Following up on a recent article (“The Brutal Harvard Class That Suddenly Everyone Wants to Take”), the WSJ presents the actual 2026-2027 syllabus for the popular Harvard Humanities course. I initially got cocky when I saw the above accompanying book covers, having read or somewhat closely studied all three.* But then I read the rest of the fall-semester reading list – and I’m only 6 for 10. And that’s a stretch. Does anyone really read ‘The Waste Land’ and Nietzsche’s ‘On the Genealogy of Morality’? I clearly recall pretending to read them in college.

Ditto for a few of the books on the spring-semester reading list. James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’? I bluffed my way through that class too, though I did love The Dubliners. The Iliad? Does watching Troy count? Plato’s  ‘The Symposium’? I vaguely remember reviewing and discussing it, as well as the Iliad, in a class. But that’s about it. All in all, it’s four for 10 on the spring semester reading list, if you generously include pretend and taught reads.

* I shamelessly borrowed the above book-cover photos from the WSJ, figuring all three are no longer copyrighted. I could be wrong.