Albertus Magnus Institute Courses

For several millenia, "Euclid’s Elements" was considered the indispensable gateway to higher studies. Like St. Thomas’s "Summa Theologiae", the Elements is that rare work that is both an excellent textbook attentive to the needs of new students and one of the great masterpieces of geometry. This course will lead participants on a broad tour of the first ten books of the Elements, which encompasses all of Euclid’s plane geometry. Participants will get a taste of demonstrating prepositions, while seeing proofs for fundamental equalities concerning triangles, parallelograms, and circles. Then attention will be turned to Euclid’s treatment of measurement, similarity, and incommensurability. Discussions will center on understanding Euclid’s arguments & order, with comparisons to modern developments in mathematics. Dr. Andrew Seeley has decades of experience in leading discussions of great texts of all kinds, including original texts in ancient and modern mathematics and science.

An introduction to Aristotle’s Ethics which includes a consideration of his definition of happiness, the moral virtues and the intellectual virtues, the special role of justice and friendship, the nature of pleasure and pain, and his argument that contemplative activity is the goal of human life.   Aristotle’s Ethics is the most accessible of the Aristotelian treatises, and for most people it provides the best pathway into understanding Aristotle’s thought. For Catholics, Aristotle’s Ethics is highly important as serving as the philosophical basis for the moral theology of St. Thomas Aquinas.  The first hour of each class will be an overview and a general discussion.  The second hour will be a seminar-type, careful discussion of a particular passage.

This course introduces logic as a liberal art, i.e., an art of things which are made in being known and known in being made. Logic directs the fundamental acts of the human intellect—simple apprehension, composition and division, inference—in realizing what they make and know, the forms of discursive understanding: definition, judgment, and argument.

In this course, we will investigate the reality and meaning of the famous categories of Aristotle. He introduces them as logical concepts, as modes of predication occurring in various sorts of propositions. He does this work in the book called the Categories. He goes on to argue, however, in Book 5 of the Metaphysics, that the categories correspond to modes of being, a claim that sets the stage for many of the conclusions he draws in the Metaphysics, for example, in Book 7. Ultimately, they underpin theology itself, as he shows in Book 12. Prior to these metaphysical considerations, Aristotle shows that the categories are necessary in defining concepts belonging to natural philosophy, for example, the definitions of nature and motion.

Consequently, in order to lay out an overarching view of Aristotle’s use of the categories in his philosophy, we will first consider his view of them in the Categories as logical concepts, i.e., as predications (kategoria in Greek). Then we will look at the role of the categories in the definitions of nature and motion in Book 2 of the Physics. Finally, we will look at the role they play in defining being itself in Books 5 and 7 of the Metaphysics, along with a glimpse of their application to the Divine Being itself in Book 12.

This course will focus on a distinctively Thomistic approach to bioethics and the resources that Aquinas’s natural law theory and metaphysics may provide in addressing some of the most important contemporary bioethics issues. The first part of the course will focus on the foundations and principles of Thomistic ethical theory through a selection of Thomistic primary texts as well as secondary sources such as Ralph McInerny's Ethica Thomistica and Jason Eberl's Thomistic Principles and Bioethics. In the second part of the course we will turn to a careful examination of several of the most important and difficult controversies in contemporary Catholic Bioethics: the moral status of zygotes, embryos, fetuses, and anencephalic infants, embryonic stem cell research, ANT-OAR, vital conflicts, embryo adoption and transfer, artificial wombs, life-saving interventions, genethics, designer children, human enhancement, neuroethics, issues at the end of human life, the ordinary/extraordinary means distinction, artificial hydration and nutrition, euthanasia, organ donation, complicity in evil, conscientious objection, and health care law and policy.

Boethius has been called the last ancient or first medieval thinker, and he seems to have coined the term “quadrivium.” His Consolation of Philosophy was one of the most influential books in the Middle Ages, and he is widely credited with being a primary conduit of Greek thought to the Latin West throughout that period. Though a rather short work, the Consolation packs a punch with its alternating prose and verse as well as its sweeping discussions of science and philosophy, poetry and theology. One cannot possibly do justice to this book in any particular reading of it (especially in translation), but an introduction to it may well begin a lifelong affection for it and an increased understanding of its sources and influences.

