(and what St. Justin Martyr was supposed to be, though with a twist--tutorials instead of seminars), except that it is geared towards Eastern Christians. From the official site:
Transfiguration College is being founded to form the minds of students living in this age through the wisdom received from ages past. Because we inherit this wisdom from the East—from the pagan thinkers of antiquity and the Fathers of the Eastern Christian Church—Transfiguration College looks to the Light of the East.download the Red Book here (pdf)We are working to establish a four-year bachelor of arts college that will integrate the natural light revealed by the pagan Greek philosophers with the supernatural light received through the Early Church Fathers, including the distinctive spirituality of Byzantium.
Transfiguration College will be the first Catholic institution in the United States to offer a classical education within the Byzantine tradition. The spirituality of the Christian East—in theology, iconography, and above all in the Divine Liturgy—will be an essential dimension of the education offered at Transfiguration College.
(You can compare it with TAC's founding document, the "Blue Book," here.)
The students will learn about icon writing, and even practice writing them!
St. John Damascene isn't included on the reading list presented on the Curriculum page, though it says it is a "partial list." However, the De fide orthodoxa is listed in the Red Book under the Theology curriculum. Some writings of St. Athanasius and St. Maximos the Confessor are also included on the reading list--do they include the texts that Orthodox theologians might cite in their debates with Latins? Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit by Photius (St. Photius the Great? On the other hand, Gregory Palamas is listed as St. Gregory Palamas...) plus Gregory Palamas' 150 Chapters, Hagiorite Tome, and Defense of the Holy Hesychasts are there on the list. What position does the college take towards hesychasm and the question whether it can be reconciled with the Latin theological tradition? I suppose I could write an email to Karl and find out. (No last name given on the blogs, otherwise I would use it.)
St. Anselm, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas are also listed as possibilities for a "philosophy" seminar. That is rather puzzling, since the texts by Anselm and Augustine are arguably theology texts. (And same goes with the Prima Pars of the Summa Theologiae, though some of it is materially identical with philosophical theology or metaphysics.) Aristotle is included, but no Physics. (No commentaries on Aristotle by St. Thomas either.) It is proposed that the Organon will be covered the first semester, but is that enough time for someone to become really familiar with Aristotelian logic, and to learn how to exercise it?
All in all, the list of texts by the Church Fathers for theology is impressive--one would wish that Latins could also become better acquainted with the same texts, but there is only so much one can do in an institution whose purpose is to certify its students for the professional world. (Hence, the continual need for reform at the secondary level.)
Transfiguration College has its own blog.
Byzantine Evangelization.
Other Links:
Other Great Books programs.
Mortimer Adler archive
Center for the Study of the Great Ideas
"Why should we read great books of the Western world?"
Marie George has written a critique of a certain conception of Great Books, but it's not available online unfortunately. (After getting her Ph.D. in philosophy she went on to study for a B.A. and M.A. in biology, but as far as I know her writings on biology and philosophy of biology have been few. I hope she will write more on those topics soon.)
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