Event Title
The Fate of the Liberal Arts in the Neo-Liberal University: Adaptation, Critique, Re-Configuration
Location
Donnelley Theatre, Heimbold Visual Arts Center
Start Date
15-11-2014 9:15 AM
End Date
15-11-2014 9:30 AM
Abstract
In this paper I’ll discuss changing representations of the attributes and aims of a liberal arts education from the heyday of the liberal arts model after World War II to what Bill Readings has described as its complete dismantling in the neoliberal economic order. The talk will consist of three parts: 1) an account of the causes of these changes that will turn on a discussion of the economic re-structuring of U.S. colleges and universities; 2) a survey of disparate responses ranging from the articulation of a concessionary “neo-liberal arts” disposition to a broad-gauged critique of this stance; 3) a re-description of a liberal arts education that draws upon yet re-configures these critical as well as adaptive attitudes.
Presenter Biography
Donald E. Pease is the Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor in the Humanities, Chair of the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program, and Founding Director of the Futures Of American Studies Institute at Dartmouth College. He is editor or co-editor of 10 volumes including Cultures of U.S. Imperialism (1992), Futures of American Studies (2002), and Re-Mapping the Trans-National Turn in American Studies (2012), and the author of Visionary Compacts: American Renaissance Writings in Cultural Context (1987) and The New American Exceptionalism (2009) and Theodor Seuss Geisel (2010) The recipient of Guggenheim, Ford, NEH, Mellon and Hewlett Foundation Fellowships, Pease received an honorary doctorate (the degree of Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa) from Uppsala University in 2011. In 2012 the American Studies Association (ASA) awarded Pease the Carl Bode-Norman Holmes Pearson Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies.
The Fate of the Liberal Arts in the Neo-Liberal University: Adaptation, Critique, Re-Configuration
Donnelley Theatre, Heimbold Visual Arts Center
In this paper I’ll discuss changing representations of the attributes and aims of a liberal arts education from the heyday of the liberal arts model after World War II to what Bill Readings has described as its complete dismantling in the neoliberal economic order. The talk will consist of three parts: 1) an account of the causes of these changes that will turn on a discussion of the economic re-structuring of U.S. colleges and universities; 2) a survey of disparate responses ranging from the articulation of a concessionary “neo-liberal arts” disposition to a broad-gauged critique of this stance; 3) a re-description of a liberal arts education that draws upon yet re-configures these critical as well as adaptive attitudes.