Cultivating Humanity: Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education - Hardcover

Nussbaum has succeeded in saying something fresh, forceful, and interesting about curricular reform and the culture wars. "Cultivating Humanity" is persuasively argued, philosophically well-grounded, and firmly based on Nussbaum's own experiences as a visitor, lecturer, and teacher at a wide range of colleges and universities. She draws upon the best elements of current work in feminism and the study of race and ethnicity even as she calls attention to excesses and errors in new pedagogy and scholarship that need to be remedied...Throughout "Cultivating Humanity" (the title adapts a phrase from the Stoic philosopher Seneca), Nussbaum emphasizes reason, careful argument, logical analysis, self-questioning, the pursuit of truth and objectivity, and critical inquiry.--William E. Cain "Boston Sunday Globe "

How can higher education today create a community of critical thinkers and searchers for the truth that transcends the boundaries of class, gender and nation? In this book the author argues that contemporary curricular reform is already producing such "citizens of the world" in its advocacy of diverse forms of cross-cultural studies. Nussbaum's defence of "the new education" is rooted in Seneca's ideal of the citizen who scrutinizes tradition critically and who respects the ability to reason wherever it is found, in rich or poor, native or foreigner, female or male. Drawing on Socrates and the Stoics, the author establishes three core values of liberal education: critical self-examination, the ideal of the world citizen and the development of the narrative imagination. Then taking the reader to a variety of classrooms and campuses, Nussbaum aims to show how these values are being embodied in particular courses. She defends such courses as gender, minority and gay studies against charges of moral relativism and low standards, and underscores their dynamic and fundamental contribution to critical reasoning and world citizenship. Nussbaum aims to show that liberal education is alive and well on American campuses and is not only viable and constructive, but essential to a democratic society.