This course explores the theory and practice of communism and the life and writings of Karl Marx. It is commonly assumed that the historical failures of communism are due to the theory not being implemented correctly or not implemented fully. As we read the theory of communism in the writings of Karl Marx and then compare this with the Soviet experience, we will assess whether or not this claim has any merit. We will also examine the life of Karl Marx in order to better understand the man behind the political theory that has left almost no part of the world untouched. What is the connection between Marx’s personal life and psychology and his philosophical writings?

Dante makes Thomas Aquinas the first voice of the Heaven of the Sun (Paradiso, Canto 10), and hence offers him as an emblem—perhaps the emblem—of redeemed creaturely wisdom. Dante recognized in Thomas the "teacher for everyone" (doctor communis) long before that usage became general; and so Dante reflects (and reflects deeply upon) Thomas' comprehensive Sacra Doctrina as he constructs his comprehensive allegory of love and responsibility.  This course will read The Divine Comedy with an eye for important junctures at which Thomas' teaching proves especially relevant, and the course will address Dante's text in light of that teaching.

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America in order to examine the effects of the “democratic revolution” that had swept “the entire Christian universe,” the end of aristocratic hierarchy and the birth of democratic equality. Tocqueville regarded this revolution as a fait accompli. But he observed that this new age could take better or worse forms, and he argued that human agency could make some difference in how democracy manifested itself in a given society. Democracy in America examines the most thoroughly democratic society of Tocqueville’s time, the United States of the 1830s, as an example of the distinct benefits offered and challenges posed by the new democratic era. We approach Tocqueville’s magnum opus in order better to understand ourselves, for good and for ill, as democrats and as Americans, and to see what we might learn from him about how to cultivate freedom and pursue excellence in an age of equality.

In this course we will read, contemplate, and discuss some of the great lyric poems of the English-speaking tradition. Through instruction and practice, students will become better at reading and appreciating poetry as poetry.

This course will study the short stories of Flannery O'Connor. One or two stories will be assigned for each of the eight classes. We will also discuss the life and influence of Flannery O'Connor as one of the great and most-respected Catholic writers of the twentieth century. The short stories to be read include 'The River,' 'Good Country People,' 'Revelation,' 'Parker's Back' and 'Everything That Rises Must Converge.' The only text students need to acquire is The Complete Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor (Farrar Straus and Girioux).

JRR Tolkien’s great work, "The Lord of the Rings," continues to be prescient and relevant to our present situation. Through the vehicle of a secondary world, Tolkien explores universal questions of the human person’s place in a world of contesting forces. Tolkien examines the control of external, hostile forces over the human person and to what extent the person has freedom to respond. Tolkien masterfully responds both to the modernist elevation and exultation of human autonomy and the postmodernist devaluation of the same by presenting a strongly Christian understanding of free will and the human person’s inherent dignity and worth.

JRR Tolkien’s great work, "The Lord of the Rings," continues to be prescient and relevant to our present situation. Through the vehicle of a secondary world, Tolkien explores universal questions of the human person’s place in a world of contesting forces. Tolkien examines the control of external, hostile forces over the human person and to what extent the person has freedom to respond. Tolkien masterfully responds both to the modernist elevation and exultation of human autonomy and the postmodernist devaluation of the same by presenting a strongly Christian understanding of free will and the human person’s inherent dignity and worth.

JRR Tolkien’s great work, The Lord of the Rings, continues to be prescient and relevant to our present situation.  Through the vehicle of a secondary world, Tolkien explores universal questions of the human person’s place in a world of contesting forces.  Tolkien examines the control of external, hostile forces over the human person and to what extent the person has freedom to respond.  Tolkien masterfully responds both to the modernist elevation and exultation of human autonomy and the postmodernist devaluation of the same by presenting a strongly Christian understanding of free will and the human person’s inherent dignity and worth.

