Executive Seminar

The Executive Seminar in the Great Books is a monthly course for 15 to 20 professionals, devoted to a directed discussion of readings from theoretical and literary works that have had a major influence on human thought and history. The 2009-2010 theme will be "compassion in politics, philosophy, and literature," and the syllabus of readings includes selections from Plato, Tocqueville, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Rousseau, Austen, Sophocles, and Nietzsche.

The aim of the executive seminar is simple: to promote the life of the mind outside of academia by making its resources available to the broader public. Inquiry, teaching and learning are hallmarks of the university, but too often it is wrongly assumed that they are the exclusive preserve of academia. Most of the great thinkers in history have not been professional academics. Yet for many people who choose non-academic professions in our culture, graduation from university marks the end of their ongoing intellectual engagement with the great books, and those who continue serious reading on their own often do so in intellectual isolation.

The Program in Core Texts and Ideas at the University of Texas aims to combat overspecialization and foster sustained engagement with life's "big questions" within the university. With this initiative, we extend to with the program's friends and supporters a measure of what we provide to our students and professors at the university.

The Seminar meets one morning each month for one and one-half hours to discuss an assigned reading from a course packet. The discussion this year has been moderated by Matthew O'Brien, a doctoral candidate in the department of philosophy at the University of Texas. Each session is preceded by a catered breakfast, and the final, plenary meeting of the Executive Seminar in June will take place in the evening and include a banquet which will be attended by other faculty from the Program.

Interested alumni and friends of the university in the Austin area may apply to be part of the next executive seminar by sending a letter of interest and resume to our program coordinator Carly Chrisco at cchrisco@austin.utexas.edu.