Title

Great books : my adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and other indestructible writers of the Western world

Description

In Great Books, Denby lives the common adult fantasy of returning to school with some worldly knowledge and experience of life. A gifted story-teller, he leads us on a glorious tour - by turns eloquent, witty, and moving - through the works themselves and through his experiences as a middle-aged man among freshmen. He recounts his failures and triumphs as a reader and student (taking an exam led to a hilarious near-breakdown). He celebrates his rediscovery or new appreciation of such authors as Homer, Plato, the biblical writers, Augustine, Boccaccio, Hegel, Austen, Marx, Nietzsche, and Virginia Woolf. He re-creates the atmosphere of the classroom - the strategies used by a remarkable group of teachers and the strengths and weaknesses of media-age students as they grapple with these difficult, sometimes frightening works. And all year long he watches the students grow and his own life and memories break out of hiding.

Identifier

594560

684809753

Creator

Denby, David

Source

Brian Lamb Booknotes Collection

Gift of Brian Lamb, 2011.

Catalog record

Language

eng

Date

1996

Program air date: December 22, 1996

Publisher

Simon & Schuster

George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections & Archives

Text

Transcription of Annotations
Notes on front endpapers: Children of the media--24 students [Lamb lists their names followed for some by descriptors like: Korean Boy, Jewish, blind, Southern boy. Why are most Dead Europeans white males? Number of SDS at Stanford. My teaching was a flop. Mozart-Black students. Son- Max, 13, Tommy, 9. King Lear and my mother p. 294, Ida Denby. Welfare p. 372. Abolitionism, relativism, essentialist (Plato). Please don't come back p. 326. John S. Mill--at Columbia was the core curriculum. Underlinings/Notes: Underlinings: Denby's observations on professors, students and his reaction to texts. Lamb also underlines details of Denby's life. Lamb checked some chapter titles on the Contents page. Notes: "1991," "love beads," "a non-reader," "a scandal," "film critic 1969," "media society," "ground rules," "Columbia," "students/teachers," "book buyer, not book reader," "pale," "blacks," "Guy Jeez," "justice?" "America as a civil society?" "A victim," "censorship," "Max," "engulfed by media," "John Milton," "great books to my children," "video games," "Black woman student," "harmony and justice," "Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, utopia," "media cave," "irrational forces," "self-recognition," "students," "property," "6 of 24 religious," "Leora," "testy," "atheist," "monotheism," "Manuel, blind, operation," "computer reading," "rage," "Jesus," "Jews," "greatness of the courses," "readers," "the canon," "Oxford students-high school-France," "American liberal," "John Locke," "T.J.'s master," "boring," "Indians," "slaves," "tears and a left-wing Swede," "Kant difficult," "Kant a bachelor," "Hash," "CBS, NBC execs at Stanford," "incomprehensible, frustrating, little use," "Ross Perot," "Fred Astaire," "father died," "Hegel," "all time greatest German professor," "On Liberty no discussion," "faculty walkouts," "Conservatives," "son Max," "John S. Mill," "Mill was the core curriculum," "liberal faith," "get killed," "the Jews," "my politics," "grad students looking for a job," "Republican Party," "black women, pain and humiliation," "Plato, Oedipus, Jesus," "students and mass media," "racists," "African-Americans."

Subject

"Denby, David, 1943---Books and reading."

"Civilization, Western--Study and teaching (Higher)--United States."

"Humanities--Study and teaching (Higher)--United States."

"Literature--Study and teaching (Higher)--United States."

Relation

Original Booknotes interview

Rights

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