Academic Journal
Education for Life: Great Books Seminars as a Way to Provide Today's University Students with a Personally Meaningful and Civically Relevant Education
| Title: | Education for Life: Great Books Seminars as a Way to Provide Today's University Students with a Personally Meaningful and Civically Relevant Education |
|---|---|
| Authors: | Cohen de Lara, Emma |
| Source: | Comprendre : Revista Catalana de Filosofía. 27(2):41-60 |
| Publisher Information: | Facultat de Filosofia de la Universitat Ramon Llull, 2025. |
| Publication Year: | 2025 |
| Subject Terms: | Liberal education, university, great books seminars, literature, intellectual virtues, Governance for Society, SDG 4 - Quality Education |
| Description: | There is a widespread concern that the performance culture at modern universitiesraises anxiety levels amongst students and generates individualistic, career-orientedgraduates (Brooks, 2001; Deresiewicz, 2015; Sandel, 2021). In addition, moderndemocratic societies struggle with a lack of social cohesion, increasing polarization and anti-intellectual tendencies (Kakutani, 2019). Modern universities can be said to have three missions, namely, to provide professional education, scientific research and education, liberal education. The main argument of the paper is that liberal education, defined as the development of the student as a whole person, complements a professional and scientific education and deserves more attention given the concerns about both today’s students and societies. The paper provides a short history of liberal education and of great books seminars as one way of providing a liberal education. The paper then discusses practical-educational questions about text selection and the role of the teacher. In the final part, the paper offers an example of a text that could be read as part of great books seminars, namely, E. M. Forster’s Where Angels Fear to Tread, which provides students with the opportunity to think about the relationship between friendship, self-knowledge and purpose. |
| Document Type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| ISSN: | 2385-5002 1139-9759 |
| DOI: | 10.60940/comprendrev27n2id9900229 |
| Access URL: | https://hdl.handle.net/1871.1/75923090-17f7-4525-a8cc-0e942f9b5d53 https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/75923090-17f7-4525-a8cc-0e942f9b5d53 |
| Rights: | CC BY NC SA |
| Accession Number: | edsair.dris...01222..cdae09497cdf863f4547f77913ad25a9 |
| Database: | OpenAIRE |
| ISSN: | 23855002 11399759 |
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| DOI: | 10.60940/comprendrev27n2id9900229 |