Back to the Core

Rethinking the Core Texts in Liberal Arts & Sciences Education in Europe

Emma Cohen de Lara, Hanke Drop, Emma Cohen de Lara, Hanke Drop

• Publisher: Vernon Art and Science Inc.
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781622731275
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Whereas liberal arts and sciences education arguably has European roots, European universities have evolved over the last century to become advanced research institutions, mainly offering academic training in specialized disciplines. The Bologna process, started by the European Union in the late nineties, encouraged European institutions of higher education to broaden their curricula and to commit to undergraduate education with increased vigor. One of the results is that Europe is currently witnessing a proliferation of liberal arts and sciences colleges and broad bachelor degrees. This edited volume fills a gap in the literature by providing reflections on the recent developments in Europe with regard to higher education in the liberal arts and sciences. The first section includes reflections from either side of the Atlantic about the nature and aims of liberal arts and sciences education and the way in which it takes shape, or should take shape in European institutions of higher learning. The edited volume takes as a distinct approach to liberal arts and sciences education by focusing on the unique way in which core texts – i.e. classic texts from philosophical, historical, literary or cultural traditions involving “the best that has been written” – meet the challenges of modern higher education in general and in Europe in particular. This approach is manifested explicitly in the second section that focuses on how specific core texts promote the goals of liberal arts and sciences education, including the teaching methods, curricular reflections, and personal experiences of teaching core texts. The edited volume is based on a selection of papers presented at a conference held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in September 2015. It is meant to impart the passion that teachers and administrators share about developing the liberal arts and sciences in Europe with the help of core texts in order to provide students with a well-rounded, formative, and genuinely liberal education.

Back to the Core

Rethinking Core Texts in Liberal Arts
& Sciences Education in Europe

Edited by

Emma Cohen de Lara

Hanke Drop

Authors

Ewa Atanassow, Bard College Berlin

Joop Berding, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences

Ruth A. Bevan, Yeshiva University

Emma Cohen de Lara, Amsterdam University College

Iko Doeland, Rotterdams Vakcollege de Hef

Hanke Drop, Utrecht University of the Arts

Allard den Dulk, Amsterdam University College

Topi Heikkerö, St. John’s College Santa Fe

David Janssens, Tilburg University

Richard Kamber, The College of New Jersey

David Kretz, Bard College Berlin

Arie-Jan Kwak, Leiden University

J. Scott Lee, Association for Core Texts and Courses

Geoff Lehman, Bard College Berlin

Alkeline van Lenning, Tilburg University

Gelijn Molier, Leiden University

Christopher B. Nelson, St. John’s College Annapolis

Álvaro Sánchez-Ostiz, University of Navarra

Sandra Schruijer, Utrecht University

Elizabeth Stewart, Yeshiva University

Angela C. Miceli Stout, University of Navarra

Andrea Rodríguez-Prat, International University of Catalunya

Miguel Tamen, University of Lisbon

Nigel Tubbs, University of Winchester

Teresa Vallès-Botey, International University of Catalunya

Connell Vaughan, Dublin Institute of Technology

Thomas A. Stapleford, University of Notre Dame

Matthew D. Post, University of Dallas

Vernon Series in Education

Copyright © 2017 Vernon Press, an imprint of Vernon Art and Science Inc, on behalf of the author.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016959068

ISBN: 978-1-62273-127-5

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Emma Cohen de Lara and Hanke Drop

SECTION 1 Perspectives on Liberal Education

Chapter 1 Curiosity and Conflict: Liberal Education Today

Christopher B. Nelson

Chapter 2 Can Liberal Studies Be Brought Back into European Universities?

Miguel Tamen

Chapter 3 Liberal Education and Core Texts: The Case of the Netherlands

Emma Cohen de Lara

Chapter 4 “The Spirit of Liberal Learning”: A Reflection on the Cowan Method of Teaching the Liberal Arts

Angela C. Miceli Stout

Chapter 5 The Idea of Core Texts at a Research University: The Program of Liberal Studies after 65 Years

Thomas A. Stapleford

Chapter 6 Core texts in Academia’s Future

Alkeline van Lenning

Chapter 7 Thinkeries Ancient and Modern: Democracy’s Challenges for Liberal Education

Ewa Atanassow and David Kretz

Chapter 8 Freedom, Arts and Sciences, Criticism in the Liberal Arts: an Aristotelian Perspective

J. Scott Lee

Chapter 9 Freedom is to Learn: Education for its Own Sake

Nigel Tubbs

Chapter 10 Instrumentalizing Education: Critical Theory as an Introduction to the Canon of Core Texts

Connell Vaughan

SECTION 2 The Practice of Liberal Education

Chapter 11 Under-Thought: Teaching Homer in a Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum

David Janssens

Chapter 12 Plato’s Euthyphro and Philosophical Liberation

Richard Kamber

Chapter 13 Socrates’s “Art of Turning” as an Education in Prudential Thinking

Matthew Post

Chapter 14 Core Texts and Big Questions for Health Undergraduates. The Cases of Job and King Lear

Teresa Vallès-Botey and Andrea Rodríguez-Prat

Chapter 15 Bruegel’s Via Crucis: (Visual) Experience and the Problem of Interpretation

Geoff Lehman

List of Figures

Chapter 16 World Classics and Local Heroes: Lope de Vega’s Fuenteovejuna as a Core Text

Álvaro Sánchez-Ostiz

Chapter 17 René Descartes’s Modern Turn and Liberal Education Today

Topi Heikkerö

Chapter 18 Rousseau’s Three Concepts of Freedom

Hanke Drop and Iko Doeland

Chapter 19 The never-ending Pursuit of Happiness: Taking Inspiration from Sigmund Freud’s Das Unbehagen in der Kultur

Sandra G.L. Schruijer

Chapter 20 Franz Kafka as a Law Professor: What Kafka’s The Trial Teaches Us about Legal Procedure

Arie-Jan Kwak

Chapter 21 Grossman’s Everything Flows or the Ineradicability of Freedom

Gelijn Molier

Chapter 22 Devastating Irony. Hannah Arendt and Harry Mulisch on the Eichmann Trial

Joop Berding

Chapter 23 Hannah Arendt and Biopolitics

Elizabeth Stewart

Chapter 24 Hannah Arendt: Modernity as Paradox

Ruth A. Bevan

Chapter 25 What We Do and What We See Is Not Separate: The Embodiment of Seeing in Merleau-Ponty’s Eye and Mind

Iko Doeland and Hanke Drop

Chapter 26 David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest as Contemporary Core Text: Re-Evaluating Postmodernism and Existentialism

Allard den Dulk

About the authors

Index of names

Dedication

This book is based on a conference on Liberal Arts and Sciences Education and Core Texts in the European Context held at Amsterdam University College in September 2015. The conference would not have been possible without the gracious support of Amsterdam University College’s founding Dean Marijk van der Wende, who in the early stages of AUC’s existence took the risk of supporting what turned out to be a monumental conference. The editors are also grateful to the Association for Core Texts and Courses and, in particular, to its director J. Scott Lee who was crucial for making the conference a success. The editors of the volume wish to thank all participants to the conference who, with their contagiou...

Table of contents

• Notes