The following is a list of works read in whole or in part in the curriculum of Thomas Aquinas College. They are not all of equal weight. Some are regarded as masterworks, while others serve as sources of opinions that either lead students to the truth or make the truth more evident by opposition to it. (In 2010, College Dean Brian T. Kelly began a series of presentations to the Board of Governors about why the curriculum includes particular authors and subjects. You can read those talks by clicking here.)

Freshman Year | Sophomore Year | Junior Year | Senior Year
Compositions | Senior Thesis

Freshman Year
Theology
	The Holy Bible
Philosophy
	Plato	Meno, Protagoras, Gorgias, Apology, Crito, Phaedo
	Porphyry	On the Predicaments (Isagoge)
	Aristotle	Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics
	St. Thomas Aquinas	Proemium to the Commentary on the Posterior Analytics
Natural Science
	Aristotle	Parts of Animals
	DeKoninck	The Lifeless World of Biology
	Fabre	Souvenirs Entomologiques
	Galen	On the Natural Faculties
	Harvey	On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals
	Linnaeus	Systema Naturae
	Pascal	On the Equilibrium of Liquids
	Archimedes	On Floating Bodies
	Mendel	Plant Hybridization
	Various Authors	Scientific papers of Driesch, Gould and Marler, Tinbergen, Goethe, Virchow, von Frisch, et alia
		Measurements Manual
Mathematics
	Euclid	Elements
Language
	Wheelock	Latin: An Introductory Course Based on Ancient Authors
	Nesfield	Aids to the Study and Composition of English
Seminar
	Homer	Iliad, Odyssey
	Plato	Ion, Symposium, Republic
	Aeschylus	Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, Eumenides
	Sophocles	Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone
	Herodotus	Histories
	Plutarch	Lives (Lycurgus, Pericles, Aristides, Alcibiades, Alexander)
	Aristotle	Poetics, Rhetoric
	Euripides	Hippolytus
	Thucydides	History of the Peloponnesian War
	Aristophanes	The Birds, The Clouds

Sophomore Year
Theology
	St. Augustine	On Christian Doctrine, On the Spirit and the Letter, On Nature and Grace, On the Predestination of the Saints, On the Gift of Perseverance, City of God
	St. Athanasius	On the Incarnation
	Gaunilo	On Behalf of the Fool
	St. Anselm	Proslogion, Reply to Gaunilo
	St. John Damascene	An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith
Philosophy
	Pre-Socratic Philosophers	Fragments
	Aristotle	Physics, De Anima
Natural Science
	Aristotle	On Generation and Corruption
	St. Thomas Aquinas	On the Principles of Nature, On the Combination of the Elements
	Lavoisier	Elements of Chemistry
	Avogadro	Masses and Proportions of Elementary Molecules
	Dalton	Proportion of Gases in the Atmosphere
	Gay-Lussac	Combination of Gaseous Substances
	Pascal	Treatise on the Weight of the Mass of Air
	Various Authors	Scientific papers of Berthollet, Couper, Lavoisier, Mendeleev, Richter, Wollaston, Cannizzaro,et alia
		Atomic Theory Manual
Mathematics
	Plato	Timaeus
	Ptolemy	Almagest
	Copernicus	Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
	Apollonius	On Conic Sections
	Kepler	Epitome of Copernican Astronomy, Astronomia Nova
	Archimedes	On Conoids and Spheroids
Language
	Wheelock	Latin: An Introductory Course Based on Ancient Authors
	Martin of Denmark	Tractas De Modis Significandi
	Horace, Cicero	Selections
	St.Thomas Aquinas	Selections
	Canon of the Mass
Seminar
	Virgil	Aeneid
	Lucretius	On the Nature of Things
	Livy	The Rise of Rome
	Plutarch	Lives (Marcellus, Caius Marius, Sylla, Tiberius Gracchus, Caius Gracchus, Caesar, Cato the Younger, Marcus Brutus, Comparison of Dion and Brutus)
	Cicero	On Duties
	Tacitus	Annals
	Epictetus	Manual
	St. Augustine	Confessions, On the Teacher
	Boethius	Consolation of Philosophy
	Dante	Divine Comedy; Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise
	Chaucer	Canterbury Tales
	Spenser	Faerie Queen
	St. Thomas Aquinas	On the Teacher

Junior Year
Theology
	St. Thomas Aquinas	Summa Theologiae: On Sacred Doctrine, On God, On Law
Philosophy
	Aristotle	Nicomachean Ethics, Politics
Natural Science
	Descartes	Principles of Philosophy
	Galileo	Two New Sciences
	Newton	Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
Mathematics
	Viete	Standard Enumeration of Geometric Results, Introduction to the Analytic Art
	Descartes	Geometry
	Archimedes	Quadrature of the Parabola
	Various Authors	Mathematical works of Hippocrates, Archimedes, Cavalieri, Pascal, Leibniz, Bernoulli, Newton, Berkeley, Balzano,et alia
Music
	Plato	Timaeus
	Boethius	On Music
	Mozart	Sonatas
	Gustin	Tonality
	Kalkavage	On the Measurement of Tones
Seminar
	Cervantes	Don Quixote
	St. Thomas Aquinas	On Kingship, Summa Theologiae I-II, Q. 105, Art. 1
	Machiavelli	The Prince, Discourses
	Shakespeare	Julius Caesar, King Richard the Second, King Henry the Fourth: Part One, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Sonnets
	Bacon	The Great Renewal, The New Organon
	Descartes	Discourse on Method, Rules for the Direction of the Mind, Meditations
	Pascal	Pensées
	Hobbes	Leviathan
	Spinoza	Theologico-Political Treatise
	Milton	Paradise Lost
	Corneille	Le Cid
	Racine	Phaedre
	Locke	Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Second Essay on Civil Government
	Berkeley	Treatise Concerning Human Knowledge
	Hume	An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
	Swift	Gulliver’s Travels
	Gibbon	Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
	Leibniz	Discourse on Metaphysics
	Rousseau	Social Contract, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
	Kant	Critique of Pure Reason
	Hamilton, Madison, Jay	Federalist Papers
	Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, Lincoln-Douglas Debates

