Back to the Core: Rethinking the Core Texts in Liberal Arts & Sciences Education in Europe(Vernon Series in Education)

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.

Table of Contents:
SECTION 1 – Perspectives on Liberal Arts and Sciences Education 1. Nelson, C. B. Curiosity and Conflict: Liberal Education Today 2. Stapleford, T. A. The Program of Liberal Studies after 65 years. Blending Scholarship & Core Texts at a Research University: The Program of Liberal Studies after 65 years. 3. Tamen, M. Can Liberal Studies be brought back into European universities? 4. Cohen de Lara, E. Liberal Education and Core Texts: The case of the Netherlands 5. Lenning, A. van. Core texts in Academia’s Future 6. Kamber, R. Philosophical Freedom and Liberal Arts Education 7. Atanassow, E. and Kretz, D. Thinkeries Ancient and Modern: Aristophanes and Democracy’s Challenges for Liberal Arts Education 8. Lee, S. L. Freedom, Arts and Sciences, Criticism in the Liberal Arts: an Aristotelian Perspective 9. Stout, A. The Spirit of Liberal Learning: A Reflection on the Cowan Method of Teaching the Liberal Arts 10. Post, M. Socrates’s “Art of Turning” as an Education in Prudential Thinking 11. Tubbs, N. Freedom is to Learn: Education for its Own Sake 12. Vaughan, C. Instrumentalising Education: Critical Theory as an Introduction to the Canon of Core Texts SECTION 2 – Liberal Arts and Sciences Education and Core Texts 13. Janssens, D. Under-Thought: Teaching Homer in a Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum 14. Vallès-Botey, T. and Rodríguez-Prat, A. Core Texts and Big Questions for Health Undergraduates: The Cases of Job and King Lear 15. Lehman, G. Bruegel’s Via Crucis: (Visual) Experience and the Problem of Interpretation. 16. Sánchez-Ostiz, A. World Classics and Local heroes: Lope de Vegas’ Fuenteovejuna as a Core Text for Students of a Spanish School of Economics 17. Heikkerö, T. René Descartes’s Modern Turn and Liberal Education Today 18. Doeland, I. and Drop, H. Rousseau on Freedom 19. Schruijer, S. G. L. The Never-Ending Pursuit of Happiness: Taking Inspiration from Sigmund Freud’s Das Unbehagen in der Kultur 20. Drop, H. and Doeland, I. Doing and Seeing Is not Separate: A Reflection on the Embodiment of Seeing in Merleau-Ponty’s Eye and Mind 21. Molier, G. Grossman’s Everything Flows or the Ineradicability of Freedom 22. Berding, J. Devastating Irony. Hannah Arendt and Harry Mulisch on the Eichmann Trial 23. Stewart, E. Hannah Arendt and Biopolitics. 24. Bevan, R.A. Hannah Arendt: Countervailing Modernity 25. Dulk, A. den. David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest as Contemporary Core Text: Re-Evaluating Postmodernism and Existentialism.