education today? What is the value of liberal education through the study of so-called “great books”? His talk aims to step back and consider in broad terms the premises and promises of liberal education. Why is it under threat in colleges and universities? Does the practice have an ideological bent? To what extent does it reproduce and to what extent does it challenge inherited structures of social privilege?
Dr. Montás is Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University and director of the Freedom and Citizenship Program, which introduces low-income high school students to the Western political tradition through the study of original texts. From 2008 to 2018, he served as director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum. He is the author of Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, (Princeton University Press, 2021).