In this course, we will read four novels by George Bernanos (1888-1948): The Diary of a Country Priest, Mouchette, Under the Sun of Satan, and Monsieur Ouine. Bernanos stands with Sigrid Undset, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, G.K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, and Francios Mauriac as the greatest Catholic novelists of the 20th century. Students will be encouraged to watch the three films made of these novels, two directed by Robert Bresson and one by Maurice Pialat. (Bresson, by the way, is the greatest Catholic director in the history of film.) I will provide directions on how to find and view these films online. Students will also be encouraged to pursue supplemental readings in the non-fiction works of Bernanos and other critical works about his life and work. In all eight sessions, we will put aside some time to discuss the life of Bernanos against the background of French and European history and of the Church.

In this course, we will engage in a close reading of John's gospel, looking very closely at John's poetic interweaving of theological motifs embodied in such important words as "word," "name," "glory," "truth," "light," and "grace." We will assume that John the apostle is the author, that he is a native speaker of Aramaic and a reader of Hebrew, but that he is composing directly into Greek -- composing with the poetry of Jesus ringing in his soul.

This course will continue a philosophical reading of St. John's inspired texts with special emphasis given to the enthymemes within, the modern age, and the eschaton. Our work will fulfill the rhetoric tutorial requirement in the AMI Fellowship Core Curriculum and can also be applied as a Theology elective.

This year is the 700th anniversary of the death of perhaps the greatest poet in the history of the world, Dante Alighieri. His Divine Comedy is about everything you can name: God and His universe, the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation, the history of mankind, what it means to be a creature made in the image of God, what love is, and art, and sin, and repentance, and redemption— and what you do when your city banishes you and confiscates your property—everything! We will follow our guide into the sinkhole of Hell, then up the mount of Purgatory and on into Paradise.

This course, the first of four, begins Fellows’ journey through Athenaze, the celebrated, graded introduction to ancient Greek from the Oxford University Press. At the end of the fourth course, and the second volume of Athenaze, Fellows will be prepared to make their own way (with the help of a lexicon and reference grammar) through any ancient Greek text: Homeric epic, tragedy, classical philosophy, the Septuagint, New Testament, or the philosophy of later antiquity. That’s 32 weeks to a working knowledge of ancient Greek.

This is the second course in a (projected) four-course sequence aimed at equipping Fellows to master for themselves, at their leisure, original texts by classical authors, and to make their way through the Books of the New Testament and the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures). Introduction to Ancient Greek I, led Fellows into a well-selected Greek vocabulary, and enough Greek grammar and morphology (conjugations of verbs, declensions of nouns and adjectives, including the present, and imperfect tenses active and middle/passive voices of the Greek verb) to parse and sight-read selected passages from classical authors and the New Testament. At the conclusion of Introduction to Ancient Greek, II, Fellows will have added additional vocabulary, the future and aorist tenses of the active and middle/passive verb, and associated syntax—enough Greek to begin essaying substantial passages from classical authors and the New Testament with help from, say, the Perseus word-tool.  Continued below...

This is the third course in a continuing series.  At the conclusion of Introduction III, Fellows will have the fundamentals of complex Greek syntax—e.g., conditional and contrary-to-fact constructions—with verbs in the all tenses the indicative mood, in the active, middle and passive voices, and a greatly expanded Greek vocabulary. 

This is the fourth course in a continuing series. At the conclusion of Introduction IV, Fellows will have the fundamentals of complex Greek syntax—e.g., conditional and contrary-to-fact constructions—with verbs in the all tenses the indicative mood, in the active, middle and passive voices, and a greatly expanded Greek vocabulary.

The course is a beginner's introduction to Ecclesial (/Church) Latin. Grammatical and syntactical points will be gradually covered while reading through some of the most well-known prayers, hymns, scripture passages, and writings of the Catholic tradition. 

Jane Austen, the beloved creator of Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse, and Anne Elliot seems the quintessential Regency author, concerned with the economic and domestic habits of her own day. Her novels are full of drawing rooms, carriages, balls, and obsession over money and social status. The brave knights on gallant steeds fighting dragons and giants for the sake of their lady seem far removed from the world of Austen's novels. But Austen, while certainly a keen observer of her own era, was also deeply engaged with the medieval romantic tradition, a tradition that she encountered through authors like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, and Lord Byron.

