Editing Western canon (section)

===Great Books Program===
[[Image:Great Books.jpg|thumb|The ''[[Great Books of the Western World]]'' in 60 volumes]]
A university or college [[Great Books]] Program is a program inspired by the Great Books movement begun in the United States in the 1920s by [[John Erskine (educator)|John Erskine]] of [[Columbia University]], which proposed to improve the higher education system by returning it to the western [[liberal arts]] tradition of broad cross-disciplinary learning. These academics and educators included [[Robert Maynard Hutchins|Robert Hutchins]], [[Mortimer Adler]], [[Stringfellow Barr]], [[Scott Buchanan]], [[Jacques Barzun]], and [[Alexander Meiklejohn]]. The view among them was that the emphasis on narrow specialization in American colleges had harmed the quality of [[higher education]] by failing to expose students to the important products of Western civilization and thought.

The essential component of such programs is a high degree of engagement with primary texts, called the Great Books. The curricula of Great Books programs often follow a canon of texts considered more or less essential to a student's education, such as Plato's ''Republic'', or Dante's ''Divine Comedy''. Such programs often focus exclusively on Western culture. Their employment of primary texts dictates an interdisciplinary approach, as most of the Great Books do not fall neatly under the prerogative of a single contemporary academic discipline. Great Books programs often include designated discussion groups as well as lectures, and have small class sizes. In general students in such programs receive an abnormally high degree of attention from their professors, as part of the overall aim of fostering a community of learning.

Over 100 institutions of higher learning, mostly in the United States, offer some version of a Great Books Program as an option for students.<ref>{{cite web|last=Casement|first=William|title=College Great Books Programs|url=http://www.coretexts.org/college-great-books-programs/#tz|publisher=The Association for Core Texts and Courses (ACTC)|access-date=May 29, 2012|archive-date=November 16, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121116234705/http://www.coretexts.org/college-great-books-programs/#tz|url-status=dead}}</ref>

For much of the 20th century, the [[Modern Library]] provided a larger convenient list of the Western canon.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Giddins |first=Gary |date=1992-12-06 |title=Why I Carry a Torch For the Modern Library |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/06/books/why-i-carry-a-torch-for-the-modern-library.html |access-date=2024-07-22 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> The list numbered more than 300 items by the 1950s, by authors from Aristotle to Albert Camus, and has continued to grow. When in the 1990s the concept of the Western canon was vehemently condemned, just as earlier Modern Library lists had been criticized as "too American," Modern Library responded by preparing new lists of "100 Best Novels" and "100 Best Nonfiction" compiled by famous writers, and later compiled lists nominated by book purchasers and readers.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/|title=Top 100 « Modern Library|website=www.modernlibrary.com}}</ref>