Books
Following are proposed texts for each of the respective courses. These lists are representative and subject to change.
Before the orientation, please read:
- Parker Palmer, To Know as We Are Known (any edition)
- Augustine, On Christian Teaching (Oxford Worlds Classics edition)
- Adler, How to Read a Book (any edition)
Details for Early Check-in, Welcome Session & BBQ and Orientation can be found here. (Incoming students only)
- Genesis
- The Epic of Gilgamesh
- Exodus - Deuteronomy
- Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, & Job
- Homer, The Illiad & The Odyssey
- Judges, 1-2 Samuel
- Aeschylus, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, & The Eumenides
- Sophocles, Antigone, Oedipus Rex, & Oedipus at Colonnus
- The Presocratics
- Plato, Timaeus, Republic and Apology
- Aristotle, Metaphysics
- Confucius, The Analects
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
The list above is a representation only – it is not for the purpose of ordering textbooks.
Textbooks can be acquired through the George Fox University Bookstore. The textbooks can also be found on this Amazon list. New or used copies are fine, but PLEASE be sure to purchase the correct editions. Please do not purchase electronic copies.
- Virgil, The Aeneid
- Luke & Acts
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
- Cicero, On the Good Life
- The Gospel of John
- Sallust, Catiline's Conspiracy, The Jugurthine War, Histories
- Ovid, Metamorphoses
- Athanasius, On the Incarnation
- 1 -2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians
- Augustine, The Confessions & The City of God
- Saint Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ
- The Bhagavad Gita
- Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
The list above is a representation only – it is not for the purpose of ordering textbooks.
- Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy
- The Gospel of Matthew
- Benedict, The Rule
- The Psalms (1-90)
- Beowulf
- Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People
- The Dream of Rood
- John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images
- The Qur'an
- Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed
- Al-Ghazali, The Rescuer from Error
- Ibn Tufayl, Hayy bin Yaqzān
- Anselm of Canterbury, Proslgion & Why God Became Man
- Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias
- John of Salisbury, Policraticus
- The Lais of Marie de France
- The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
- Francis and Clare of Assisi,Complete Works
- Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons & In Praise of the New Knighthood
- Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances
- Bonaventure, The Soul's Journey into God, the Tree of Life, the Life of St. Francis
- Jude and Revelation
- Buddhist Scriptures
The list above is a representation only – it is not for the purpose of ordering textbooks.
- St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Selected Philosophical Writings
- Dante Alighieri, The Inferno
- William of Ockham, Philosophical Writings
- The Showings of Julian of Norwich
- Christine de Pizan, Book of the City of Ladies
- Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
- Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly and Other Writings
- Romans & II Corinthians
- Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians, Two Kinds of Righteousness, Secular Authority: To What Extent it Should be Obeyed
- John Calvin, The Institutes of Christian Religion
- John Milton, Paradise Lost
- Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy
- Francis Bacon, The Major Works
- William Shakespeare, King Lear and Hamlet
- The Arabian Nights
- George Fox, Journal
- Margaret Fell, The Life of Margaret Fell
- William Penn, No Cross, No Crown
The list above is a representation only – it is not for the purpose of ordering textbooks.
- Gospel of Mark
- Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
- Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections
- John Wesley, The Scripture Way of Salvation
- David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
- John Woolman, Journal
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality
- English Romantic Poetry, (Blake, Byron, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth)
- Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, The Federalist Papers
- Immanuel Kant, To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch
- Johann Wolfgang von Geothe, Faust
- Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
- Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden
- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
- Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love
- Emily Dickinson, selected poems
- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Communist Manifesto
- Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species and Descent of Man
- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
- George Washington, Farewell Address
- Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address
- John Greenleaf Whittier, selected poems
- Letter to the Hebrews
- Letter of James
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
- Abraham Kuyper, Sphere Sovereignty
The list above is a representation only – it is not for the purpose of ordering textbooks.
- Civilization: A New History of the Western World, chapters 17-18
- Émile Durkheim’s Rules of the Sociological Method
- G.K. Chesterton’s Heretics
- Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents
- Dorothy Sayers’ The Mind of the Maker
- Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood
- Flannery O’Connor, short stories from Collected Works
- John Dewey’s How We Think
- Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom
- C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity
- T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems
- Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex
- Jacques Ellul: Watch Ellul's six-part series “The Betrayal by Technology”
- Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail
- Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
- Jacques Derrida’s Gift of Death
- Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
- Judith Butler’s “Imitation & Gender Insubordination,” Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” and Luce Irigaray’s “The Question of the Other”
- John Paul II’s Fides et Ratio
- Toni Morrison’s Beloved
- Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship
The list above is a representation only – it is not for the purpose of ordering textbooks.
This course is intended to be the pinnacle of the honors program at George Fox University. 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.
