This article's purpose is to make humanities professors' assumptions and beliefs about assessment more visible. It is important to understand how humanities professors view the assessment of general education, especially since those conceptions affect how they approach teaching and learning, and how they react to calls for assessment in their…

Possession of prior knowledge has been shown to critically influence students' learning in major courses. Yet the topic remains unexplored in the realm of general education in higher education. The study aims at investigating whether students lacking relevant high school knowledge background could benefit in the two courses, one inclined to…

New Web technology allows for the design of traditionally lecture-centered humanities courses by fostering active learning and engaging students as producers of learning content. The article presents the experiences with a student-generated wiki for a Germanic Mythology course. Evaluations indicated an overwhelmingly positive student experience…

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…

This article examined the relationship between logical empiricism and religious modes of thought, and suggested ways for teachers to give each approach its due. (Editor/RK)

Considers the need to reestablish the position of philosophy in the humanities. Questions the value of detachment and specialization as traits of the professional philosopher. Urges philosophers to take themselves less seriously and approach their discipline with humor. (DMM)

Author examines the Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung with his students and challenges them to objectively evaluate the work. (RK)

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…

Discusses the didactic value of literature study. Considers contemporary irrationalist philosophy's emphasis on human experience's subjective nature and its rejection of the possibility of shared, objective moral concepts being conveyed by reading literature. Acknowledges literature's subjective elements, while stressing the objective, cognitive…

Discusses the public's lack of appreciation for poetry. Gives examples of poems expressing irony and emotions. Argues that poetry's philosophy, mode, and tone of communication make it difficult. Considers poetry's subversive, exploratory, and entertaining aspects. Presents detailed analyses of four poems. (DMM)

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)

Examines attempts to save humanities education by making it instrumental to other ends. Argues that, rather than finding ways to appease an unsympathetic audience, humanities programs must act without apology and accentuate the role the humanities plays in humanizing and liberating students through self-criticism and self-revision. (Contains 16…