Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
Be careful how you read the world. In the latest episode of “Office Hours,” Todd Mack, associate professor of Spanish, discusses the seventeenth-century novel Don Quixote. Mack explains why he thinks this curiously modern work lays claim to being the first novel, and what we should learn from its hapless protagonist. This is the seventeenth in a series of virtual visits with Hillsdale faculty.
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Support Hillsdale College: https://secured.hillsdale.edu/hillsdale/support-hillsdale-college
Visit our website: http://hillsdale.edu
Learn from our online courses: http://online.hillsdale.edu
Read Imprimis: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/
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Graduate School of Statesmanship: https://www.hillsdale.edu/academics/graduate-school/
Graduate School of Government: https://dc.hillsdale.edu/School-of-Government/Program-Overview/
Graduate School of Education: https://classicalgrad.hillsdale.edu/
Listen to the Hillsdale College Podcast Network: https://podcast.hillsdale.edu/
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Hillsdale College is an independent institution of higher learning founded in 1844 by men and women “grateful to God for the inestimable blessings” resulting from civil and religious liberty and “believing that the diffusion of learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings.” It pursues the stated object of the founders: “to furnish all persons who wish, irrespective of nation, color, or sex, a literary, scientific, [and] theological education” outstanding among American colleges “and to combine with this such moral and social instruction as will best develop the minds and improve the hearts of its pupils.” As a nonsectarian Christian institution, Hillsdale College maintains “by precept and example” the immemorial teachings and practices of the Christian faith.
The College also considers itself a trustee of our Western philosophical and theological inheritance tracing to Athens and Jerusalem, a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law.
By training the young in the liberal arts, Hillsdale College prepares students to become leaders worthy of that legacy. By encouraging the scholarship of its faculty, it contributes to the preservation of that legacy for future generations. By publicly defending that legacy, it enlists the aid of other friends of free civilization and thus secures the conditions of its own survival and independence.
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"Don Quijote and Sancho Panza" by Yelkrokoyade, CC BY-SA 4.0
"Puerto Lapice Don Quijote 5" by Jibi44, CC BY-SA 3.0 / Cropped from original
Be careful how you read the world. In the latest episode of “Office Hours,” Todd Mack, associate professor of Spanish, discusses the seventeenth-century novel Don Quixote. Mack explains why he thinks this curiously modern work lays claim to being the first novel, and what we should learn from its hapless protagonist. This is the seventeenth in a series of virtual visits with Hillsdale faculty.
------------------------------
Support Hillsdale College: https://secured.hillsdale.edu/hillsdale/support-hillsdale-college
Visit our website: http://hillsdale.edu
Learn from our online courses: http://online.hillsdale.edu
Read Imprimis: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/
Undergraduate programs: https://www.hillsdale.edu/information-for/undergraduate-admissions/
Graduate School of Statesmanship: https://www.hillsdale.edu/academics/graduate-school/
Graduate School of Government: https://dc.hillsdale.edu/School-of-Government/Program-Overview/
Graduate School of Education: https://classicalgrad.hillsdale.edu/
Listen to the Hillsdale College Podcast Network: https://podcast.hillsdale.edu/
------------------------------
Hillsdale College is an independent institution of higher learning founded in 1844 by men and women “grateful to God for the inestimable blessings” resulting from civil and religious liberty and “believing that the diffusion of learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings.” It pursues the stated object of the founders: “to furnish all persons who wish, irrespective of nation, color, or sex, a literary, scientific, [and] theological education” outstanding among American colleges “and to combine with this such moral and social instruction as will best develop the minds and improve the hearts of its pupils.” As a nonsectarian Christian institution, Hillsdale College maintains “by precept and example” the immemorial teachings and practices of the Christian faith.
The College also considers itself a trustee of our Western philosophical and theological inheritance tracing to Athens and Jerusalem, a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law.
By training the young in the liberal arts, Hillsdale College prepares students to become leaders worthy of that legacy. By encouraging the scholarship of its faculty, it contributes to the preservation of that legacy for future generations. By publicly defending that legacy, it enlists the aid of other friends of free civilization and thus secures the conditions of its own survival and independence.
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"Don Quijote and Sancho Panza" by Yelkrokoyade, CC BY-SA 4.0
"Puerto Lapice Don Quijote 5" by Jibi44, CC BY-SA 3.0 / Cropped from original
