The Time Is Right for a ‘Great Books’ Revival - The Atlantic
In 1970, the poet, educator, and architect June Jordan posed the following question during a middle-school graduation speech in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn: “Where are the central, required courses that will teach us our real heritage of heroes and heroines, rebellion, and loving accomplishment?” Questions like this are at the forefront of my mind lately. Like Jordan, I’m a writer who teaches students of all ages. As a literature professor at MIT, I’m working to develop Great Books programming—inspired by her dream of what a general curriculum might look like—that centers the history, poetics, and philosophy of science. Toward that end, I spent the past summer talking to physicists, poets, political scientists, materials-science engineers, and high-school teachers in English and robotics about the literary works that shaped their lives. You’ll recognize some of the authors whose names emerged from those conversations. Homer, Hansberry, Virgil, Whitman, Dickinson, and Dewey all made appearance