Life of the Mind
This March a trio of first-year students presented papers at the winter 2001 Humanities Colloquium, "Philosophy in Life." Selected from 30 submissions to an open call, the papers will be published with those from the autumn and spring colloquia in the journal CORErelations (online at core-relations.uchicago. edu). Graduate interns in the Little Red Schoolhouse, the University's writing program, select the papers and advise students on revisions. All three of this winter's selections were written for the Humanities course Human Being and Citizen, taught by collegiate assistant professor Vincent J. Bertolini, AM'87, PhD'99.

God versus "the Good": The Pursuit of Happiness
Isabel C. Gomez examines the modern conception of happiness and how it came to be developed through the often conflicting teachings in Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and the story of Genesis. In the former, she argues, "the highest end of man's actions" is happiness, while in the latter, it is "faith in and communication with God."

A Failure of Friendship: An Aristotelian Examination of the Friendship between Achilleus and Patroklos in Homer's Iliad
Also drawing from the Nichomachean Ethics, Walter E. Theseira uses Aristotle's teachings to expose and explore the failed friendship between Achilleus and Patroklos. Theseira attributes the failure to the conflicting obligations placed upon the characters by society, circumstance, and Achilleus's unyielding character.

The Impact of the Leviathan in Hobbes's Leviathan and the Book of Job: A Validation of Totalitarian Regimes
Megan E. Heffernan compares Hobbes's description of the body politic-a commonwealth with "immense strength"-with the monster Leviathan in Job 41. Parallel images of unity and ambiguity drive her argument.

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