The Liberating Arts - by Jeffrey Bilbro & Jessica Hooten Wilson & David Henreckson (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A new generation of teachers envisions a liberal arts education that is good for everyone.

Why would anyone study the liberal arts? It's no secret that the liberal arts have fallen out of favor and are struggling to prove their relevance. The cost of college pushes students to majors and degrees with more obvious career outcomes.

A new cohort of educators isn't taking this lying down. They realize they need to reimagine and rearticulate what a liberal arts education is for, and what it might look like in today's world. In this book, they make an honest reckoning with the history and current state of the liberal arts.

You may have heard - or asked - some of these questions yourself:

• Aren't the liberal arts a waste of time? How will reading old books and discussing abstract ideas help us feed the hungry, liberate the oppressed and reverse climate change? Actually, we first need to understand what we mean by truth, the good life, and justice.


• Aren't the liberal arts racist? The "great books" are mostly by privileged dead white males. Despite these objections, for centuries the liberal arts have been a resource for those working for a better world. Here's how we can benefit from ancient voices while expanding the conversation.


• Aren't the liberal arts liberal? Aren't humanities professors mostly progressive ideologues who indoctrinate students? In fact, the liberal arts are an age-old tradition of moral formation, teaching people to think for themselves and learn from other perspectives.


• Aren't the liberal arts elitist? Hasn't humanities education too often excluded poor people and minorities? While that has sometime been the case, these educators map out well-proven ways to include people of all social and educational backgrounds.


• Aren't the liberal arts a bad career investment? I really just want to get a well-paying job and not end up as an overeducated barista. The numbers - and the people hiring - tell a different story.

In this book, educators mount a vigorous defense of the humanist tradition, but also chart a path forward, building on their tradition's strengths and addressing its failures. In each chapter, dispatches from innovators describe concrete ways this is being put into practice, showing that the liberal arts are not only viable today, but vital to our future.

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Contributors include Emily Auerbach, Nathan Beacom, Jeffrey Bilbro, Joseph Clair, Margarita Mooney Clayton, Lydia Dugdale, Brad East, Don Eben, Becky L. Eggimann, Rachel Griffis, David Henreckson, Zena Hitz, David Hsu, L. Gregory Jones, Brandon McCoy, Peter Mommsen, Angel Adams Parham, Steve Prince, John Mark Reynolds, Erin Shaw, Anne Snyder, Sean Sword, Noah Toly, Jonathan Tran, and Jessica Hooten Wilson

Review Quotes

At their best, the humanities are about discerning what kinds of lives we should be living. But humanities education is in crisis today, leaving many without resources to answer this most important question of our lives. The authors of this volume are able contenders for the noble cause of saving and improving the humanities. Read and be inspired! --Miroslav Volf, co-author, Life Worth Living

In our era of massive social and technological upheaval, this book offers a robust examination of and an expansive vision for the liberal arts. As a scientist who believes that education should shape us for lives of reflection and action, I found the essays riveting, challenging, and inspiring. I picked it up and could not put it down. --Francis Su, author, Mathematics for Human Flourishing

In this lucid and inspiring volume, a diverse group of thinkers dispel entrenched falsehoods about the irrelevance, injustice, or uselessness of the liberal arts and remind us that nothing is more fundamental to preparing citizens to live in a pluralistic society attempting to balance the values of justice, equality, and community. --Jon Baskin, editor, Harper's

In this series of lively, absorbing, and accessible essays, the contributors invoke and dismantle all the chief objections to the study of the liberal arts. The result is a clarion call for an education that enables human and societal flourishing. Everyone concerned about the fate of learning today must read this book. --Eric Adler, author, The Battle of the Classics

At their best, the humanities are about discerning what kinds of lives we should be living. But humanities education is in crisis today, leaving many without resources to answer this most important question of our lives. The authors of this volume are able contenders for the noble cause of saving and improving the humanities. Read and be inspired! -Miroslav Volf, co-author, Life Worth Living

In our era of massive social and technological upheaval, this book offers a robust examination of and an expansive vision for the liberal arts. As a scientist who believes that education should shape us for lives of reflection and action, I found the essays riveting, challenging, and inspiring. I picked it up and could not put it down. -Francis Su, author, Mathematics for Human Flourishing

In this lucid and inspiring volume, a diverse group of thinkers dispel entrenched falsehoods about the irrelevance, injustice, or uselessness of the liberal arts and remind us that nothing is more fundamental to preparing citizens to live in a pluralistic society attempting to balance the values of justice, equality, and community. -Jon Baskin, editor, Harper's

In this series of lively, absorbing, and accessible essays, the contributors invoke and dismantle all the chief objections to the study of the liberal arts. The result is a clarion call for an education that enables human and societal flourishing. Everyone concerned about the fate of learning today must read this book. -Eric Adler, author, The Battle of the Classics