent place in the hearts of American readers.
Much savagery, compassion, farce, art, and truth have gone into these stories. O'Connor's characters are wholeheartedly horrible, and almost better than life. I find it hard to think of a funnier or more frightening writer. -- Robert Lowell
In these stories the rural South is, for the first time, viewed by a writer who orthodoxy matches her talent. The results are revolutionary. -- The New York Times Book Review
Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) was born in Savannah, Georgia. She earned her M.F.A. at the University of Iowa, but lived most of her life in the South, where she became an anomaly among post-World War II authors-- a Roman Catholic woman whose stated purpose was to reveal the mystery of God's grace in everyday life. Her work-- novels, short stories, letters, and criticism-- received a number of awards, including the National Book Award.
This is an excellent translation. It achieves a very high standard of accuracy and readability, two goals very difficult to attain in combination when it comes to such a master of prose and philosophical argument as Plato. Because of this the book is suitable for courses at all levels in philosophy, from introductory courses on Plato, or problems in Philosophy, to graduate seminars. --Gerasimos Santas, Teaching Philosophy
In premodern China, elite painters used imagery not to mirror the world around them, but to evoke unfathomable experience. Considering their art alongside the philosophical traditions that inform it, The Great Image Has No Form explores the "nonobject"--a notion exemplified by paintings that do not seek to represent observable surroundings.
François Jullien argues that this nonobjectifying approach stems from the painters' deeply held belief in a continuum of existence, in which art is not distinct from reality. Contrasting this perspective with the Western notion of art as separate from the world it represents, Jullien investigates the theoretical conditions that allow us to apprehend, isolate, and abstract objects. His comparative method lays bare the assumptions of Chinese and European thought, revitalizing the questions of what painting is, where it comes from, and what it does. Provocative and intellectually vigorous, this sweeping inquiry introduces new ways of thinking about the relationship of art to the ideas in which it is rooted.
This is a handy pocket reference of morphological forms for Classical Greek and places the parts of speech in charts/tables for quick reference. This is designed to serve as a source for drill and memorization for students learning Greek. Coil binding makes it possible to lay the book flat or fold it back for easier reading.
This expanded edition of James Ellington's preeminent translation includes Ellington's new translation of Kant's essay Of a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns in which Kant replies to one of the standard objections to his moral theory as presented in the main text: that it requires us to tell the truth even in the face of disastrous consequences.
