by Roosevelt Montás ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 2021
A vigorous argument in favor of reading and discussing the canon in order to better our minds and souls.
A Dominican-born academic defends the humanities in a time of retreat.
A senior lecturer at the Center for American Studies at Columbia, Montás writes of coming to the U.S. as a teenager with only a limited command of English and, by dint of hard work and exhaustive reading, attaining the kind of liberal arts education that harkens to ancient Athens. The word liberal is enough to set some critics off, while the liberal arts are often conceived in modern universities as a block of requirements that diverge from the student’s primary major instead of being foundational. Columbia is unusual among universities in offering a “core” that involves reading the Western canon (it has lately added a parallel core for works of world literature other than the West’s). Montás reviews several texts that are especially central, for various reasons, beginning with Saint Augustine’s Confessions as a text that recounts the acquisition of values and beliefs through the act of reading itself. Despite that Western/non-Western division, the author also includes Gandhi’s Autobiography for much the same reasons. Montás is enthusiastic about Plato and Socrates, less so about Aristotle: “Reading Aristotle can feel like chewing on cardboard. Don’t expect enchantment.” The author also recounts teaching underprivileged students and watching them “undergo a kind of inner awakening,” taking the words of Socrates “seriously and personally.” In the end, writes Montás, the core and its texts are meant to guide readers into thinking about what has been translated as virtue but that really means excellence . What does excellence constitute, and how do we attain it? Montás delivers a spirited defense that may seem old-fashioned in the current milieu of deconstruction and arid theory of the academy but that he insists can deliver a means of combatting social inequality by grounding students in a common intellectual tradition.
A vigorous argument in favor of reading and discussing the canon in order to better our minds and souls.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-691-20039-2
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2021
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by Marilynne Robinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 12, 2024
In this highly learned yet accessible book, Robinson offers believers fresh insight into a well-studied text.
A deeply thoughtful exploration of the first book of the Bible.
In this illuminating work of biblical analysis, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Robinson, whose Gilead series contains a variety of Christian themes, takes readers on a dedicated layperson’s journey through the Book of Genesis. The author meanders delightfully through the text, ruminating on one tale after another while searching for themes and mining for universal truths. Robinson approaches Genesis with a reverence and level of faith uncommon to modern mainstream writers, yet she’s also equipped with the appropriate tools for cogent criticism. Throughout this luminous exegesis, which will appeal to all practicing Christians, the author discusses overarching themes in Genesis. First is the benevolence of God. Robinson points out that “to say that God is the good creator of a good creation” sets the God of Genesis in opposition to the gods of other ancient creation stories, who range from indifferent to evil. This goodness carries through the entirety of Genesis, demonstrated through grace. “Grace tempers judgment,” writes the author, noting that despite well-deserved instances of wrath or punishment, God relents time after time. Another overarching theme is the interplay between God’s providence and humanity’s independence. Across the Book of Genesis, otherwise ordinary people make decisions that will affect the future in significant ways, yet events are consistently steered by God’s omnipotence. For instance, Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, and that action has reverberated throughout the history of all Jewish people. Robinson indirectly asks readers to consider where the line is between the actions of God and the actions of creation. “He chose to let us be,” she concludes, “to let time yield what it will—within the vast latitude granted by providence.”
In this highly learned yet accessible book, Robinson offers believers fresh insight into a well-studied text.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780374299408
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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