UATX Faculty Reading Recommendations:
Carson Bay, Professor of Classics and Biblical Studies
Claire Brickman, Industry Expert in Residence
The Most Powerful Court in the World: A History of the Supreme Court of the United States, Stuart Banner
Courtwatchers: Eyewitness Accounts in U.S. Supreme Court History, Clare Cushman
Father Maximos Constas, Professor of Humanities
Up From the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times, Aaron Sachs
Dreaming Reality: How Neuroscience and Mysticism Can Unlock the Secrets of Consciousness, Vladimir Miskovic and Steven Jay Lynn
Who Owns Beauty?, Bénédicte Savoy
Phenomenology of the Icon, Stephanie Rumpza
Dorothy Dickmann, Professor of Accounting and Data Science
Foundation, Isaac Asimov
Patrick Gray, Dean for the Center for Arts and Letters, Professor of Literature
Canzoniere, Petrarch (newly translated by A.M. Juster)
Clay Greene, Professor of Literature
Beauty: A Very Short Introduction, Roger Scruton
Phil Greenwald, Executive Director of the UATX Innovation Labs
Universal Principles of Design, William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler
Venture Deals, Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson
The Innovators, Walter Isaacson
Einstein: His Life and Universe, Walter Isaacson
Kirsten Herlin, Professor of Literature
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
Michael Hoffpauir, Professor of Political Theory
Washington: The Indispensable Man, James Thomas Flexner
The Red and the Black, Stendhal
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
“Everyone should read A Confederacy of Dunces at least twice. It’s hilarious, and it contains a beautiful portrayal of New Orleans and our attempt to find order and meaning.”
Arnold Kling, Visiting Professor (Winter 2026)
The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, William Manchester
“This is the second volume of Manchester’s biography of Winston Churchill. Covers the 1930s, when Churchill’s views about the dangers of Hitler’s Germany made him very unpopular with the British establishment.”
Alex Priou, Professor of Political Philosophy
Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Plutarch
Serotonin, Michel Houellebecq
The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
“Set during the Risorgimento, or Unification of Italy, The Leopard tells the story of the decline of a Sicilian aristocratic family, amid the rise of science and the transfer of land and wealth to the rising bourgeois class. A subtle analysis of what is gained and lost during this historical moment, The Leopard is extremely readable, light and weighty in turn, with many beautiful passages that also reward careful reflection and discussion. Widely considered the greatest Italian novel of the 20th Century. (Pick up the handsome Everyman’s Library edition!)”
Isabella Reinhardt, Professor of Classics
Dracula, Bram Stoker
I, Claudius, Robert Graves
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Little, Big, John Crowley
Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon
Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Roberto Calasso
Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs, Camilla Townsend
Loren Rotner, Professor of Politics
An Intellectual History of Liberalism, Pierre Manent
White Noise, Don DeLillo
The Captive Mind (especially the chapter on “The Pill of Murti-Bing”), Czesław Miłosz
What the Anti-Federalists Were For: The Political Thought of the Opponents of the Constitution, Herbert J. Storing
Clint Staley, Interim Dean for the Center for STEM, Professor of Computer Science
Foundation and Empire, Isaac Asimov
Second Foundation, Isaac Asimov
2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention May to September 1787, Catherine Drinker Bowen
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, Steven Johnson
Ricardo Vilalta, Professor of Computer Science
I, Robot, Isaac Asimov
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I suggest that there is a glaring omission in this list and that is a book that discusses the relationship between innovation and growth of our economy, or in fact, any book that presents an overview of the abundance that we, as Americans enjoy and take for granted or even view as a right. My book suggestion is Robert Gordon’s masterpiece "The Rise and Fall of American Growth". Gordon’s book requires no technical expertise to read and understand and teaches effectively that virtually all major innovations that improved American living standards in ways unimaginable before the Civil War occurred prior to 1950. The radical improvement in longevity and drop in infant mortality we enjoyed between the late 19th century and mid-20th centuries have stopped and, perhaps in the case of longevity, reversed. Since then, real growth has been far harder to come by, particularly over the past two to three decades even as our digital world has expanded massively.
These facts are worth recognizing and pondering by future leaders of this country, no matter what their chosen subject and career. There has never been a time when this country needed more a prolonged period of rapid, real economic growth than now as we watch our national debt and government budget deficits grow by trillions with no end in sight and little political or public will to do anything about it. We have a legal and regulatory environment that stifles growth and an education system that cannot deliver the knowledgeable workers we will need to compete effectively in the 21st century. Whether University of Austin students are interested in the humanities, social science, or STEM, they should graduate with an appreciation for the relationship between the abundance we enjoy and take for granted and the requirement for innovation and growth to ensure that their progeny will have the same privilege. After all, irrespective of their walk in life, they will be the voters who will pick the leaders with the qualities required to lead us to an even more prosperous future…or not.
Thanks for this post. Love the amount of Asimov!