History

The questions arising out of 9/11 got my interested in the history of the clash between Islam and the west. I read Julian Norwich's series about Byzantium, and that got me interested in reading the primary sources (such as Procopius). It also got me interested in tracing things back even further--to the fall of the Roman Empire and the invasions of vandals etc. I'd like to read Gregory of Tours, the Franks and Lombards. etc. That got me interested in the history Greece and Rome. Some of these works are in the curriculum and I am excited to read or re-read them: Thucydides, Herodotus, Plutarch, Tacitus. (Not that Plutarch is primarily a historian. My most successful paper in graduate school was about Plutarch's understanding of chance in Timoleon and Amelius Paulus.)

Shakespeare got me interested in reading the Oxford history and Hume that got me interested in the original sources as well of English history--as well as the intersection with the hsitory of the Roman Empire.

I am interested in Enlgish history, partly because of Shakespeare, and also because it traces back the United States, it is the history of our legal traditions.


I like to trace things back to the beginning. (and use primary sources, and read in the original languages, etc.)

See also question of origins: taught myself Hebrew and read 1st chapter of Genesis in Hebrew to see what it teaches.

Being at SJ would also make it possible for me to return to my first love, the study of philosophy, especially the dialogues of Plato, but also Aristotle and the other philosophers of the western tradition. Finish the study of the trilogy that I began with the statesman. Also Laches and Charmides (dialectical virtues).

Also, the study of ideas in literature. My first successful paper in college was sacrificing the happiness of individuals to the requirements of society in Billy Budd and the Scarlet Letter.