"The Humanities Move Off Campus" - An article about the mode

[adrock3215]

The Humanities Move Off Campus

As the classical university unravels, students seek knowledge and know-how elsewhere.

I was looking for some thoughts on this article. I enjoyed it a lot, and thought that the author made some good points about the state of the modern university, so I wanted to share it. What are your thoughts?

Edited December 10, 2008 by adrock3215

[athena glaukopis]

I completely agree with this:

Third, classical education was a window on the West. Study of Athenian democracy, Homeric epic, or Roman basilicas framed all exploration of subsequent eras, from the Middle Ages to modernity. An Aquinas, Dante, Michelangelo, or Montesquieu could be seen as reaffirming, adopting, modifying, or rejecting something that the Greeks or Romans had done first. One could no more build a liberal education without some grounding in the classics than one could construct a multistory house without a foundation.

"They either do not know what the Parthenon is or, if they do, they do not understand how its role as the democratic civic treasury of the Athenians was any different from—much less any “better” than—what went on atop the monumental Great Temple of Tenochtitlán.

At my school, we are explicitly taught that they are of equal merit.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Appalling.

I am taking some time to get a *very* light overview of the Greeks and Romans now; I'll never be 1/100th as versed in the classics as (say) Dr. John Lewis but I can see there is value here and that the purpose of Tenochtitlan was simply evil.