Arts of Living: Reinventing the Humanities for the Twenty-First Century

by Kurt Spellmeyer

Book Overview

Argues that higher education needs to abandon the "culture wars" if it hopes to address the major crises of the century.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 079145648X
• ISBN13: 9780791456484
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Worth reading by anyone who cares about increasing gap between academic and real lives !

I have known Spellmeyer as a teacher and colleague for five years and happened to read this book recently. I am totally aghast at the comments left by Beatrice Manley below ....it seems she is personally feeling accused by this book and is very angry. But I have no reason to believe her review. On the contrary, I greatly enjoyed this book. I have found myself pondering over this increasing gap myself during my own student years. "Why don't we read/write/research into and discuss about real life problems?" Why do we think that creating solutions to real life problems is a problem of government/policy makers and not us. I have heard many of my teachers say "We are too specialized to talk to our colleagues/laymen about creating solutions! We are academicians...we just get money to do what is intellectualy stimulating for us!" It is true that Spellmeyer isn't the first one to point out the increasing gap between what happens in a classroom and what goes on in the actual human lives. But he doesn't stop at pointing out the follies of the current system but also suggest changes. His tone is far from paternalistic and his analysis of the situation is actually kind and devoid of anger and blaming others. If this 'kind' attitude makes some people gasp and imagine that he is trying to portray himself as a messiah/guru, I think it is their weakness. I think we could suggest more options and discuss possible solutions instead of expressing anger if we think Spellmeyer's approach is not wholistic enough -- which I personally think is very much so ! And if anyone wants a chapterwise analysis - you would be much better off reading this review [...]