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The Making of the Western Mind – Thursdays, 7:00PM
Winter Quarter (10 weeks): January 8 – March 12, 2026
The Middle Ages
“The Making of the Western Mind” invites students to come to know the major philosophers, painters, sculptors, architects, poets, playwrights, and novelists of the Western cultural tradition. During our thirty-week journey, we read philosophical essays and epic poems; look at slides of frescoes and oil paintings; and study the biographies of great leaders such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Napoleon. The goal of the course is to come to understand how we in the twenty-first century came to be who we are; why we think the way we do; what assumptions about the world and human nature are traceable back to earlier periods in the five-thousand year story of Western Civilization. (Please see syllabus.)
William H. Fredlund, the Director of the Institute, obtained his B.A. and M.A. from UCLA, where he specialized in European history and art history. He studied in Italy on a Fulbright Fellowship and completed a double Ph.D. in history and humanities at Stanford, specializing in Renaissance Italy. Dr. Fredlund has taught for UCLA, the University of Florence, Stanford, and UCSC Extension.
