All Carthage students must successfully complete two seminar courses called Western Heritage. These seminars represent the foundation of the Carthage experience: a journey of rigorous thinking, questioning and imagining that ultimately leads to self-discovery and self-expression. Carthage is the only college or university in the Midwest where every freshman takes a full-year sequence of foundational texts of the Western intellectual tradition.

Western Heritage I and II are core courses, typically taken during the fall and spring semesters of a student's freshman year. The goal of Western Heritage is to introduce students to a true liberal arts education. In classes of 21 students or fewer, freshmen read, discuss and write about key texts from the Greek and Roman worlds through the Renaissance and into our modern era.

The yearlong sequence uses a chronological approach and is taught collaboratively by faculty from academic departments and programs across disciplines.

Intellectual Journey

The West marks an intellectual tradition of active dialogue among literary, scientific, philosophical, political and spiritual thinkers, ancient and modern, who have seen themselves as part of a shared intellectual tradition. Western Heritage seminars ask students to participate in this ongoing scholarly journey. In each seminar, students are called upon to discuss intensely, write engagingly, and articulate clearly their thoughts through critical essays and conversations in dialogue with one another and with the texts of the course.

Outstanding Works of Literature

The texts selected for study in Western Heritage are outstanding works of literature, social and political philosophy, economic thought, science, film and music. In Western Heritage I, students read texts such as Plato’s Euthyphro and Apology, Virgil's Aeneid, and Homer’s Odyssey, as well as The Bible and works by Aristotle, Augustine and Aeschylus. In Western Heritage II, students read texts such as Dante’s Inferno, Montaigne’s Essays, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and W.E.B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk, as well as authors such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx and Derek Walcott.

Solid Foundation

The Western Heritage program at Carthage provides students with a level of competency that will aid them in all of their classes at Carthage, and in their future careers. Students develop critical reading, writing, cultural literacy and oral communication skills. Students who desire to continue their Western Heritage experience may choose to major or minor in Carthage’s Great Ideas program.

The Great Conversation

Nearly 3,000 years ago
in the heart of the Mediterranean world, Greek thinkers began to produce works of art and literature that set the stage for what we call "The Great Conversation.”
By tracing this conversation and participating in it themselves, students discover how our world of ideas began to take shape.

Hannibal Lectures

Popular lecture series draws professors and students deeper into Western Heritage texts. Read more.