Roosevelt Montás is John and Margaret Bard Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life at Bard College. He emigrated from the Dominican Republic to Queens, New York, when he was 12 and encountered the Western classics as an undergraduate in Columbia College’s renowned Core Curriculum, one of America’s last remaining Great Books programs. The experience changed his life and determined his career—he went on to earn a Ph.D. in English at Columbia University, where he served in various faculty and administrative capacities until 2025. Montás’s book, Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, details his experiences as a student and teacher, telling the story of how the Great Books transformed his life and why they have the power to speak to people of all backgrounds. He specializes in American political thought and literature is also author of Becoming America: Four Documents That Shaped a Nation (forthcoming, Princeton University Press) and co-editor of The Princeton Readings American Political Thought (forthcoming, Princeton University Press).