Celebrating the Humanities: A Half-Century of the Search Course at Rhodes College [Hardcover]

Michael Nelson (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1996

A reflective account of the birth, development, and continuing evolution of the Search course at Rhodes College, a plan of study that raises wider questions on the purpose of higher education itself.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Celebrating The Humanities: A Half-century Of The Search Course At Rhodes College is a presentation by faculty from political science, religious studies, classics, history, philosophy, French, Spanish, and other disciplines to tell the story of how the Search Course was created and how it has developed over half a century. Its authors address such thorny issues as the continuing debate over the canon, the teaching of "values", change versus the status quo in curriculum reform, issues of gender and cultural inclusiveness, faculty recruitment and the faculty reward structure, and the willingness to examine critcally what we read, think, and do. Celebrating The Humanities is a thought-provoking account of an innovative educational plan and has much to say to faculties, students, administrators, and others who are rethinking and reshaping modern higher education. Celebrating The Humanities is a greatly valued contribution and a "must" for any humanities reference book collection. -- Midwest Book Review

Product Details

• Hardcover: 269 pages
• Publisher: Vanderbilt Univ Pr; 1st edition (October 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826512828
• ISBN-13: 978-0826512826
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,549,540 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling case for the Humanities, June 7, 2006

By 

Todd Bartholomew (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Celebrating the Humanities: A Half-Century of the Search Course at Rhodes College (Hardcover)

Celebrating The Humanities: A Half-century Of The Search Course At Rhodes College is an intriguing look at the life-cycle of that college's renowned Humanities course, which has been in existence longer than at any other comparable liberal-arts institution. The book looks at the genesis for developing the course at Rhodes (then Southwestern) during the crucible of World War II and its evolution over the years. A number of individuals involved with "The Man Course" (as it was dubbed) contribute individual chapters that touch on their era of involvement touching on the curricula and the changes that came about. The course itself sounds utterly fascinating, incorporating some of the greatest literature of the modern world from the time of antiquity to the present, yet covering it in a colloquium style course setting. I would love to take this course, but to be honest the amount of reading that is covered in the short span of time is most daunting indeed!

Michael Nelson, the editor, does a good job of keeping the text coherent and cogent, which is frequently a problem with incorporating many different authors with varying styles of writing. The book is most gripping when covering the origins of the course and its early years but loses steam towards the middle. I had expected more dramatic tension when the book got into the era that encompassed the Civil Rights and Counter-Culture Revolution of the 1960s, but it was strangely unexciting, which is surprising considering the upheaval in Memphis during that era. It was again exciting towards the end when it gave a rather lively encapsulation of what it is like to take the course today that left me wondering why more universities aren't attempting the same thing. Celebrating the Humanities is a compelling argument for the bolstering of the Humanities at campuses everywhere and should be a rallying cry for this effort, yet my hunch is few outside of academia will ever read this, which is profoundly sad.

1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars READ THIS BOOK!, April 1, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Celebrating the Humanities: A Half-Century of the Search Course at Rhodes College (Hardcover)

Mr. Nelson is god. One should read everything that he writes. In two thousand years people will be awaiting the second coming of Mike Nelson. Rhodes is a wonderful college, and I wish that I had been wise enough ( in my college days) to shun Yale for such a personalized undergraduate education