March 12, 2014

demand intellectual engagement (2007)

"Deliverance from a Gilded Cage" (1994)


. . . the case for craft education at the college level should be addressed to a generalized liberal arts university. Why? Because liberal arts institutions place a rigorous intellectual demand (in theory, if not quite in practice) on subjects taught in that environment. To justify a subject within the liberal arts one must answer specific questions about the subject's place in the larger society, and its ability to demand intellectual engagement. If craft can answer the questions imposed by the liberal arts framework, it can answer similar questions raised by small colleges, art schools – and in fact, almost any educational setting. . . . 

Bruce Metcalf (2007)