Author: Bruce S. Thornton Narrator: Bruce S. Thornton Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute Audio Original Running Time: 36 Min.

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What's So Great about the Classics? by Bruce S. Thornton

Dr. Thornton grew up on a cattle ranch in Fresno, California. His father was a cowboy and a barber who never attended high school, his mother the child of Italian immigrants. From an early age, Thornton worked on the ranch, and from the experience he acquired a practical realism, a clear-eyed acceptance of the concrete, harsh realities sometimes overlooked or ignored in the ivory-tower academy. He received his B.A. in Latin and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UCLA and is currently professor of Classics and Humanities in the Department of Foreign Languages at California State University in Fresno.

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What's So Great!

In this lecture released by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute on MP3 download and Streaming Audio & Video, Bruce S. Thornton asks his audience why the Greek written tradition is so important to the western world. His answer is that classic Grecian writing provides so many primary examples of critical thinking (a practice quintessentially western), that it''s now almost impossible to extricate these writings from the West''s development and eventual dominance. Thornton gives examples of how the Greeks handled issues like slavery, women''s issues, and human rights; showing how even then, voices like Plato were planting the seeds that would eventually topple archaic notions. Finally Thornton feels one of the great western ideals is free speech, and shows how the classics placed this among the greatest of freedoms. This is a great lecture for anyone that wishes to dig deep into the underpinnings of western thought and perhaps gain a better understanding of why the classics are so timeless.

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This Author: Bruce S. Thornton This Narrator: Bruce S. Thornton This Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute

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