As a young priest and professor of philosophy, Karol Wojtyla gave himself over in a special way to the pastoral care of young couples. Grounded in the thought of Thomas Aquinas as well as phenomenological methods, Wojtyla brought his sharp philosophical intelligence and pastoral heart to bear on his experiences with these couples. The fruit of this was Love and Responsibility, Wojtyla’s first major philosophical work that lays a foundation for understanding his subsequent thought, especially his theology of the body. Love and Responsibility is a work of sexual ethics framed and informed by an adequate anthropology that does full justice to the human person in all of his or her dimensions. This course is chiefly a guided reading and discussion of this seminal work by this great saint, with a view not only to understanding Wojtyla’s teaching, but also (and especially) to reflecting on and perfecting ourselves as human persons whose sexuality provides both meaning and vocational trajectories in our lives.

This course will focus on the novel "Kristin Lavransdatter", in three volumes 1920-1922, by the Norwegian Catholic writer Sigrid Undset. We will read the novel with reference to Undset's life and other work. "Kristin" is one of the greatest Catholic novels yet written, and it's popularity reignited after its second translation into English by Tiina Nunnally whose edition we will be reading. It's strongly recommended students read as much of the novel ahead of time as they can. The trilogy has nine parts, three per volume, that we will be treating in eight classroom settings. The Nunnally translation is available both in paperback and Kindle.

Joseph Pearce teaches this foundational course on the Classical Epic for the Albertus Magnus Institute. Join Professor Pearce for this eight-week course as he leads us on a journey into the epic worlds of Homer and Virgil, exploring the deepest dimension of three of the greatest works of western civilization, The Iliad, The Odyssey and The Aeneid.

Joseph Pearce, author of three books on Shakespeare and editor of six of the Ignatius Critical Editions of Shakespeare’s plays, teaches the inaugural course on Shakespeare for the Magnus Fellowship. Join Professor Pearce for this eight-week course as he leads us on a journey into Shakespeare and his times, exploring the deepest dimension of four of his greatest plays: Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, and King Lear.

The last philosophical science to be tackled in the traditional order of learning is the science of metaphysics.  This most difficult and most noble philosophical science studies not only the first principles of thought and all of created reality, but also the uncreated first Cause, namely, God Himself.  In this course we shall endeavor to follow in the footsteps of the two greatest metaphysical masters of all time, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Building on the foundational truths contained in Aristotle's "Metaphysics" and St. Thomas Aquinas's "De Ente et Essentia", this class will examine three chief topics: 1) the nature of participation, 2) the transcendentals, and 3) the place of metaphysics among the sciences. By delving into these topics we shall more deeply understand the Angelic Doctor's teachings not only on the nature of being and natural theology, but also on the way of proceeding proper to the metaphysician. The two main texts for this class are: An Exposition of "On the Hebdomads" of Boethius and The Division and Methods of the Sciences (both by St. Thomas Aquinas).

Join famed author, professor, and AMI Senior Fellow, Anthony Esolen for a deep dive into the great epic poem of the English Language, Paradise Lost. More details coming soon. This course will fulfill an elective requirement within the Magnus Fellowship.

As Aristotle teaches, the highest and most noble natural activity of the human person is to know God's existence and nature through His creatures. To do this in a scientific manner is the business of the highest part of the science of metaphysics, namely, natural theology. Over the course of eight class meetings, we shall endeavor to unpack and meditate on St. Thomas Aquinas's principal teachings in the realm of natural theology. We shall do so by examining most of questions 2-26 of the Prima pars of the Summa theologiae.  

Newman’s Idea of a University stands as one of the greatest works on the nature of education. It arose from his efforts to found a Catholic University in Dublin and speaks to the unity of knowledge and the goal of university education in the formation of mind and character. Its two main sections address university teaching as a whole and university subjects in particular, providing a vision for the Church’s ongoing mission of education.

