The Readings
The course is commonly called “Honors 32,” and its official name is The Elements of Politics (EOP). The course began as a two-semester series in the 1990’s, but due to overwhelming student demand, it gradually expanded into an eight-semester series, which Dr. Goldberg now teaches in layers — he simultaneously teaches terms 1 and 5, then simultaneously 2 and 6, etc. Here are the syllabi for all 8 semesters:
Syllabus 1 – Homer, Herodotus, Aeschylus, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Plato et al.
Syllabus 2 – Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Virgil, Cicero et al.
Syllabus 3 – Gilgamesh, Bible, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante et al.
Syllabus 4 – Calvin, Montaigne, Machiavelli, Bacon, Shakespeare, Milton et al.
Syllabus 5 – Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Swift, Rousseau, Madison et al.
Syllabus 6 – Kant, Hegel, Tocqueville, Mill, Darwin, Marx, Melville, Lincoln, Dostoevsky et al.
Syllabus 7 – Nietzsche, Turgenev, Dewey, Husserl, Sartre, Heidegger, Conrad, Hemingway et al.
Syllabus 8 – Lewis, Arendt, Churchill, Orwell, Strauss, Berlin et al.
Dr. Goldberg also offers evening classes on topics determined by student request. Most recently, he has taught courses entitled “Shakespeare’s Politics” and “Love and Friendship.” Here are syllabi for these courses and a summer reading list that Dr. Goldberg provides to students:
Shakespeare’s Politics (Syllabus – 2010)
Doctor Goldberg 