Its no surprise to anyone in academia that the liberal arts and humanities are in crisis. Liberal arts colleges are closing down, departments are closing down, and students are fleeing from majoring in the social sciences. So what happened to this once essential element of higher education?

Roosevelt Montás is Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University. There, he teaches “Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West,” a year-long course on primary texts in moral and political thought, as well as seminars in American Studies including “Freedom and Citizenship in the United States.” He also speaks and writes on the history, meaning, and future of liberal education and is author of “Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation.” 

He and Greg dive deep into the vanishing practice of reading great books, focusing on the history of liberal arts and the humanities in US universities, embracing liberal education in k-12 public schools, the destructive reliance on standardized testing, and normativity in academics. 

Episode Quotes:

Fighting for the humanities

We are in a moment in human history where the questions that preoccupy the humanities and liberal education have a unique urgency. That facility with the kind of introspection and rootedness in human values, that the humanities foster are absolutely essential to navigate the landscape in front of us.

I pray and I not only pray, but work towards that kind of education that equips an individual to engage the reality rooted in human values and self reflectively that that be not something that is rare and for the few, but that is as widely accessible to everyone as is absolutely possible.

On losing the humanities in real time

Liberal arts colleges are closing down. Departments are closing down. Students are fleeing from majoring in the humanities and the humanistic social sciences. Those are real empirical factors that point to us being in a moment of particular crisis in the institutional instantiation of liberal education.

On teaching humanities to high schoolers

I always say, think about what it means for a 17 year old to disagree with Aristotle. That's extraordinary that introducing them to that kind of dimension of their own mind and of their own status as intellectuals and thinkers. It’s my favorite thing I do as a teacher.

Show Links:

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile on Columbia University in the City of New York
• Roosevelt Montás on LinkedIn
• Roosevelt Montás on Twitter

His Work:

• Roosevelt Montás on Aeon
• Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation

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