Will they succeed?

Inside Higher Ed reports.

Scholars consider how to save the liberal arts

CHICAGO — It’s a familiar question: Do the liberal arts need saving? The answer here Thursday at a conference on the topic — yes — was familiar, too. But keynote speakers at the opening of the conference at the University of Chicago focused less on the question itself than on from what and whom a broad education needs rescuing.

And their concerns went beyond the usual suspects of politicians, administrators and the introduction of identity studies (though ample blame was still reserved for the first two), to both deeper cultural factors and more practical ones — such as how the liberal arts are quantified.

For Talbot Brewer, professor and chair of philosophy at the University of Virginia, the liberal arts need saving in part from the “black mirrors” so many of us are glued to each day. Cellular phones, computers and, especially for children, television, facilitate a kind of “reverse-Weberian,” late capitalistic assault on our collective attention, he said. The effect is that we no longer know how to interact with the meaningful, valuable media that take time and effort to understand— that is, the bulk of what makes up the liberal arts.