Books
The following list is a representation only – it is not for the purpose of ordering textbooks.
Freshman Year
HNRS 150: Origins: Athens and Jerusalem (Fall)
- The Epic of Gilgamesh
- The Book of Genesis
- The Book of Exodus
- The Book of Ruth
- The First Book of Samuel
- The Book of Esther
- The Book of Job
- The Book of Proverbs
- The Book of Ecclesiastes
- The Book of Isaiah
- Homer, Iliad
- Homer, Odyssey
- The Presocratics
- Plato, Symposium
- Plato, Apology
- Plato, The Republic
- Plato, Timaeus
- Herodotus, The Histories
- Sappho (Selections)
- Sophocles, Oedipus Rex & Antigone
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
- Confucius, The Analects
- Lao Tzu, Tao de Ching
- The Bhagavad Gita
HNRS 190: Rome Through Early Church (Spring)
- Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe
- Virgil, The Aeneid
- Cicero, On the Good Life
- Epictetus, Discourses
- Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
- The Buddhist Scriptures
- The Book of Leviticus
- The Gospel of Luke
- The Gospel of John
- The Acts of the Apostles
- First Epistle to the Corinthians
- Epistle to the Galatians
- Epistle to the Ephesians
- Epistle to the Hebrews
- Ovid, Metamorphoses (selections)
- Origen, On First Principles (Book IV)
- Diodore of Tarsus and St. John Chrysostom
- Augustine, The Confessions
- Augustine, City of God (selections)
- Kalidasa, The Recognition of Sakuntala
- Tacitus, The Annals (selections)
- Eusebius, The History of the Church (selections)
- The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua & Felicitas
- Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word
- Cyril, On the Unity of Christ
- The Nicene Creed
- The Chalcedonian Creed
- Classical Chinese Poetry
- Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, On the Trinity
- Boethius, the Consolation of Philosophy
Sophomore Year
HNRS 250: Medieval Western Civilization (Fall)
- Beowulf
- Bede, An Ecclesiastical History of the English People
- Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names and The Mystical Theology
- The Psalms
- The Song of Solomon
- The Gospel of Matthew
- The Qur'an
- John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images
- The Rule of Benedict
- Hildegard of Bingen, selected writings
- Anselm of Canterbury, selected writings
- Bernard of Clairvaux, selected writings
- Abelard and Heloise, selected letters
- The Lais of Marie de France
- Al-Ghazali, Deliverance from Error
- Ibn TuFayl, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān
- Murasaki Shikibu, Tale of Genji
- Moses Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (selections)
- Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
- Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
- Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (Selections)
- Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (selections)
- Mumon, The Gateless Gate
HNRS 290: Late Medieval and Early Modern Western Civilization (Spring)
- Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
- Desiderius Erasmus, In Praise of Folly
- Epistle to the Romans
- Epistle of James
- Martin Luther, selected writings
- John Calvin, The Institutes (selections)
- The 39 Articles
- The Canons of Trent
- The Confessions of Dositheus
- Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises
- Teresa of Avila, the Interior Castle
- Tales from 1,001 Nights
- Francis Bacon, selections
- Nicolaus Copernicus, selections
- Galileo Galilei, selections
- Isaac Newton, selections
- René Descartes, Discourse & Meditations
- Blaise Pascal, Pensées
- Bartolome de las Casas, The Destruction of the Indies
- Francisco de Vitoria, De Indis
- Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Poems, Protest, and a Dream
- William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream and Hamlet (selected plays may vary)
- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (selections)
- John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Origin of Inequality
- George Fox, selected writings
- Margaret Fell, selected writings
- William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude
- John Milton, Paradise Lost
Junior Year
HNRS 350: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries (Fall or Spring)
- The Gospel of Mark
- David Hume, An Enquiry Regarding Human Understanding
- Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affairs
- John Wesley, The Scripture Way of Salvation
- The Journal of John Woolman
- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (selections)
- The Federalist Papers (selections)
- The Declaration of the Rights of Man
- The American Declaration of Independence
- Washington's Farewell Address
- Selected English Romantic Poetry (Blake, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, etc.)
- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
- Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Immanuel Kant, Grounding for Metaphysics of Morals
- Georg W.F. Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History
- Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave is the 4th of July?
- Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
- Epistle to Philemon
- Henry Thoreau, Walden
- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
- Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
- Charles Darwin, Origin of Species and The Descent of Man (selections)
- Emily Dickinson, selected poems
- Søren Kierkegaard, Selected Writings
- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology
- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
- John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
- Abraham Kuyper, Sphere Sovereignty
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals
- Christina Rosetti, selected poems
- W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
- Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Selected Writings
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
- Booker T. Washington, The Atlanta Compromise
- Black Elk, Selections
- Friedrich Schleiermacher, Hermeneutics and Criticism
- Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus the State
Senior Year
HNRS 450: Twentieth Century
- Mahatma Gandhi, Political Writings
- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
- Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
- Max Weber, Science as Vocation
- Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents
- Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
- C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
- Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
- Simone Weil, Waiting for God
- T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
- T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday
- Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem
- Flannery O’Connor, Selected Stories
- Martin Luther King Jr., Selected Letters and Speeches
- Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?
- Shūsaku Endō, Silence
- Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace
- Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (selections)
- Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom (selections)
- Elizabeth Anscombe, Mr. Truman's Degree
- Michel Foucalt, Nietzsche, Genealogy and History
- David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite (selections)
- Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (selections)
- Martha Nussbaum, The Professor of Parody
- Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex (selections)
- Pope John Paul II, The Theology of the Body
- Alvin Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief
- Robert Sarah, The Day is Now Far Spent
- Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society
- The Book of Revelation
HNRS 490: Integration Thesis
This course is intended to be the pinnacle of the Honors Program at George Fox. Over the past four years you have explored a wide range of great and influential works. Your horizons have been broadened, your knowledge increased, and your critical skills sharpened. Most significantly, we have thought together about Western civilization from a Christian perspective.
As a culmination of this program, we ask you to contribute to the store of Western knowledge. The contribution will usually take the form of a scholarly paper or work of art, but other possibilities may be negotiated with the director of the Honors Program and a faculty sponsor.
This project may be combined with another senior capstone project as long as all relevant parties agree on requirements. Normally, combined projects will need to be larger and/or more sophisticated than a single project.
As of the 2021 school year, the Senior Thesis has become optional to provide students an opportunity to complete the Honors Program in 3 years. Contact us for more details.