Spring 2026
Prereq: none
Units: 3-0-9 HASS-H; Can be repeated for credit
Building on the Institute’s shared foundation in science and engineering, this subject invites students to explore how imaginative literature from antiquity to the present has shaped our ways of thinking about the self, community, and the world. Readings range from Gilgamesh and Sappho to Plato, Montaigne, Rousseau, Du Bois, Heidegger, Arendt, and Claudia Rankine.
Through close reading and open discussion, students engage works that ask how we live with others, what obligations bind us, and how the past continues to illuminate the present. No prerequisites are required. Designed especially for STEM majors, the course offers a shared humanistic experience that complements MIT’s technical education while inviting reflection on meaning, responsibility, and the common good.
Alumni of Fall 2025’s 24.01 Classics of Western Philosophy are especially encouraged to enroll. [Pre-1900]