Rethinking liberal arts

(Reposted at Duck of Minerva)

What does a citizen need to know? What skills and knowledge should we assume in our interactions with others? What makes a person a well-rounded person? The issues go back for centuries, and every so often some suggests modifications to the list of "liberal arts." I teach at a university with a "liberal arts" requirement, and I know from experience the battles to have a class listed as required (or optional) mix issues of academic politics and teaching philosophy. They can make or break particular classes, or entire programs.

A recent reconsideration of "liberal arts" (note: not the liberal arts) is available at the link below. What began as a series of conversations on a blog has been refined to a short book. The contributors go out out of their way to declare their list is not canonical, but here's their table of contents:

Introduction Timothy Carmody, Robin Sloan vii

Attention Economics Andrew Fitzgerald . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Brevity . . . . . . . . . . Gavin Craig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Coding and Decoding Diana Kimball 8

Creativity Aaron McLeran 12

Finding Dan Levine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

Food Gavin Craig, Theresa Mlinarcik 18

Genderfuck . . . . . . . . Laura Portwood-Stacer . . . . . . . 22

Home Economics . . . . . . Jennifer Rensenbrink . . . . . 24

Inaccuracy . . . . . . . . Alex Litel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Iteration . . . . . . . . . Robin Sloan . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Journalism . . . . . Timothy Carmody, Matt Thompson 34

Mapping . . . . . . . . . . Jimmy Stamp 36

Marketing Matt Thompson 40

Micropolitics Matt Thompson 42

Myth and Magic . . . . . . Tiara Shafiq 44

Negotiation . . . . . . . . Matthew Penniman . . . . . . . . . . 48

Photography Timothy Carmody 52

Play Matt Thompson 56

Reality Engineering . . . . Rex Sorgatz . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Translation Rachel Leow 62

Video Literacy Kasia Cieplak Mayr-von Baldegg . . . 66

About the Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

So, what do you think? What needs to be added to the list of liberal arts? What needs to be dropped? Is there a place for what we teach?

new-liberal-arts-2009.pdf (application/pdf Object)