In this volume, the Association for Core Texts and Courses has gathered essays of literary and philosophical accounts that explain who we are simply as persons. Further, essays are included that highlight the person as entwined with other persons and examine who we are in light of communal ties. The essays reflect both the Western experience of democracy and how community informs who we are more generally. Our historical position in a modern or post-modern, urbanized or disenchanted world is explored by yet other papers. And, finally, ACTC educators model the intellectual life for students and colleagues by showing how to read texts carefully and with sophistication -- as an example of who we can be.

Substance, Judgment and Evaluation: Seeking the Worth of a Liberal Arts, Core Text Education selectively presents the thoughts of scholars and teachers of liberal arts, core text education on how their programs formulate and advance a "value-centered" education. What emerges from this selection is the wide scope of core text programs underlying the semantic intention of words such as "value-centered," "judgment," or even "liberal arts" or "collegiate" and "colleague." This volume records the cooperation and thoughtful consideration of faculty from a wide range of higher education institutions - research universities, comprehensive universities, colleges, and community colleges - who have chosen to come together to form such programs across North America. This volume should be of value to any dean, director, or faculty member who seeks to work with colleagues and texts across disciplines to form a coherent undergraduate program of study within general education.

Throughout its existence, the Association for Core Texts and Courses (ACTC) has asserted its commitment to the need for humans to come together to speak about the scientific, the political, and the artistic in order to live together in an enlightened fashion. In 2004, ACTC's Tenth Annual Conference convened to re-affirm and re-examine the value of serious reading and discussion focused through core texts. Participants articulated the various ways by which core text education in the liberal arts constructs and supports different expressions of community on college campuses around the world. Presenters asked whether it is better to contemplate the arts simply as expressions of cultures and traditions or to cultivate them, taking the risk that what is valued in artistic expressions might be changed by the inventions of teachers and the students they encourage. The essays collected here reflect the responses of the diverse group of ACTC's members, all of whom support the idea of liberal core text education with the self-conscious awareness of the challenges facing liberal education in the modern academy.