Honors Scholars Program

Primary Texts

What is a "primary text"?
Primary texts differ from other texts in that they directly express thoughts, beliefs, and ideas that serve as the basis for academic inquiry. In humanities classes, such texts are themselves the subjects of study (e.g. The Bible, The Odyssey, and Don Quixote). In science classes, primary texts are documents written by influential minds in their attempts to explain human beings and their surroundings (e.g. Darwin's Origin of Species and Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems).

Why are primary texts important?
Primary texts offer the reader an opportunity to interact with historical events, religious beliefs, cultural practices, and great thinkers. While secondary material can be helpful in explaining and summarizing the ideas and works of major writers and their texts, the unmediated experience of reading these texts is an essential part of being an educated person.

What primary texts do Honors Scholars read?
Below you will find a list of honors classes and some of the primary texts that students typically read (in whole or in part) in those classes.

Introduction to Political Thought

• Aristotle - Politics
• Machiavelli - The Prince
• Hobbes - Leviathan
• Luther - Secular Authority
• Locke - Second Treatise
• Mill - Essay on Liberty
• Marx - The Communist Manifesto
• The U.S. Constitution
• The Declaration of Independence
• Federalist Paper #10

Honors Composition

• Connell - Mrs. Bridge
• Shakespeare - The Tempest
• Alexie - The Summer of Black Widows
• Momaday - The Way to Rainy Mountain

Biological Science

• Aristotle - Parts of Animals XII
• Mendel - Experiments in Plant Hybridization
• Carson - Silent Spring
• Dawkins - The Selfish Gene
• Margulis - Symbiotic Planet
• Darwin - On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man

Introduction to Psychology

• Breland and Breland - The Misbehavior of Organisms.
• Banks and Zimbardo - Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison
• Milgram - Behavioral Study of Obedience
• Myers - Yin and Yang in Psychological Research and Christian Belief
• Myers - Accepting What Cannot Be Changed
• Skinner - Baby in a Box
• Skinner - Freedom and the Control of Men
• Skinner - Pigeons in a Pelican
• Szasz - The Myth of Mental Illness
• Watson and Rayne - Conditioned Emotional Reactions
• Watson - Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It
• Sacks - The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
• Klawans - Toscanini’s Fumble: And Other Tales of Clinical Neurology

Basic Economics

• Engels - The Rise of the Athenian State
• Marx - The Communist Manifesto
• Marx - Das Kapital
• Smith - Wealth of the Nations
• Ricardo - On Wages: The Iron Law of Wages
• Malthus - An Essay on the Principle of Population
• Keynes - British Industry, Unemployment and High Wages
• Code of Hammurabi
• Augustine - Sermons

American Studies

• Locke - Of Civil Government and English Bill of Rights
• Blackstone - Commentaries on the Laws of England
• Declaration and Resolves of the Continental Congress
• U.S. Constitution
• Colonial charters
• Early state constitutions
• Judicial opinions
• Speeches from the founding era

Essentials of Evangelical Theology

• Clement - First Epistle to the Corinthians
• Iranaeus - Against Heresies
• Chrysostom - On Providence
• Augustine - On the Trinity
• Anselm - Cur Deus Homo
• The Creed of Nicaea
• The Tome of Leo
• The Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed
• The Definition of Chalcedon

Integrated Humanities I

• Homer - Odyssey
• Virgil - Aeneid
• Plotinus - Enneads
• Augustine Confessions - City of God
• Maimonides - The Guide for the Perplexed
• Dante - Divine Comedy
• Al-Ghazzali - Munquid min al-Dalal
• Aquinas - Summa Theologicae
• Chaucer - Canterbury Tales
• Cervantes - Don Quixote
• Mirandola - Oration on the Dignity of Man
• Plato - Apology, Phaedo
• Sophocles - Oedipus the King
• Aristotle - Categories, Metaphysics, On the Soul
• Anonymous - Perpetua and Felicitas
• Ovid - Metamorphosis
• Anselm and Gaunilo - Proslogion and Debate
• Hildegard of Bingen - Scivias

Integrated Humanities II

• Moliere - Tartuffe
• Descartes - Meditations
• Pascal - Pensées
• Locke - Essay Concerning Human Understanding
• Voltaire - Candide
• Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling
• Nietzsche - Birth of Tragedy, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Twilight, and Anti Christ
• Rousseau - Confessions
• Goethe - Faust
• Mill - Utilitarianism
• Tolstoy - The Death of Ivan Ilyich
• Kafka - The Metamorphosis
• Sartre - No Exit
• Hick - Toward a Philosophy of Religious Pluralism
• Borges - The Garden of Forking Paths
• Mahfouz - Zaabalawi
• Derrida - Signature, Event, Context
• Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead