The Liberating Arts: Why We Need Liberal Arts Education
edited by Jeffrey Bilbro, Jessica Hooten Wilson, and David Henreckson
A new generation of teachers envisions a liberal arts education that is good for everyone.
Why would anyone study the liberal arts? It’s no secret that the liberal arts have fallen out of favor and are struggling to prove their relevance. The cost of college pushes students to majors and degrees with more obvious career outcomes.
A new cohort of educators isn’t taking this lying down. They realize they need to reimagine and rearticulate what a liberal arts education is for, and what it might look like in today’s world. In this book, they make an honest reckoning with the history and current state of the liberal arts.
You may have heard – or asked – some of these questions yourself:
- Aren’t the liberal arts a waste of time? How will reading old books and discussing abstract ideas help us feed the hungry, liberate the oppressed and reverse climate change? Actually, we first need to understand what we mean by truth, the good life, and justice.
- Aren’t the liberal arts racist? The “great books” are mostly by privileged dead white males. Despite these objections, for centuries the liberal arts have been a resource for those working for a better world. Here’s how we can benefit from ancient voices while expanding the conversation.
- Aren’t the liberal arts liberal? Aren’t humanities professors mostly progressive ideologues who indoctrinate students? In fact, the liberal arts are an age-old tradition of moral formation, teaching people to think for themselves and learn from other perspectives.
- Aren’t the liberal arts elitist? Hasn’t humanities education too often excluded poor people and minorities? While that has sometime been the case, these educators map out well-proven ways to include people of all social and educational backgrounds.
- Aren’t the liberal arts a bad career investment? I really just want to get a well-paying job and not end up as an overeducated barista. The numbers – and the people hiring – tell a different story.
In this book, educators mount a vigorous defense of the humanist tradition, but also chart a path forward, building on their tradition’s strengths and addressing its failures. In each chapter, dispatches from innovators describe concrete ways this is being put into practice, showing that the liberal arts are not only viable today, but vital to our future.
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Contributors include Emily Auerbach, Nathan Beacom, Jeffrey Bilbro, Joseph Clair, Margarita Mooney Clayton, Lydia Dugdale, Brad East, Don Eben, Becky L. Eggimann, Rachel Griffis, David Henreckson, Zena Hitz, David Hsu, L. Gregory Jones, Brandon McCoy, Peter Mommsen, Angel Adams Parham, Steve Prince, John Mark Reynolds, Erin Shaw, Anne Snyder, Sean Sword, Noah Toly, Jonathan Tran, and Jessica Hooten Wilson
4 out of 5 fairies
This was an excellent collection, and it’s an important read for anyone who is considering a higher education in the liberal arts. I will note that this is written from a pretty Christian-centric POV, but it can be applied with a much wider brush. The authors’ passion for the liberal arts clearly shines through their writing, making for an enjoyable read. I was glad to see the book broken down into ten main sections, with 2-3 articles per section. If you’re preparing to head to college, and need to convince your parents that a liberal arts education is worthwhile, then you could easily bookmark the sections that tackle their biggest concerns to help open a discussion (and hopefully change their minds). Overall, I definitely recommend this, and I hope that it helps change some perceptions and misconceptions!
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Jeffrey Bilbro is an editor at Front Porch Republic and an associate professor of English at Grove City College. He is the author of several books, most recently Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News. He lives in Grove City, Pennsylvania.
Jessica Hooten Wilson is the inaugural Seaver College Scholar of Liberal Arts at Pepperdine University and a senior fellow at Trinity Forum. She is the author of several books, most recently The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints.
David Henreckson is an assistant professor and Director of the Weyerhaeuser Center for Christian Faith and Learning at Whitworth University. He is author of The Immortal Commonwealth, a recipient of the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award. He lives in Spokane, Washington.