The Precarious Place of Liberal Education in the Contemporary University

The Tocqueville Lecture Series is excited to host Dr. Joseph M. Knippenberg (Oglethorpe University). His presentation, “Forgetting or Denying ‘The Good, the True, and the Beautiful’: The Precarious Place of Liberal Education in the Contemporary University examines two contemporary challenges to liberal education in higher education. For a full description, see the abstract below. A Q&A will follow Dr. Knippenberg’s presentation.

This event is free and open to the public. This is possible due to a generous grant from The Jack Miller Center.

This is a hybrid event. Join us virtually through Microsoft Teams. Come to Brewer Hall 141 on the campus of Jacksonville State University for an in-person experience. The Q&A will engage with both audiences.

In this lecture, I will discuss the two most prominent contemporary challenges to the liberal education that should be at the core of everyone’s experience of higher education. Both challenges are frequently associated in the minds of many students, even as they’re separated in the minds of the extramural critics of higher education. We’re often told by students and off-campus critics that liberal arts or general education courses are impractical or irrelevant. On that much, they agree. But students also regularly tell us that what they want are courses that enable them to explore and affirm their identities. To be sure, when those courses do so, some of our off-campus critics argue that such courses are un- or anti-American. I shall argue that both lines of argument are inimical to liberal education, which can be defended as a propaedeutic to a worthwhile life of work, citizenship, and genuinely free individuality.