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Liberal education aspires to excellence through the cultivation of
free human beings who excel in thought, word, and deed. But what
exactly is excellence, and why do we admire it? How do we conceive
of what is excellent? What constitutes excellence-either for human
beings, or in the realms of philosophy, literature, science, and
politics? Why is excellence an aim of liberal education? What kinds
of texts, courses, and inquiries contribute to achieving this end?
Such questions animate the studies herein. The essays in this
volume reflect on the idea of excellence embedded within core
texts, as well as how such texts influence and ennoble higher
education. In its chapters, we consider rival forms of excellence
from ancient Greece and Rome, through modern Europe and America,
and beyond. The world of antiquity and its accounts of excellence,
as represented in the works of Euripides, Aristotle, Plato,
Archimedes, and Cicero, are here brought into dialogue with diverse
modern perspectives on excellence, as articulated by Shakespeare,
Descartes, Newton, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Austen, Darwin, Lincoln,
Tennyson, and Nietzsche, as well as (more recently) by John Dewey,
Martin Luther King Jr., Cardinal Newman, and Eboo Patel. Our desire
to seek and understand excellence transcends borders, and the
purpose of this volume is to help perpetuate in contemporary higher
education the study of core texts essential to the cultivation of
excellence in the liberal arts and sciences.
Engaging Worlds: Core Texts and Cultural Contexts asks what do we
learn of texts, cultures, and the world's dynamics when we read
core texts, widely and deeply, in core-structured programs of the
world's colleges and universities? What books, what arts, what
associations and institutions, what sciences, what religions, what
cultures, what educations, what citizens, what scholars, are we
preparing for the future through an education in core texts that
engages our worlds? The answers offered in these selected
proceedings are drawn from the widest possible spectrum of
institutions and disciplines who, through core programs, offer
horizon-expanding liberal educations.
In a time when liberal arts education is increasingly under attack,
this volume reminds readers that dedicated teachers at colleges and
universities are passing on the heritage of liberal education as
well as constructing its future. Future citizens, businesswomen and
men, scientists, artists and those working in educational or social
programs will all benefit from the insights of this volume into
historical, ethical, literary and philosophical perspectives
provided by core text liberal arts education.
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