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In the seventh century the kingdom of Samarkand sent formal gifts of fancy yellow peaches, large as goose eggs and with a color like gold, to the Chinese court at Ch'ang-an. What kind of fruit these golden peaches really were cannot now be guessed, but they have the glamour of mystery, and they symbolize all the exotic things longed for, and unknown things hoped for, by the people of the T'ang empire. This book examines the exotics imported into China during the T'ang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907), and depicts their influence on Chinese life. Into the land during the three centuries of T'ang came the natives of almost every nation of Asia, all bringing exotic wares either as gifts or as goods to be sold. Ivory, rare woods, drugs, diamonds, magicians, dancing girls—the author covers all classes of unusual imports, their places of origin, their lore, their effort on costume, dwellings, diet, and on painting, sculpture, music, and poetry. This book is not a statistical record of commercial imports and medieval trade, but rather a \"humanistic essay, however material its subject matter.\"

This book questions some of our most ingrained assumptions, not only about the nature of teaching and learning, but about what constitutes education, and about the cultural determinants of what is taught.What if who you think you are profoundly affects what and how you learn? Since Descartes, teachers in the Western tradition have dismissed the role of self in learning. What if our beliefs about self and learning are wrong, and relevance of knowledge to self actually enhances learning, as current research suggests?Jane Fried deconstructs the Grand Western Narrative of teaching and learning, describing it is a cultural fishbowl through which we see the world, rarely aware of the fishbowl itself, be it disciplinary constructs or the definition of liberal education.She leads us on a journey to question “the way things are”; to attend to the personal narratives of others from ethnic, racial and faith groups different from ourselves; to rediscover self-authorship as the core task of learning in college; and to empower ourselves and students to navigate the disorientation of the Alice in Wonderland rabbit holes of modern life.This is a book for all educators concerned about the purpose of college and of the liberal arts in the 21st century, and what it is we should reasonably expect students to learn. Jane Fried both upends many received ideas and offers constructive insights based on science and evidence, and does so in an engaging way that will stimulate reflection.

Transdisciplinarity originated in a critique of the standard configuration of knowledge in disciplines in the curriculum, including moral and ethical concerns. Pronouncements about it were first voiced between the climax of government-supported science and higher education and the long retrenchment that began in the 1970s. Early work focused on questions of epistemology and the planning of future universities and educational programs. After a lull, transdisciplinarity re-emerged in the 1990s as an urgent issue relating to the solution of new, highly complex, global concerns, beginning with climate change and sustainability and extending into many areas concerning science, technology, social problems and policy, education, and the arts. Transdisciplinarity today is characterized by its focus on “wicked problems” that need creative solutions, its reliance on stakeholder involvement, and engaged, socially responsible science. In simultaneously studying multiple levels of, and angles on, reality, transdisciplinary work provides an intriguing potential to invigorate scholarly and scientific inquiry both in and outside the academy.

This paper attempts to bring currere, the autobiographical modality of curriculum theorizing initiated by William Pinar, into conversation with new materialist theories of subjectivity. Specifically, Rosi Braidotti’s posthuman subjectivity, Jane Bennett’s vital materialist self, and Stacey Alaimo’s trans-corporeality are forwarded as markers of “the era of the porous self,” where the material boundaries of the human form are not as static as they once seemed. When the self is seen as porous, the stable “I” quickly becomes misleading. As such, this paper attempts to write autobiographically without evoking an “I”—an attempt at currere informed by posthumanism—an experiment toward currere for the era of a porous self.

In order to understand how the logic of public management can enrich humanistic management’s practices, the current paper will analyze the managerial practices adopted by public administrations within a situation of emergency, a condition where the specific features of the public management can emerge more clearly. Specifically, it will focus on the ways in which the municipality of Bergamo (one of the hardest-hit cities) have reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic, outlining interesting managerial practices especially from the point of view of Humanistic Management’s theory. Such interest resides also in the fact that although the Humanistic Management’s field of research has dealt with a wide range of topics (including human development, emancipation and progress), so far, however, it has not yet considered public administrations, whose role is by definition oriented towards human development through the creation of public value. The analysis of public management through the lens of Humanistic Management can be useful in various respects. Above all, the difference between public administrations and private enterprises can also lead to a very much different process of value creation, based on collaborative forms of production as well as relational and reflexive forms of management. In accordance with the Humanistic Management framework, also business organizations must generate social wellbeing. From this point of view, the lesson of public administrations can be extremely useful for business organization and management alike.

In Liberal Arts Education in a Changing Society: A New Perspective on Chinese Higher Education You Guo Jiang, S. J. provides a unique focus on the re-emergence of liberal arts education in China. This is the first book that explores in depth the development of liberal arts education in China.Through the extensive use of first hand materials relating to the liberal arts and current viewpoints of Chinese scholars and higher education leaders, Jiang concludes that China must implement a good liberal arts education program to form responsible global citizens.

The controversies that have developed in recent years in the field of education and training around program and competency-based approaches are not without reminiscent of those which are at the origin of a reflection on the question of methods to monitor, control, organize and shape innovation in science and technology \"and led to the emergence of the notion of responsibility for innovation and research \"(Pellé & Reber, 2015). This book is clearly part of this type of approach. Starting from a current state of play on the issues and controversies raised by curricular and competency-based approaches (Chapters 1 and 2), this book aims at presenting new theoretical frameworks, allowing to account for the processes implied by the implementation of these pedagogical innovations and, in particular, those which, at the very heart of the skills mobilized, promote a \"responsibility\" dimension. Based on a developmental approach to individual and collective competencies and their evaluation (Chapters 3, 4 and 5), it attempts to show how this approach can mobilize educational practices on strong societal issues, such as \"sustainable development \"(Chapter 5). Lastly, it aims to provide theoretical and practical benchmarks to help engage educational teams and institutions in these innovative and responsible approaches by providing a coherent framework for doing so (Chapters 6, 7 and 8).

This challenging and provocative book reimagines the justification, substance, process, and study of education in open, pluralistic, liberal democratic societies.

The author makes a strategic argument for the liberal arts grounded in realpolitik (that is, the “realistic” manipulation of the levers of power). In a time of neoliberal university governance, it is useful for fields of study to base appeals for their continued existence on their utility to their institutions. The growth of equity and diversity initiatives in the academy, particularly in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, gives us a means of making this argument, as the liberal arts have utility in questioning the structures of white supremacy and received history and values. By exploiting the cognitive dissonance between the demands of neoliberal governance and the need for diversity and equity, we can make a persuasive case for reinvestment in the liberal arts. Further, this reinvestment ought to be democratized and carried out through all levels of higher education, including, and especially, non-selective, vocationally oriented institutions.

Liberal education used to command wide political support. Radicals disagreed with conservatives on whether the best culture could be appreciated by everyone, and they disagreed, too, on whether the barriers to understanding it were mainly social and economic, but there was no dispute that any worthwhile education ought to hand on the best that has been thought and said. That consensus has vanished since the 1960s. The book examines why social radicals supported liberal education, why they have moved away from it, and what the implications are for the future of an intellectually stimulating and culturally literate education.