“Quid enim Hinieldus cum Christo?” Alcuin asks this famous question of the bishop of Lindisfarne after receiving news of the monks’ interest in hearing pagan stories, accompanied by the harp, during mealtimes. “Let the words of God be read at dinner. It is proper for a reader to be heard there, not a harpist, the discourse of the fathers, not the song of the heathens. What has Ingeld to do with Christ? Your house is narrow and cannot contain both.” This course will engage Alcuin’s question by examining the literature of the pre-Christian and early Christian north, a body of mythology, poetry, and prose which, in partial answer to Alcuin’s question, had such a formative influence on subsequent Christian writers like J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Sigrid Undset, W. H. Auden, George Mackay Brown and others. We will read both the prose and poetic Eddas—those repositories of Norse mythology, cosmogony, and heroic legend. We will familiarize ourselves with two of the most memorable characters in the Icelandic saga: the pious and unyielding Hrafnkel (“Frey’s Godi”) and the quintessential moody, violent Viking, Egil.  Finally, we will immerse ourselves in one of the neglected classics of Western literature, the masterful Njal’s Saga.

Building on Aristotle and St. Thomas's philosophical account of the human person, this class will focus principally on St. Thomas's teachings on man's natural and supernatural ends and the means proportioned thereto.  To achieve this goal, we will engage in an in-depth study of the questions 1-5 from the Prima secundae of St. Thomas's Summa theologiae.  And, to more fully make our own these great teachings, we will pursue a slow reading and discussion of Josef Pieper's Happiness and Contemplation.

In the Prologue of "Fides et Ratio", John Paul II articulates five “principal questions by which man’s life is demarcated: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why do evils exist here? What awaits us after this life?” In this course, we will begin to answer these questions about ourselves (especially the first three) from a philosophic point of view, taking our cues principally from major thinkers in the history of philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, and Wojtyla/John Paul II. Our overall goal will be to develop an “adequate anthropology,” as Pope John Paul II calls for—that is, a truthful mode of thinking that does justice to all the complexities and dimensions of human existence—an especially important task nowadays in light of the various false and/or partial accounts of the human person that hold sway in our contemporary intellectual landscape.

Despite being a part of philosophy profoundly neglected by the modern academy, the philosophy of nature is both an essential component of the traditional order of learning and a science which every well educated man must possess within his soul. In this course, we shall study the principles and properties of mobile being as such at the feet of two master teachers, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas.

The Republic is the most complete attempt by Plato to articulate and answer the question, "What is the best way of life for a human being?" It is characteristic of Plato that, in the Republic, questions about human happiness ultimately cannot be separated from questions of education, of the nature of the city, of the various forms of government, of the structure of the human soul, and of the character of the gods and being itself. What begins as a dispute about which is more desirable—to be a just man or to be a tyrant—ranges over the whole landscape of philosophical topics and themes often treated in isolation from one another. Moreover, Plato guides us through this landscape not with a treatise written in his own voice but with a dialogue narrated and led by Socrates, a work that is as much a literary masterpiece as it is a masterpiece of argumentation. In this course, we will strive to read the Republic as a dialogue full of dramatic action and memorable imagery as well as philosophic inquiry, written as a nuanced response to Greek poetry and history and enduring as the wellspring of the Western philosophic tradition.

René Girard argues that the 10th Commandment against coveting, or envy, explains every other sin in the Bible, starting with Adam and Eve coveting God’s knowledge of good and evil. Overcoming that envy is at the heart of Christ’s Passion. Shakespeare, he argues, would agree. To see what he means, this course will attempt to understand Girard’s theory of “mimetic rivalry,” “triangulation” and scapegoating violence, by reading how he interprets Shakespeare’s major plays. From “A Midsummer Nights Dream,” through “Julius Caesar” and “A Winter’s Tale”, we will use these plays to see the otherwise hidden connection between envy, sin, Christ’s crucifixion, and his Resurrection. This course's seminar will feature Senior Fellows Patrick Downey and Tiffany Schubert.

This course explores the moral dimensions of the imagination through an examination of literature and philosophy. The aim of the course is to define and understand the concept of “imagination” and to be able to assess its role—for good or ill—in thought, action, and politics. Eighteenth-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a pioneer of the Romantic movement and helped to shape the heart and mind of the West, both politically and in more subtle, but no less profound, ways. This course seeks to uncover some of the ways in which Rousseau’s imagination serves as a touchstone for what has perhaps been the dominant moral sensibility in the West for the past two centuries.

