A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books, Alex Beam. New York: PublicAffairs, 2008. Summary: Beam narrates the story of the Great Books movement from its beginnings with John Erskine, Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, to the publication of The Great Books by Britannica and rise of Great Books groups, the “core wars” and the remnants of this movement still hanging on today. … [Read more...] about Book Review: A Great Idea at the Time, by Alex Beam
university of chicago
Thoughtfulness as the Aim of Liberal Education?
Each year, a senior scholar at the University of Chicago is chosen to deliver the Aims of Education address to incoming students. (An archive of the addresses since 1995 can be found online.) In 1981, Leon R. Kass delivered perhaps the best known of the addresses, "The Aims of Liberal Education." After dismissing several other goals as insufficient as the fundamental aim of liberal education (i.e. as opposed to education for professional training), or as objectives that can be better achieved elsewhere, Kass proposes … [Read more...] about Thoughtfulness as the Aim of Liberal Education?