The Politics of Liberal Education / Edition 1

by Barbara Herrnstein Smith

Overview

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 Education enters 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 nation'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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822311997
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	11/20/1991
Series:	Post-Contemporary Interventions Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.67(d)
Lexile:	1550L (what's this?)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: The Public, the Press, and the Professors / Barbara Herrnstein Smith 1

Humanities for the Future: Reflections on the Western Culture Debate at Stanford / Mary Louise Pratt 13

The Extraordinary Convergence: Democracy, Technology, Theory, and the University Curriculum / Richard A. Lanham 33

Teach the Conflicts / Gerald Graff 57

Cult-Lit: Hirsh, Literacy, and the "National Culture" / Barbara Herrnstein Smith 75

The Master's Pieces: On Canon Formation and the African-American Tradition / Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 95

Liberal Arts Education and the Struggle for Public Life: Dreaming about Democracy / Henry A. Giroux 119

Pedagogy in the Context of an Antihomophobic Project / Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick 145

Serious Watching / Alexander Nehamas 163

From Ivory Tower to Tower of Babel? / Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich 187

The Emergence of the Humanities / Bruce Kuklick 201

The Academy and the Public / Phyllis Franklin 213

Classics and Canons / George A. Kennedy 223

Two Cheers for the Cultural Left / Richard Rorty 233

The Common Touch, or, One Size Fits All / Stanley Fish 241

Against Nostalgia: Reflections on Our Present Discontents in American Higher Education / Francis Oakley 267

Notes on Contributors 291

Index 295

Editorial Reviews

"Sober reminders of the 'true' history of the canon, or of the complex ways in which students actually learn, are intertwined with delightful vignettes in which the less defensible mutters of the conservative opinion are ridiculed. The reader will find useful fodder with which to confront Hirsch's overconfident salesmanship of his vocabulary lists, a fine single sentence summary of deconstruction, a wry reminder that the literature of classical Athens and Rome provides many more lessons than its conservative champions would comfortably be able to endorse."
--David Steiner," Journal of Higher Education"

From the Publisher

Responding to attacks on contemporary humanities teaching by government officials, journalists, and academic traditionalists, the authors, a distinguished group of scholars and teachers, argue that educational methods cannot remain the same while social, technological, and intellectual conditions change significantly. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews