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Join the great conversation! The Great Books discuss the perennial truths of the human condition and invite us to join the great conversation between the most impressive minds in history.
New to the great books? Check out "How to Read the Great Books Well" or "Introduction to the Intellectual Life" below.
YOU CAN READ HOMER WITH ASCEND
You can read Homer! Our "Year with Homer" guides you through both the Iliad and the Odyssey.
53 Videos and podcasts
60+ hours of discussion
100+ pages of written guides
Join Dcn. Harrison Garlick as he discusses Homer with great teachers like Dr. Patrick Deneen, Dr. Jennifer Frey, Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson, and more!
YOU CAN READ DANTE'S INFERNO
Why should we read Dante’s Inferno?
The Inferno is an invitation to examine your soul. Dante the Poet is a master of the soul and its loves. He tears away the acceptable veneer on human desire and exposes the ugly reality of sin and its transformative effect upon the human soul into something imploded and bestial. And Dante the Poet invites the reader to contemplate his or her soul and its loves within an ordered whole.
As stated, the Divine Comedy is St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae is poetic form, and Dante the Poet weaves together Holy Scripture, Aristotle, mythology, astronomy, and more into one intelligible cosmos. Reality is intelligible and holds lessons for our sanctification and salvation. We are invited to become students of our own souls by understanding a hell structured around love, the horror of sin, and the ugliness of evil. Dante wants to save your soul, as Dr. Holmes notes. We join ourselves to Dante the Pilgrim, an analogue of humanity, and mature with him throughout his penitential journey.
Reading Schedule:
Introduction & the Dark Woods
1. Intro & Canto 1 (3.4.25) with Dr. Jeremy Holmes (Wyoming Catholic)
Vestibule of Hell, Limbo & Lust
2. Cantos 2-5 (3.11.25) with Dr. Jennifer Frey (TU) and Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson (Pepperdine).
Gluttony, Spendthrift/Hoarders, Wrathful/Acedia & Heretics
3. Cantos 6-11 (3.18.25) with Dr. Jason Baxter of Benedictine College.
Violence: Against Neighbor, Self & God
4. Cantos 12-17 (3.25.25) with Fr. Thomas Esposito, O. Cist., of the University of Dallas.
Simple Fraud: Pits 1-7
5. Cantos 18-25 (4.1.25) with Noah Tyler, CFO of CLT, and Gabriel Blanchard, Staff Writer for CLT.
Simple Fraud: Pits 8-10
6. Cantos 26-31 (4.8.25) with Dr. Donald Prudlo (TU)
Complex Fraud: The Traitors
7. Cantos 32-34 (4.15.25) with Evan Amato.
READING GUIDE:
Check out our 80+ Question and Answer Guide to Dante's Inferno! A fantastic resource to help you or your small group read Dante's Inferno.
2025 Great Books Reading Schedule
HESIOD'S THEOGONY & GREEK PLAYS (2025)
1/1 Intro to the Greek Plays
1/7 Hesiod's Theogony
THE ORESTEIA by Aeschylus
1/14 Into to Aeschylus
1/21 Agamemnon Part I
1/28 Agamemnon Part II
2/4 Libation Bearers Part I
2/11 Libation Bearers Part II
2/18 Eumenides Part I
2/25 Eumenides Part II
READ DANTE'S INFERNO WITH ASCEND
We are reading Dante's Inferno over LENT 2025.
3/4 Introduction & Canto I
3/11 Cantos II-V
3/18 Cantos VI-XI
3/25 Cantos XII-XVII
4/1 Cantos XVIII-XXV
4/8 Cantos XXVI-XXX
4/15 Cantos XXXII-XXXIV
BACK TO THE GREEK PLAYS
4/22 Prometheus Bound with Dr. Jared Zimmerer
THE THEBAN PLAYS by Sophocles
4/29 Antigone Part I
5/6 Antigone Part II
5/13 Oedipus Rex
5/20 Oedipus at Colonus Part I
5/27 Oedipus at Colonus Part II
6/3 The Bacchae Part I with Dr. Frank Grabowski
6/10 The Bacchae Part II with Dr. Frank Grabowski
6/17 Roundtable on the Tragic Plays
6/24 The Clouds by Aristophanes with Dr. Zena Hitz
6/1 The Frogs by Aristophanes with Tsh Oxenreider
YOU CAN READ PLATO WITH ASCEND
7/8 Introduction to Plato
7/15 Plutarch on Alcibiades with Cost of Glory
7/22 First Alcibiades Pt I with Athenian Stranger and Alec Bianco
7/29 First Alcibiades Pt II with Athenian Stranger and Alec Bianco
8/5 Teaching First Alcibiades with Dr. Shields
8/12 Euthyphro Rountable Part I
8/19 Euthyphro Rountable Part II
8/26 Aquinas & the Euthyphro Dilemma with Dr. Don Prudlo
9/2 The Apology Part I w Fr. Justin Brophy, OP 9/9 The Apology Part II w Fr. Justin Brophy, OP
9/16 The Crito with Dr. Papadopoulos
We are recording on Phaedo, Meno, Gorgias, the Republic, Symposium, and more!