“위대한 저서들 프로그램”에 대한 문화적 평가 - 시카고 대학의 사회사상분과위원회와 컬럼비아 대학의 사례 연구

A Cultural Review of the Great Books Program: A Case Study of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago and Columbia University

&nbsp;&nbsp;This thesis aims at making a cultural review of the Great Books Program at the University of Chicago and Columbia University. The Great Books Program assumes that human beings can be more enlightened and civilized by reading such European classics as Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and so on. The program started at the two schools in the 1930s and enjoyed its popularity throughout the whole colleges in US until it began to decline in the 1970s. In spite of the strong doubt and criticism toward the effectiveness of the program thenceforth, the University of Chicago and Columbia University have been faithful to the philosophy of the program by teaching the European classics at the Committee on Social Thought and at classes "Literature Humanities" and "Contemporary Civilization" respectively.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;The issues that go against the Great Books Program can be categorized into four parts: WASP(White Anglo-Saxon Protestants), DWM(Dead White Males), WC(Western Civilization), and DGSI(Don&quot;t Get Sucked In by false ideas). This argument has been made mainly by multiculturalists like non-white female scholars. Their world perspectives are more of cultural relativism and diversity rather than of Euro-centered discourse. They insist on making academic curricula in terms of "equality." Thus, American colleges are supposed to offer classes about East and West, Males and Females, and the whites and the non-whites at the same time. The objective of this paper is to make several cultural reviews about the Great Books Program by concentrating on two schools.