Wright Great Books Symposium Journal
About The Great Books
Symposium Journal
The Wright College Great
Books Symposium Journal is one of special importance. It is one of the only two-year-college academic journal in the country created,
composed, peer reviewed and edited by students. The passion and diligence of
these students have made this project a reality.1
The idea of the GBSJ originates
from a desire for Wright College faculty to recognize students’ exceptional
analytical and critical research writing. Its creation was also a response to
an unfortunate notion that the Great Books curriculum is not relevant in the
community college setting. This notion was compounded by an even worse notion:
that students in two-year colleges are not capable of writing proficiently
about the complex ideas put forth in great works and that these works are
inconsequential to their interests or intellectual and personal needs.
The first two editions of this journal, edited by Bruce Gans,
founder of the Wright College Great Books Curriculum Program, demonstrated the
relevance of Great Books, as well as the abilities of two-year college students
to engage with the ideas contained in them. In the words of Gans, “The contents
of Symposium lay
forever to rest the objections by faculty and students that enduring works of
the mind are beyond the abilities of community college students or
inconsequential to their intellectual interests or personal needs.” In reality,
as our journal shows, two-year student insight and learning produces scholarly
essays of great subtlety and profundity, often brimming with intellectual
excitement and originality.
Finally, the GBSJ seeks
to serve as recognition not only of student talent but also of something
deeper. We believe that the process of students’ submitting essays to be
published by an academic journal will be academically and personally
transformational. In the process of learning to write critical essays of
publishable quality, and in the process of reviewing and editing them, students
are also contributing to the Great Conversation about the essential ideas that
challenge and edify humankind. In this way, the Great Books Symposium Journal is
a unique way for students—the writers, the reviewers, the editors, and you, the
reader—to achieve richer academic and personal lives.
1 All
submissions are double-blind reviewed and edited by both students and teachers.
