The Core Books at CUNY project focuses on a selection of texts from Columbia University’s Core Curriculum. Here are links to each of the texts, and some supplemental materials as well.
Plato, The Republic
- Read Book VII, “Allegory of the Cave”
- Watch videos: “The Cave: An Adaptation of Plato’s Allegory in Clay” and Alex Gendler, “Plato’s Allegory of the Cave“
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- Read “Dedicatory Letter” to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Sophocles, Antigone
- Read Antigone
- Watch video: PBS’s Theater of War’s Antigone in Ferguson
The Declaration of Independence
- Read the Declaration of Independence
- Listen to the Declaration of Independence
- Randy Barnett, article in The Declaration of Independence Annotated
- Melissa De Witte, “When Thomas Jefferson penned ‘all men are created equal,’ he did not mean individual equality, says Stanford scholar”
Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
- Read “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
- Listen to “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
- Note: there are different version of this text’s title
Toni Morrison, The Song of Solomon
