Quote of the Day

I posted an amusing quote from Tom Woods concerning nullification and racism on my blog this morning, for those who are interested.

ISI and Liberal Learning

I've starting posting some thoughts on my blog about ISI's recently published reading list on liberal learning. Check it out if you're interested. I think Dr. Woods is going after this, too, from a slightly different angle.

F&A Conference a Great Success!

Our Faith and the Academy Conference last Friday came off very well, and kudos are due particularly to the MLA students who presented papers. I have not heard a single negative comment about any of the presentations or of the conference as a whole, but many Faulkner folks and off-campus guests (including our plenary speaker) have spoken very highly of the quality of the sessions.

Let's do what we can to keep our momentum going. Perhaps some of you (faculty or students) have gotten ideas for new reading or research projects from the conference. Don't let those wither on the vine! The rest of us will do whatever we can to support you.

Sobran on Abused Words

MLA students (and others), you should get a kick out of this article, and maybe it will make you think twice the next time you are considering using words like "reinvent" or "oxymoron" in your papers.

Upcoming Conference

The third annual Journal of Faith and the Academy Conference will take place next Friday, February 19, on the Faulkner campus. Our plenary speaker is Dr. Darryl Tippens, the provost of Pepperdine University. Dr. Tippens will give lectures on academics and the Christian life in both the morning and afternoon sessions. After his second presentation, a faculty panel will respond to the major issues raised in his two lectures.

This year will see the most conference participation yet from the MLA students. Six students are going to read papers. Their titles are as follows:

Emily Bradford: "Leisure: A Permanent Thing"
Brian Burnett: "Another Perspective on the East-West Schism"
Andi Jerles: "Liberal Arts Education: The Key to True Freedom"
Anthony Lamar: "The Portrayal of Sex in the Christian Society"
Joseph Rich: "Death and the Afterlife as Moral Motivation"
Preston Salisbury: "Christianity Against Grade Inflation"

All three of the MLA faculty will also be presenting papers.

The conference will begin at 8:45 a.m. in the Lester Chapel.

Cultural Literacy Series on Lewrockwell.com

Back in the spring, I wrote a series of articles for Lewrockwell.com on cultural literacy. It turned out to be a recommended reading list of 150 books. The categories weren't as nice and neat as I would have liked because of the way in which the articles came about. Still, it's a good list, despite the inevitable omission of a number of worthy titles. Here are the links:

Part 1 (Narratives, antiquity-19th century): http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/jewell2.html

Part 2 (Narratives, 19th century-present): http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/jewell3.html

Part 3 (Other fields): http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/jewell4.html

The Liberal Arts and National Security

We had a great colloquium last night with Mark Conversino of the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base here in Montgomery. Dr. Conversino spoke on "The Liberal Arts and National Security," and I think he brought to the audience a new understanding of the value of liberal arts education in the "real world."

The abilities to think critically about the "big picture" and to "ask the right questions" about strategic issues are essential to success in the armed forces, particularly among senior officers. Dr. Conversino shared several anecdotes from recent military history and from his own experience that illustrated this principle. He noted that when Gen. Petraeus was trying to put Iraq back together, he didn't rely on technical specialists to determine his policies, but on "woolly-headed" academics who had voiced skepticism about the prospects for easy victory back in 2003. He pointed out the errors of those who assumed that the Serbs would "roll over" on Kosovo in 1999 as they had in Bosnia in 1994, not realizing that Kosovo played a much larger role in Serb national consciousness than Bosnia. He described the awakening his students had when confronted with the unanticipated vociferous opposition, based on cultural and historic ties, voiced by Russian officials over the proposed NATO membership for Ukraine.

In all of these scenarios, the skills acquired by study of the liberal arts enabled people to ask the right questions and potentially avoid the loss of life, while the absence of those skills, exhibited in the unawareness of cultural issues, etc., led to very negative consequences.

Everyone who attended spoke highly of the session. We hope that we will be able to collaborate with Dr. Conversino and the Air War College on more joint efforts in the future.