Curriculum

Our Curriculum

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Live and interactive online classes taught by the biggest names in the Liberal Arts. Designed to be completed over a period of three years of part-time study, or as quickly as one year with concurrent coursework, the Albertus Magnus Institute provides a comprehensive treatment of the Trivium and Quadrivium through primary texts and culminates in an in-person, immersive, academic pilgrimage.

Graduates of the Albertus Magnus Institute receive a certified lifetime enrollment in the Magnus Fellowship, a proudly unaccredited, freely offered degree rivaling or surpassing the rigor and merit of a typical four-year undergraduate degree. 

Core Curriculum

Year One:

First Term

Literary Tradition I: Homer & Virgil
Homer. The Iliad
Virgil. The Aeneid

Second Term

Geometry & Astronomy I
Euclid. Elements, Bk. 1
Ptolemy. Almagest (Selections)

Third Term

Logic Tutorial
Plato. Meno
Aristotle. Categories
Kreeft. Socratic Logic

Fourth Term

Rhetoric Tutorial
Plato. Gorgias
Aristotle. Rhetoric
Ryan Topping. The Elements of Rhetoric — How to Write and Speak Clearly and Persuasively: A Guide for Students, Teachers, Politicians & Preachers

Year Two:

First Term

Literary Tradition II: Dante
Dante. The Divine Comedy

Second Term

Geometry & Astronomy II
Ptolemy. Almagest (Selections)
C.S. Lewis. The Discarded Image
Jay Ryan. Signs and Seasons

Third Term

Music Tutorial
Plato. Republic (Selections)
Boethius. De Institutione Musica
Augustine. De musica

Fourth Term

Calculus Tutorial
Newton and Leibniz (Selections)



Year Three:

First Term

Philosophy of Man
Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae Ia-IIae QQ. 1-5
Josef Pieper. Happiness and Contemplation
Josef Pieper. Living the Truth

Second Term

Philosophical Ethics
Ralph McInerny. Ethica Thomistica
Josef Pieper. The Four Cardinal Virtues

Third Term

Metaphysics I
Thomas Aquinas. Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius, QQ. 5-6
Ralph McInerny. Boethius & Aquinas
Etienne Gilson. Christian Philosophy: An Introduction

Fourth Term

Metaphysics II
Thomas Aquinas. An Exposition of the Hebdomads of Boethius
Ralph McInerny. Boethius & Aquinas
Josef Pieper. The Silence of St. Thomas

Elective Examples

Language:

Greek

Greek I
Greek II
Greek III

Latin

Latin I
Latin II
Latin III

Literature:

Topics

Literary Tradition III: The Tragedies
Aeschylus. Prometheus Bound, Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides
Sophocles. Oedipus the Tyrant, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone
Euripides. Medea, Hippolytus, The Bacchae

Literary Tradition IV: Shakespeare
Hamlet, Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, Othello, King Lear, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, The Winter’s Tale

Authors

Flannery O’Connor
René Girard
Graham Greene
Walker Percy
Willa Cather
William Faulkner

Texts

Cervantes’ Don Quixote
Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov
Milton’s Paradise Lost

Melville’s Moby Dick

Philosophy:

Texts

Plato’s Republic
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle’s Metaphysics
Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy
Etienne Gilson’s The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy
Jacques Maritain’s Degrees of Knowledge

Topics

Philosophy of Artistic Activity
Philosophy of Friendship
Philosophy of Nature
Natural Theology
Medieval Thought and the Thomist Tradition
Select Themes in the Philosophy of St. Thomas 

Theology:

Theology core

Theological Tradition I: Introduction
Louis Bouyer. The Christian Mystery

Theological Tradition II: Augustine
Augustine. Confessions
Matthew Levering. The Theology of Augustine

Theological Tradition III: Gregory of Nyssa
Gregory of Nyssa. The Second Book Against Eunomius
Jean Danielou. From Glory to Glory

Theological Tradition IV: Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae Ia QQ. 27-43
Gilles Emery. The Trinitarian Theology of Thomas Aquinas

topics

Revelation and the Word of God: Fundamental Theology
Redemption and the Mystery of the Faith: Dogmatic Theology
Grace and the Law of God: Moral Theology
Patristic Spirituality
Monastic Spirituality
Spanish Mysticism
The French School of Spirituality

texts

Augustine’s City of God
Augustine’s On the Trinity
Denys the Areopagite’s Divine Names
Newman’s An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
Matthias Scheeben’s The Mysteries of Christianity