The pragmatic demands of American life have made higher education's sustained study of ancient Greece and Rome an irrelevant luxury--and this despite the fact that American democracy depends so heavily on classical language, literature, and political theory. In The Grammar of Our Civility, Lee T. Pearcy chronicles how this came to be. Pearcy argues that classics never developed a distinctly American way of responding to distinctly American social conditions. Instead, American classical education simply imitated European models that were designed to underwrite European culture. The Grammar of Our Civility also offers a concrete proposal for the role of classical education, one that takes into account practical expectations for higher education in twenty-first century America.
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Highly accessible, The Grammar of Our Civility avoids the exaggerations, gratuitous polemic, and lack of historical grounding that have vitiated previous popularizing efforts to make the case for the value of classical studies in contemporary U.S. society. Wearing his immense learning lightly, Lee T. Pearcy cogently and eloquently synthesizes a vast amount of previous scholarship to envision a new form of American classical education: one that reflects--much as European classical studies reflected European social realities and aspirations--the diverse, vibrant intellectual environment and ethical ideals of our nation. --Judith P. Hallett, University of Maryland, College Park
The Grammar of Our Civility is a cri de coeur on behalf of reestablishing classical studies at the core of a new curriculum, one that draws on the distinctly American contact with the classical tradition. Lee Pearcy offers the first comprehensive examination of the history and purposes of classical study in our schools throughout our nation's history and calls for a radical transformation not only of our scholarship but also of our presentation of the ancient world. I have learned a great deal from this book and I believe all classicists will be challenged by Pearcy's bold recommendations. --Ward W. Briggs, Jr., Carolina Distinguished Professor of Classics, University of South Carolina
The Grammar of Our Civility is a cri de coeur on behalf of reestablishing classical studies at the core of a new curriculum, one that draws on the distinctly American contact with the classical tradition. Lee Pearcy offers the first comprehensive examination of the history and purposes of classical study in our schools throughout our nation's history and calls for a radical transformation not only of our scholarship but also of our presentation of the ancient world. I have learned a great deal from this book and I believe all classicists will be challenged by Pearcy's bold recommendations. --Ward W. Briggs, Jr., Carolina Distinguished Professor of Classics, University of South Carolina
About the Author
Lee T. Pearcy (Ph.D. Bryn Mawr College) is the Director of Curriculum and Lounsbery Chair in Classics at the Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pennsylvania. Pearcy has authored or coauthored The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (1981), Mediated Muse (1984), The Shorter Homeric Hymns (1989), New First Steps in Latin (1999), New Second Steps in Latin (2001), and New Third Steps in Latin (2003).
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3.0 out of 5 stars
A Post-modernists View of Classics,
This review is from: The Grammar of Our Civility: Classical Education in America (Paperback)
I was a bit disappointed after reading through this book. How do you make classical studies more utilitarian? I think you have to have some sort of moral compass or else it all seems rather trivial. I'm afraid I came to this book with high hopes, but was left wanting.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
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This review is from: The Grammar of Our Civility: Classical Education in America (Paperback)
For the academic reader, this is a fine book. For both the general reader AND the academic, Postman's "The End of Education" is perhaps more accessible, and therefore more practically useful.
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I want to talk about what happens when language no longer describes things, when words slip their moorings in reality. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
classical liberal arts education, false paradigms, sical education, classical scholarship Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Old College, Yale Report, The Birth of Tragedy, United States, American Classics, Rockfish Gap, First World War, New York, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Benjamin Rush, Daniel Dennett, Francis Wayland, John Henry Newman, William Livingston New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
I want to talk about what happens when language no longer describes things, when words slip their moorings in reality. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
classical liberal arts education, false paradigms, sical education, classical scholarship Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Old College, Yale Report, The Birth of Tragedy, United States, American Classics, Rockfish Gap, First World War, New York, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Benjamin Rush, Daniel Dennett, Francis Wayland, John Henry Newman, William Livingston New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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book
cites this book:
- The Birth of Tragedy (Dover Thrift Editions) by Friedrich Nietzsche on 8 pages
- The Idea of a University (Rethinking the Western Tradition) by John Newman on 8 pages
- Some Thoughts Concerning Education (Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke) by John Locke in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Democracy in America (Signet Classics) by Alexis de Tocqueville on page 58, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher by Gregory Vlastos on page 107, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
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