Cultivating humanity a classical defense of reform in liberal education

Description

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. Nussbaums defence of the new education is rooted in Senecas 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