Core Curriculum : Contemporary Civilization

Columbia University’s commitment to the Core Curriculum extends to the University Libraries' special collections.  Columbia University Libraries preserve and provide access to important editions of, and in some cases autograph manuscripts by, many of the authors taught in the Core Curriculum. Additionally, the collections include subsequent editions, translations, and adaptations, which demonstrate the transmission and reception of these works across centuries and attest to their continuing importance.

These online exhibitions were created as part of an Association of Research Libraries CEP Fellowship Summer 2011 based in Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The RBML staff welcomes Columbia undergraduates who would like to follow up on a potential research question related to any of these items to consult them in person. Instructions for using the library's collections can be found here. See also the exhibit on the Core Curriculum's course on Literature Humanities.

Exhibit Curator

Karla Nielsen

Aristotle »

late medieval manuscript

Bibles »

from manuscript to Gutenberg to King James and beyond

The Quran »

muhaqqaq script with Persian interlinear translation

Augustine »

manuscript and early editions of De civitate dei

Machiavelli »

false imprint

Galileo »

early illustrated editions

Reformation »

Bibles, religious pamphlets, humanist commentaries

Hobbes »

Leviathan and Greek translations

Revolutions »

Declarations and Constitutions from the American and French Revolutions

Rights »

Wollstonecraft, Mill, Du Bois, Woolf

Freud »

book manuscript and early German and English editions

Darwin »

an early edition of On the Origin of Species

Columbia University Libraries / Rare Book & Manuscript Library / Butler Library, 6th Fl. / 535 West 114th St. / New York, NY 10027 / (212) 854-5590 / rbml@libraries.cul.columia.edu