Program of Liberal Studies Great Books Seminars

The Program of Liberal Studies (PLS) is a Great Books major at the University of Notre Dame, founded in 1950 by Otto Bird at the invitation of president John J. Cavanaugh, C.S.C. It descends from John Erskine's General Honors course at Columbia and from Mortimer Adler's work at the University of Chicago, and is grounded in a Catholic educational philosophy that values the integration of all forms of knowledge. At the heart of the major are six Great Books Seminars, taken in sequence over the sophomore, junior, and senior years, in small classes of ten to sixteen students. They begin in Greek, Roman, and Eastern antiquity and end with works that address contemporary challenges, and are complemented by a required sequence of tutorials in literature, philosophy, theology, political theory, music, history, and the sciences.