It may not seem like it, but I’ve actually resisted blogging over the past couple of days, especially in response to this provocation and this one, though I may take a whack at the latter once I get through my preparation for tomorrow’s seminar.

My busyness has to do with a faculty seminar on liberal education that I’m currently leading. Here’s the reading list:

Monday, May 16

Bruce Kimball, Orators and Philosophers, chs. I – III, V

Plato, Apology of Socrates

Isocrates, Antidosis

Seneca, Epistle LXXXVIII

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Vol II, Bk. V, ch. 1, Pt. III, 2nd Article (“Of the Expence of the Institutions for the Education of the Youth”)

Tuesday, May 17

Kimball, Orators and Philosophers, chs. VI – VII, Afterword

Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. I, Pt. I, ch. 3; Vol. II, Pt. II, chs. 9 – 11, 13 – 15 (pp. 46 – 52, 428 – 443, 445 – 452, Mansfield/Winthrop ed.)

Pangle and Pangle, The Learning of Liberty, chs. 1, 2, 8

Wednesday, May 18

Leo Strauss, “What Is Liberal Education?”, “Liberal Education and Responsibility,” in Liberalism Ancient and Modern

John Seery, America Goes to College, Introduction, chs. 1, 4, 8, 12

Eva T. H. Brann, “The American College as the Place for Liberal Learning”

Michael Oakeshott, “A Place of Learning,” “Education: the Engagement and Its Frustration,” “The Idea of a University”

Thursday, May 19

Martha Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity, chs. 1 - 4

David L. Kirp, Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line, “Conclusion”

Colleague Selections

We’ve had spirited and collegial discussions, which have included strong contributions from a university trustee (who, among other things cited
this essay from the Claremont Review, to which he subscribes[ No, you can’t have him! He’s ours, I say, ours!]). More later, when I recover from the excitement of it all.