Powers of the Mind: The Reinvention of Liberal Learning in America » (New Edition)

Donald N. Levine is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, where he served as dean of the College from 1982 to 1987. He is the author of several books, including Visions of the Sociological Tradition, The Flight from Ambiguity, and Wax and Gold: Tradition and Innovation in Ethiopian Culture.

It is one thing to lament the financial pressures put on universities, quite another to face up to the poverty of resources for thinking about what universities should do when they purport to offer a liberal education. In Powers of the Mind, former University of Chicago dean Donald N. Levine enriches those resources by proposing fresh ways to think about liberal learning with ideas more suited to our times.

            He does so by defining basic values of modernity and then considering curricular principles pertinent to them. The principles he favors are powers of the mind—disciplines understood as fields of study defined not by subject matter but by their embodiment of distinct intellectual capacities. To illustrate, Levine draws on his own lifetime of teaching and educational leadership, while providing an inspirational summary of exemplary educational thinkers at the University of Chicago who continue to inspire. Out of this vital tradition, Powers of the Mind constructs a paradigm for liberal arts today, inclusive of a wide range of perspectives and applicable to the unique settings of the modern world.

Library Journal

What does it mean to be liberally educated in 21st-century America, and what is the role of liberal education in a democracy? These are the basic questions that motivate very different works by B rub (literature, Pennsylvania State Univ.; Life As We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child) and Levine (sociology, Univ. of Chicago; Visions of the Sociological Tradition). Both works share an interest in addressing limitations in the conservative criticism of higher education that began with works like Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind and Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education. B rub takes aim at the oft-repeated charge of liberal bias and skillfully rebuts many of the claims made by critics such as David Horowitz (e.g., The Professors). Levine, by contrast, focuses on defining a curricular structure for liberal education (rooted primarily in the evolution of undergraduate programs at Chicago, which he calls exemplary). While both works will appeal to those with an interest in higher education, they are for different audiences: B rub provides an effective liberal counterpoint to the conservative criticism of schools while also providing an extended review of his own work in the classroom; Levine provides a historical analysis of the development of undergraduate education at Chicago and a proposal for a contemporary model of liberal learning. The distinction, of course, is in how one defines the word liberal in reference either to politics or to education. Like Levine's The Opening of the American Mind, both works help create balance between conservative and liberal volleys in the "culture wars" in higher education and will appeal to many readers. Recommended for academic collections, though note that the first part of B rub 's work is likely to have significant appeal to a broader, more popular audience. Scott Walter, Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Preface Acknowledgments Prologue: Missing Resources in Higher Education
Part I. Crises of Liberal Learning in the Modern World
1. The Place of Liberal Learning
            Sites of Secondary Enculturation
            The Modernity Revolutions
            Liberal Education Encounters Modernity
2 The Movement for General Education                                                                                   
            Fallout from the Modernity Revolutions
            Quest for a New Common Learning
Part II. Enter Chicago                                                                                                              
3. The Making of a Curricular Tradition                                                                                     
            Enter Chicago
            Forming and Nurturing a Tradition
            Themes of the Chicago Tradition
            The Chicago Tradition of Liberal Learning
4. Dewey and Hutchins at Chicago                                                                                            
            Dewey as Educator
            Hutchins as an Unwitting (?) Deweyan
            The Hutchins-Dewey Debate
5. Richard McKeon: Architecton of Human Powers                                                                 
            Entering the Fray
            Changing the Humanities Course
            Reconfiguring the Liberal Curriculum
            The Return in the 1960s
            McKeon as Teacher
6. Joseph Schwab's Assault on Facile Teaching                                                                         
            Genesis of an Educator
            Transforming the Natural Science Curriculum
            Transforming Classroom Pedagogy
            Transforming Pedagogy through Examinations
            Transforming Educational Systems
            Pluralistic Thoughtways and Communal Practice
            Schwab and the Chicago Tradition
7. What Is Educational about the Study of Civilizations?                                                            
            "Civilization" in Educational Discourse
            Civilizational Studies at Chicago
            So, What Is Educational about the Study of Civilizations?
Part III. Reinventing Liberal Education in Our Time                                                                  
8. New Goals for the Liberal Curriculum                                                                                   
            Contested Principles for the Liberal Curriculum
            Choosing a Path
9. Goals for the Liberal Curriculum I: Powers of Prehension                                                       
            Audiovisual Powers
            Kinesthetic Powers
            Understanding Verbal Texts
            Understanding Worlds
10. Goals for the Liberal Curriculum II: Powers of Expression                                                   
            Forming a Self
            Inventing Statements, Problems, and Actions
            Integrating Knowledge
            Communicating
11. New Ways of Framing Pedagogy                                                                                        
            Modalities of Teaching and Learning
            From "Teaching" to Teaching Powers
            A Repertoire of Teaching Forms
            Approaches to Testing
12. My Experiments in Teaching Powers                                                                                   
            Searching for Disciplines
            Basic Practice
            Disciplines as Ways of Getting into Conversations
            Disciplines as Ways of Connecting Conversations Epilogue: The Fate of Liberal Learning                                                                                     
Appendix: Three Syllabi for Teaching Powers at Chicago                                                         
References                                                                                                                              
Index