Are the humanities relevant enough to the average undergraduate to be included as a required part of a general education program? The University of Idaho (UI) is currently ten years into the challenge of implementing a cross-disciplinary, university-wide general education program--the UI Core--that has the attention, if not always the support, of…

Discusses the role of the humanities as an element of cultural analysis. Suggests that the mark of attaining cultural maturity is the willingness of individuals to explore the way other cultures live, value, and behave. Recommends building a program of cultural studies based on global perspectivism. (12 citations) (MAB)

Professor Nelson Edmondson suggests a teaching procedure in which humanities teachers would treat the various mythologies, philosophies, and theologies as "hypotheses of equal status". After describing this approach and considering his conceptions on the nature of hypotheses and the meaning of equal status, author examines the proper…

Addresses the epistemological questions that undergird curriculum debates in higher education over the value and vitality of a canon, a need for intellectual and cultural homogeneity, and the articulation of norms for scholarly inquiry. Challenges general education to communicate the value-ladenness of allegedly objective curricula, events, and…

Describes a program, Cultural and Technological Studies, created to develop an interdisciplinary, undergraduate curriculum exploring the relationships between technology and culture. (Author/RK)

Describes "The College Course," a course designed by six Vassar professors to advance the goals of liberal education, through interdisciplinary, integrative, and synoptic study while laying a basis for later liberal arts studies. Considers the possibility of adapting the model to other disciplines and institutional settings. (DMM)

Traces the roots of the concepts of the humanities and liberal arts education to the ancient Greeks, describing how their customs, language, philosophy, and literature have contributed to current concepts of education. Suggests that the Greek idea of education stressed the arts and mathematics but was opposed to all professionalism. (MAB)

Examines the effects of the post-Sputnik knowledge explosion. Critizes universities for teaching facts and information without values and applications and faults apathetic students who narrowly focus on job openings, pay scales, and retirement plans. Urges colleges to develop intellectual autonomy and the powers of imagination, sensitivity, and…

Asserts the need for new undergraduate culture studies textbooks that maintain broad historical scope and shed the Western humanistic model. Proposes a "postmodern textbook" less concerned with covering canonical facts than with issues to be discussed and situations to be analyzed. (21 citations) (VWC)