Senior Year
Theology
	St. Thomas Aquinas	Summa Theologiae: On the Trinity, On the Sacraments, On the Passion of Christ
Philosophy
	Aristotle	Physics, Metaphysics
	St. Thomas Aquinas	On Being and Essence
Natural Science
	Einstein	Relativity: The Special and the General Theory
	Huygens	Treatise on Light
	Newton	Optiks
	Maxwell	A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
	Gilbert	De Magnete
	Ampere	Papers
		Mechanics, Waves, and Optics Manual
		Electricity and Magnetism Manual
Mathematics
	Pascal	Generation of Conic Sections
	Taylor	Integral Calculus
	Dedekind	Essay on the Theory of Numbers
	Lobachevski	Geometrical Researches On The Theory Of Parallels
Seminar
	Tolstoy	War and Peace
	Smith	Wealth of Nations
	Kant	Critique of Pure Reason, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals
	Goethe	Faust
	Hegel	Philosophy of History, Phenomenology of Mind
	Feuerbach	Essence of Christianity
	Tocqueville	Democracy in America, The Old Regime and the French Revolution
	Twain	Huckleberry Finn
	Austen	Emma
	Conrad	Heart of Darkness
	Marx	Capital, Communist Manifesto, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, German Ideology
	Engels	Quantity and Quality, Negation of the Negation
	Ibsen	A Doll's House
	Dostoyevski	Brothers Karamazov
	Darwin	Origin of Species
	Nietzsche	On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History, Beyond Good & Evil
	Kierkegaard	Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments
	Flaubert	Three Tales
	Newman	Development Of Christian Doctrine
	Melville	Billy Budd
	Eliot	Journey of the Magi, The Waste Land
	Freud	General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
	Jung	Analytical Psychology
	Cather	My Antonia
	St. Thomas Aquinas	The Division and Methods of the Sciences
	St. Pius X	Pascendi Dominici Gregis
	Leo XIII	Aeterni Patris, Rerum Novarum
	Pius XII	Humani Generis
	Pius XI	Quadragesimo Anno
	Second Vatican Council	Lumen Gentium
	O’Connor	A Good Man is Hard to Find, The Enduring Chill
	Plato	Phaedrus

Compositions

Writing requires both greater completeness and greater precision than does speech. On the one hand, the writer cannot make assumptions about the unknown reader; on the other hand, his prose must be efficient. The College helps students develop their writing skills through the essays they write periodically each year. Five essays are written in  freshman year, four sophomore year, and two lengthier essays are written in junior year. These essays are reviewed carefully by tutors for content as well as for grammar, style, and arrangement and development of ideas. Seniors write a more substantial “Senior Thesis”.

Senior Thesis

The Senior Thesis is an integral part of the curriculum. As compared with the other parts, it requires a greater independence on the part of the student. He frames a question of the sort the authors in the program themselves frame and, under the direction of a tutor, refines, explores, and answers that question. The student’s answer need not be ultimate, but it must not be superficial or simply the repetition of authority. The thesis is of greater length than the other compositions in the program and is defended before a committee of faculty examiners in a session open to all.

The ability to carry out such an investigation and reasonably to account for and defend its conclusions is an important aim of the program, and a successful Senior Thesis may be seen as a formal and public display that the student has begun to have such an ability in his own right.

The following titles are representative of Senior Theses:The True Method of Procedure in Biological Science

• Obedience and Its Relationship to Charity
• The View of Human Nature Underlying the United States Constitution
• The Role of Suffering in Redemption
• A Defense of the Legitimacy of the Calculus
• The Effect of Philosophy on Language: A Consideration of the Poetry of T. S. Eliot
• Why Should Music Be Studied Mathematically?
• A Consideration of the Difficulties of the Special Theory of Relativity
• The Difference between Grammar and Logic
• Whether the Marital Union Is a Fitting Symbol of the Union of Christ and the Church
• The Atomic Theory in View of the Physics of Aristotle
• Whether Men Can Be Good without Grace
• A Consideration of the Ways in Which Galileo and Newton Use the Infinite in Understanding Motion
• An Analysis and Critique of John Locke’s Theory of the End of Government
• Is Tonal Music Natural?
• When Is the Rational Soul Present in Man’s Generation?
• The Natural Law in the Declaration of Independence: A Classical Interpretation