What Is So Liberal about the Liberal Arts?
The word liberal is so misused today that it brings confusion not clarity. So what should be liberal in education? The wisdom of Seneca can help us define it.
Eva Brann
You Get to Read Them Too!
We ended the year with more questions than answers, but I think that is the only fitting way to end
What I’m Reading: The Odyssey – Book 5
When book five begins we find ourselves in the same place where book one began: Olympus, where the gods are in session. And, as in book one, we listen as Athena pleads Odysseus’ case. “Father Zeus . . . “ she says, “be one whose thought is schooled in justice.” And justice, she claims, demands …
Obvious Does Not Mean Basic
This afternoon, I will be participating in a Podcast on Hamlet in which I hope to invite people to read Shakespeare’s play and to look for what is obvious. Meanwhile, I’m reading the Iliad for the Apprenticeship and have been thinking quite a bit about how to read and to teach it. My teaching mantra …
What I’m Reading: The Odyssey – Book Two
The coming of age tale is, I suspect, as old as coming of age itself. Many of our most beloved books and stories reveal what Dr. Eva Brann aptly calls “a trip towards . . . identity.” Consider: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, David Copperfield, Treasure Island, Candide, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, To Kill a …