The Politics of Liberal Education

Published by Duke University Press 1992

The Politics of Liberal Education

Edited by: Barbara Herrnstein Smith , Darryl Gless , Stanley Fish and Fredric Jameson
With contributions by: Mary Louise Pratt

In the series Post-Contemporary Interventions

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822381747

Overview
Contents

About this book

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

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: The Public, the Press, and the Professors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Humanities for the Future: Reflections on the Western Culture Debate at Stanford Mary Pratt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
The Extraordinary Convergence: Democracy, Technology, Theory, and the University Curriculum Richard Lanham Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
Teach the Conflicts Gerald Graff Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
Cult-Lit: Hirsch, Literacy, and the "National Culture" Barbara Smith Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
The Master's Pieces: On Canon Formation and the African-American Tradition Henry Gates Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
Liberal Arts Education and the Struggle for Public Life: Dreaming about Democracy Henry Giroux Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
Pedagogy in the Context of an Antihomophobic Project Eve Sedgwick Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Serious Watching Alexander Nehamas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
From Ivory Tower to Tower of Babel? Elizabeth Minnich Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
The Emergence of the Humanities Bruce Kuklick Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
The Academy and the Public Phylli Franklin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
Classics and Canons George Kennedy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Two Cheers for the Cultural Left Richard Rorty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
The Common Touch, or, One Size Fits All Stanley Fish Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Against Nostalgia: Reflections on Our Present Discontents in American Higher Education Francis Oakley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	267
Notes on Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	295

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 316

eBook

Published: November 20, 1991
ISBN: 9780822381747