The Politics of Liberal Education

by Gless, Darryl J.; Smith, Barbara Herrnstein; Fish, Stanley Eugene; Jameson, Fredric

• ISBN13: 9780822311997
• ISBN10: 0822311992
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-02-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

Controversy over what role "the great books" should play in college curricula and questions about who defines "the literary canon" are at the forefront of debates in higher education.The Politics of Liberal Educationenters this discussion with a sophisticated defense of educational reform in response to attacks by academic traditionalists. The authors here-themselves distinguished scholars and educators-share the belief that American schools, colleges, and universities can do a far better job of educating the nationrs"s increasingly diverse population and that the liberal arts must play a central role in providing students with the resources they need to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Within this area of consensus, however, the contributors display a wide range of approaches, illuminating the issues from the perspectives of their particular disciplines-classics, education, English, history, and philosophy, among others-and their individual experiences as teachers. Among the topics they discuss are canon-formation in the ancient world, the idea of a "common culture," and the educational implications of such social movements as feminism, technological changes including computers and television, and intellectual developments such as "theory." Readers interested in the controversies over American education will find this volume an informed alternative to sensationalized treatments of these issues.Contributors.Stanley Fish, Phyllis Franklin, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Henry A. Giroux, Darryl J. Gless, Gerald Graff, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, George A. Kennedy, Bruce Kuklick, Richard A. Lanham, Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich, Alexander Nehamas, Mary Louise Pratt, Richard Rorty, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Public, the Press, and the Professors

Humanities for the Future: Reflections on the Western Culture Debate at Stanford

The Extraordinary Convergence: Democracy, Technology, Theory, and the University Curriculum

Teach the Conflicts

Cult-Lit: Hirsh, Literacy, and the "National Culture"

The Master's Pieces: On Canon Formation and the African-American Tradition

Liberal Arts Education and the Struggle for Public Life: Dreaming about Democracy

Pedagogy in the Context of an Antihomophobic Project

Serious Watching

From Ivory Tower to Tower of Babel?

The Emergence of the Humanities

The Academy and the Public

Classics and Canons

Two Cheers for the Cultural Left

The Common Touch, or, One Size Fits All

Against Nostalgia: Reflections on Our Present Discontents in American Higher Education

Notes on Contributors

Index Keller

Contributors

Index

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