Author Archives: Lorenzo Garcia

Endings and New Beginnings with the Core Curriculum: Seeking Wisdom from Dante:

“O you who are within your little bark, eager to listen, following behind my ship that, singing, crosses to deep seas, turn back to see your shores again: do not attempt to sail the seas I sail; you may, by … Continue reading

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The Power of Right Living and Intellectual Humility

“Listen to me, my son, and acquire knowledge,/and pay close attention to my words./I will impart instruction by weight,/and declare knowledge accurately” (Wisdom of Sirach 16:24-25). There’s an interesting moment in one of Shakespeare’s sonnets where the narrator states: As … Continue reading

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The Beauty of Suffering in Classical Poetry

“Arms and the man I sing who, forced by fate/And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate, Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore” (The Aeneid, I, 1-3). All of us have a desire to be part of a larger story. Almost everyone … Continue reading

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Contemporary Civilization and the Return of the Devotion to Western Literature

“Regarding each of the things we understand, however, we don’t consult a speaker who makes sounds outside us, but the Truth that presides within over the mind itself, though perhaps words prompt us to consult Him” (St. Augustine, On the … Continue reading

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Recovering Reason, Embracing the Words of Truth, and Delighting in the Great Books: 

“Man, the rational animal, can put up with anything except what seems to him irrational; whatever is rational is tolerable” – Epictetus, Discourses    In my last post, I included an epigraph from Euripides’ play The Phoenecian Woman, which stated … Continue reading

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Evolution and the Importance of Tradition in Literature Humanities

“The words of truth are naturally simple” – Euripides, The Phoenecian Woman  The history of the formation of the course now known as Literature Humanities is not a well-known story among students at Columbia College nowadays, and this is a … Continue reading

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Eyes to See and Ears to Hear 

“Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning” (Proverbs 9:9).  It’s a fortunate staple of most undergraduate students’ experiences of the CORE curriculum at Columbia that … Continue reading

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