Read. Think. Watch. Think. Discuss. Think. Think some more for good measure.
Welcome to the Foundation Year Portal. From here you can access all of the recorded lectures from last year's programme, as well as recommended reading and questions to consider for each week's text(s). We strongly encourage groups who are undertaking the programme to meet in person after reading the set material and watching the lecture, to discuss the text(s) further and share ideas. Last year's tutorial group in Reading, England also shared 600-800 word reflections with their peers each week, which they found an invaluable means of engaging more deeply with the sources.
Autumn Term
Click on the below links to access the material
Week one: The Epic of Gilgamesh
Week two: Genesis & Exodus
Week three: Homer's Odyssey
Weeks four & five: Plato's Republic
Week six: Aristotle - The Nicomachean Ethics
Week seven: The Pauline Epistles
Week eight: The Gospels
Week nine: Augustine - The Confessions
Week ten: Plotinus - The Enneads
Week eleven: Boethius - The Consolation of Philosophy
Week twelve: Pseudo-Dionysius - Mystical Theology and other texts
CLOSING CONFERENCE: Dante Alighieri and the End of the Old World
Winter Term
Click on the below links to access the material
Week one: The Big Turn - Ockham & Duns Scotus
Week two: Renaissance - Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man
Week three: Reformation - Luther & Calvin
Week four: Francis Bacon - The New Science
Week five: The New Self - René Descartes
Week six: Enlightenment - Voltaire & Rousseau
Week seven: Romanticism - Goethe's Werther
Week eight: Metaphysical poetry - Donne & Herbert
Week nine: The New Political Divide - Burke & Paine
Week ten: The New Philosophy - Kant
CLOSING CONFERENCE: Jane Austen and the End of Enlightenment
Week one: The Big Turn - Ockham & Duns Scotus
Week two: Renaissance - Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man
Week three: Reformation - Luther & Calvin
Week four: Francis Bacon - The New Science
Week five: The New Self - René Descartes
Week six: Enlightenment - Voltaire & Rousseau
Week seven: Romanticism - Goethe's Werther
Week eight: Metaphysical poetry - Donne & Herbert
Week nine: The New Political Divide - Burke & Paine
Week ten: The New Philosophy - Kant
CLOSING CONFERENCE: Jane Austen and the End of Enlightenment
Spring Term
Click on the below links to access the material
Week one: The Birth of Atheism - Ludwig Feuerbach
Week two: At Home in Earth - Charles Darwin
Week three: The Salvation of History - Karl Marx
Week four: A New Anxiety - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Week five: The Psychological Self - Sigmund Freud
Week six: The Death of God - Friedrich Nietzsche
Week seven: Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
Week eight: Facing the Absurd - Sartre & Camus
Week nine: Wisdom or Information - T. S. Eliot
Week one: The Birth of Atheism - Ludwig Feuerbach
Week two: At Home in Earth - Charles Darwin
Week three: The Salvation of History - Karl Marx
Week four: A New Anxiety - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Week five: The Psychological Self - Sigmund Freud
Week six: The Death of God - Friedrich Nietzsche
Week seven: Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
Week eight: Facing the Absurd - Sartre & Camus
Week nine: Wisdom or Information - T. S. Eliot
