Liberal Education and the Canon: Five Great Texts Speak to Contemporary Social Issues

Sampul Depan
Camden House, 1994 - 293 halaman
An educationalist argues for the traditional literary canon and its relevance to contemporary social issues.

Liberal Education and the Canon offers an argument for maintaining the traditional literary canon of the West as the centrepiece of a liberal arts education, from the perspective of a liberal, feminist, mainstream academic administrator. Laura Ford argues that to equate the great texts of the Western tradition with conservatism is to confuse the ideology of the texts; she undertakes to rebut the allegation of obsolescence by showing the prevalence of manycontemporary liberal themes in the traditional canon.
The book demonstrates the continuing relevance of five works of the Western tradition (Homer, Plato, the King James Bible, Shakespeare, and the American founding documents)to several of society's most complex and divisive social issues: sexual harassment, rape, homophobia, abortion, the 'right to die' and the death penalty. Each chapter illustrates dramatically how these traditional literary works capture some of the basic human struggles and dilemmas that have not greatly changed over the centuries.

 

Isi

Note on Sources
1
Introduction
7
Sexual Harassment
42
Notes
58
Homophobia
101
63
176
The Right to Die
179
97
215
The Death Penalty
219
101
261
Conclusion
263
Works Cited
271
Index
283
Rationalizations
286
Hak Cipta

Edisi yang lain - Lihat semua

Istilah dan frasa umum

Informasi bibliografi