The Magnus Summer Symposium is a gift to our monthly donors. Beginning May 25th with the esteemed Deal Hudson, we will continue throughout the Summer with many more special guests. The full schedule will be announced soon. This is a great opportunity to explore new topics with other Fellows in a more relaxed forum than a typical class.

If you are not yet a monthly donor and would like to watch the recordings of our Summer Symposium, please consider becoming a monthly donor today..

The modern understanding of happiness is an apple that has fallen far from the tree that the Greek's named "eudaimonia". Please join us for an engaging course in this the inaugural semester of the Magnus Fellowship with author and scholar, Deal Hudson. This eight-week course will be composed of equal parts lecture and text-based discussion and survey the tradition on the question of human happiness through the eyes of the Ancients, Medievals, and Moderns. How has the idea of happiness lost its moral meaning and became the justification of immoral behavior and unbelief? Most importantly, can we recover the traditional understanding of human beatitude?

Of all medieval English poets, Chaucer is the most famous and highly-regarded, but the second-most may be the anonymous author of at least four poems written in Middle English and bound together in a unique manuscript (known collectively as "The Pearl Manuscript"): Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the last of which has inspired multiple feature films. Chaucer has justly been called “the Father of English Poetry,” but the Gawain-poet (aka the Pearl-poet) arguably composed the most intricately beautiful narrative poetry in English. In this course we will read Modern English translations of each of the poems of the Pearl Manuscript in relative isolation then consider them as a cohesive collection with emphases on the poet’s language and poetic form as well as his philosophy and theology.

Many readers turn to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion after having fallen in love with Middle-earth through The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  Tolkien called The Silmarillion the “work of my heart” and the legends in it make Tolkien’s fictional world and underpin the entire story of The Lord of the Rings.  Yet, readers are often confused, disappointed, and even dismayed when they read The Silmarillion finding in it a much darker tone than that of Lord of the Rings, and a disjointed series of related tales rather than a consistent narrative.

A century ago, T.S. Eliot wrote The Waste Land, a monumental poem that diagnosed the ills of modernity which have only intensified since the work took the literary world by storm in 1922. The long and difficult poem, modernist in style if not in substance, was a tour de force written by the most learned poet of his time, a man steeped not only in the literary traditions of the past, but equally well read in the fields of culture, history, philosophy and theology. Moved by the same fierce intellectual curiosity that animated a Socrates or a St. Augustine, Eliot was a seeker intent on finding answers to life’s perennial questions. The poem, which in final form ran to nearly four hundred lines, is an Erasmus-like reflection on the state of mankind – its pain and suffering, its failures and folly; its longing for goodness, beauty and love, side-by-side with the daily reality of life apparently shorn of significance, value and purpose. The honest diagnosis is grim and not for the faint of heart, but also raises possibilities for remedy and relief. For those who have never read The Waste Land, or who have attempted to study it over only one or two class periods, this eight-week course will provide an in-depth look at one of the great poems of our age – great owing to its power, profundity and apprehension of truth.

In this course, we will examine Walker Percy’s legacy as a Catholic writer and apologist through the study of four works: The Moviegoer (1961), Love In the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World (1971), The Thanatos Syndrome (1987), and Lost In the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book (1983).

War raises questions. Why do men endanger themselves and others in battle? How do large-scale conflicts arise? Do individual men act according to universal principles in killing opponents; is all killing personal?  What is an “enemy?” Why do men kill strangers with whom they have no personal hatred? How has lethal force been controlled or organized for good purposes? What can go wrong? Why does violence have a tendency to take control of human will? How does one act in a just and noble way during conflict? What is the relationship between war and politics? Is there humor in war; why? How should leaders prepare for war? Why is war so memorable? What obligations do successive generations have to those who sacrifice themselves in war?  This course examines the nature of organized conflict and the human response to the sustained and violent struggle that civilized men have called "war."  Readings will focus on classic works which treat the origin and nature of war.