Allison Dube

The essays in this collection contemplate the various intersections and barriers between artificial intelligence along with the values and practices of liberal education. For the proponents of liberal education as a core component of undergraduate education, the study of literature, history, philosophy, and the social sciences, like their objects and their forms of practice, are perceived to be about what is essentially human. In spheres previously thought to be exclusively human domains, modern, digitally-constructed artificial intelligence has profound implications for liberal studies, how they may be practiced, and why they are important. This collection explores the implications of AI and the world it is shaping as a potential threat and augmentation of liberal education. These essays also demonstrate how liberal studies illuminate the meaning and significance of AI and how they have shaped its development and character. The contributors to this volume write from the perspectives of philosophy, classical studies, political theory, fine art, curriculum development, and computing and information science. Several essays consider how the conventional concerns and agendas of liberal education have acquired a new urgency in the digital age. They reflect upon how the deployment of artificial intelligence confronts and problematizes what it means to be human, and how liberal education is needed to preserve and ensure what makes us humans thrive. Other essays consider how AI must be understood as an extension of our humanity and how the ethos must inform the further development and deployment of new technologies of liberal education. These challenging essays pose hard questions and the unflinching exploration of matters at the cutting edge of science, culture, and how they merge together with education.

The idea of the university and the idea of liberal education share a family resemblance. However, it is not always explicitly clear what they have in common and what differentiates them. This collection brings together arguments and reflections on the nature of the university and the place of liberal learning in the 21st century. It is divided into two parts. In the first part authors examine the values and ideals that shape our understanding of liberal learning and the university; in the second part authors consider pedagogies informing our practices, asking after what underlying presuppositions, when made explicit, guide our liberal education classrooms in higher education. Unique in its approaches, this volume includes defenses of liberal education’s intrinsic value, the commodification of some of its best ideals, as well as utilitarian defenses that challenge some orthodox conceptions of liberal learning and its justifications. Each in its own right understands liberal learning as essential to the defense of a democratic order. On the pedagogical side, included are essays that defend a view of liberal education from the vantage of STEM subjects, including architecture, as well as those we typically associate with the liberal arts. This volume will aid academics and students seeking to better grasp an understanding of liberal education, but also those seeking to advance their pedagogical ideas about liberal learning. Researchers and students in education, higher education and those interested in the liberal arts and sciences will find this volume a useful addition to their collection.