Curriculum
Our Curriculum
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