The Battle of the Classics - How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today (Paperback)

These are troubling days for the humanities. In response, a recent proliferation of works defending the humanities has emerged. But, taken together, what are these works really saying, and how persuasive do they prove? The Battle of the Classics demonstrates the crucial downsides of contemporary apologetics for the humanities and presents in its place a historically informed case for a different approach to rescuing the humanistic disciplines in higher education. It reopens the passionate debates about the classics that took place in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America as a springboard for crafting a novel foundation for the humanistic tradition. Eric Adler demonstrates that current defenses of the humanities rely on the humanistic disciplines as inculcators of certain poorly defined skills such as "critical thinking." It criticizes this conventional approach, contending that humanists cannot hope to save their disciplines without arguing in favor of particular humanities content. As the uninspired defenses of the classical humanities in the late nineteenth century prove, instrumental apologetics are bound to fail. All the same, the book shows that proponents of the Great Books favor a curriculum that is too intellectually narrow for the twenty-first century. The Battle of the Classics thus lays out a substance-based approach to undergraduate education that will revive the humanities, even as it steers clear of overreliance on the Western canon. The book envisions a global humanities based on the examination of masterworks from manifold cultures as the heart of an intellectually and morally sound education.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	February 2023
Authors:	Eric Adler (Associate Professor of Classics)
Dimensions:	235 x 156mm (L x W)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	272
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-768081-0
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Education > Philosophy of education Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > Essays, journals, letters & other prose works > Classical, early & medieval Books > Humanities > History > World history > 1750 to 1900 Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > General Books > History > History of specific subjects > General Books > History > World history > 1750 to 1900 Promotions
LSN:	0-19-768081-X
Barcode:	9780197680810

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!