Complete Lecture List for Old Western Culture
Old Western Culture is our literature curriculum which guides students through the great books of Western civilization from the ancient Greeks to the Early Modern period. It is divided into four years (The Greeks, The Romans, Christendom, and Early Moderns), and each year has four units. We publish details about each year and unit on their own pages, but below is all 192 lectures from Old Western Culture in one place! COMPLETE LECTURE LIST FOR THE GREEKS THE EPICS:Lecture 1 – Introduction to Old Western CultureLecture 2 – The Backdrop to the Iliad.Lecture 3 – The Anger of Achilleus. (Iliad … Continue Reading “Complete Lecture List for Old Western Culture”
Old Western Culture Journey Ep. 2: Pagans Bound
It’s been nearly a month since I posted the first “episode” of this series on my personal journey through the Old Western Culture curriculum, and what a month it’s been! We loaded up a U-Haul and set out for a move from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Moscow, Idaho, with unplanned stops in Los Alamos, New Mexico and Red Lodge, Montana. I won’t go into epic detail in telling the tale of our move. If I tell you it was quite an adventure, I know you’ll believe me simply because of the fact that we had two unplanned stops on the … Continue Reading “Old Western Culture Journey Ep. 2: Pagans Bound”
Old Western Culture Journey Ep. 1: Waking to Golden Apples
Naturally I’ll begin my first post on a new blog by introducing myself. My name is Joffre Swait, and I work as the student and parent advisor at Kepler Education, a new online Classical Christian education platform and Roman Roads’ sister company. I am a language teacher, the son of an ESL teacher and a college professor. I was homeschooled in the nineties, and my wife and I homeschool our five children today. Our two oldest children, Renata and Joffre Jr., have studied from Roman Roads’ Old Western Culture series for the last two years. They’ve enjoyed it, and my … Continue Reading “Old Western Culture Journey Ep. 1: Waking to Golden Apples”
Old Western Culture in the 18th year of homeschooling (a review)
It is always a pleasure to hear how our courses have blessed homeschool parents. I wanted to share this review from a veteran homeschool mom who has kids with very different learning styles. My family is in the process of wrapping up our 18th year of homeschooling. I was blessed to stumble upon the Old Western Culture series this year. I had heard the name Wes Callihan before, but for the past few years, I was surprisingly content with my repertoire of homeschooling materials. However, my mildly autistic 15 year old son presented me with a new challenge: how to … Continue Reading “Old Western Culture in the 18th year of homeschooling (a review)”
The Old Western Culture Great Books List
Old Western Culture is a great books curriculum with a distinctly Christian “great books” reading list. It includes all the famous favorites you’ll recognize from series like the Britannica Great Books of the Western World, but also includes books that are often left out of modern editions for various reasons, most often because they are from the “Age of Faith.” We include more works from the early Church Fathers, Medieval period, and the Reformation. These are deeply influential and formative books on Western civilization, and worthy of inclusion in great books series. These books are part of our Christian and cultural inheritance, and … Continue Reading “The Old Western Culture Great Books List”
Athenian reaction to defeat similar to US reaction to 9/11 terrorist attacks
In this excerpt from The Histories, part of the Old Western Culture series, a Great Books video course, Wes Callihan shows how the reactions that the Athenians had to a defeat is very similar to other reactions of democracies throughout history, and specifically similar to the reaction of the United States to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. Thucydides wants us to make these parallels as he explains at the beginning of “The History of the Peloponnesian War.” YouTube version here.
A Conversation with John Hodges about The Center for Western Studies
Daniel Foucachon sits down with John Hodges from The Center for Western Studies, to discuss what they are all about, and why they offer a Gap Year Program. ABOUT CWS: “The Center for Western Studies is an experiment in education. Our goal is to offer our students two things: a Christian view of the world, and a study of the ideas that shaped Western civilization. Western culture is by no means perfect, but it is ours, and so it is essential as Christians that we engage with it, reflect on it, sort out the good from the bad, and in … Continue Reading “A Conversation with John Hodges about The Center for Western Studies”
A glimpse at what we lost when we abandoned classical education
Mark Twain is attributed with the saying “Those who don’t read have no advantage over those who can’t.” We are now a couple generations away from our forefathers who abandoned classical education. We are now the generation that does not even know what it has lost. Wes Callihan gives a glimpse at the kind of richness we have lost in this excerpt from the Old Western Culture curriculum on the great books of Western civilization. If you don’t study the classics, you have no advantage over those who can’t. Roman Roads Media provides tools to help you accomplish this task! Get started today! … Continue Reading “A glimpse at what we lost when we abandoned classical education”
Great Books Challenge for Parents 2016
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]elcome to the 2016 Great Books Challenge for Parents! This Challenge is for any parent, but especially for parents who plan to classically homeschool their children, or who are currently homeschooling their children. Classical homeschoolers love Old Western Culture because they see their children coming to the dinner table full of stories, and thirsty for knowledge and wisdom. Make 2016 the year classical learning comes alive in your home, and earn free curriculum in the process! Last year’s Great Books Challenge, centered around Virgil’s Aeneid, was a tremendous success! This year we are going to continue and build upon that challenge, adding the following unit, Romans: … Continue Reading “Great Books Challenge for Parents 2016”
A total weirdo was hanging around Penelope’s palace…When I saw who he was? MIND. BLOWN.
Penelope was a tragic war-widow…or was she? Will this mysterious stranger’s secret change everything she thought she knew? Odysseus has returned home at long last to Ithaca, his own island, after twenty years of war and wandering. But chaos reigns at home! While he’s been gone, a multitude of suitors, hoping to claim his throne, are pursuing the hand of Odysseus’ wife, Penelope. Penelope has held out these twenty years, but is running out of ideas to keep the suitors at bay as she wonders if her husband will ever return, or if he is long-dead. As she gives her … Continue Reading “A total weirdo was hanging around Penelope’s palace…When I saw who he was? MIND. BLOWN.”