Stanley Fish: Liberal Arts Ed. Needs No Justification September 7, 2011

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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/conference/chq_2011_video_sampler

Stanley Fish, professor of law and humanities at Florida International University, rebuts arguments against the value of arts and humanities instruction in post-secondary educational institutions. "The demand for justification is always the demand that something be justified in terms not its own," he says, contending that the arts cannot be adequately explained in any terms but their own.

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Each morning this week, we will hear from people representing and supporting the arts, particularly those art forms represented at Chautauqua -- literature, visual arts, orchestra, theater, opera, dance -- discussing the role of the arts in civil society -- education, economic recovery, healing, and cross-cultural understanding. Afternoon lectures will examine the role of the arts in worship. This week will highlight Chautauqua's four-pillar mix of arts, education, religion, and recreation. - Chautauqua Institution

Stanley Fish is the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and Law at Florida International University in Miami. A well-known public intellectual, he writes frequently on the politics of the university and maintains a New York Times blog where he comments regularly on the humanities, education, law and society.

He is the author of numerous books and articles, including How Milton Works; Is There a Text in This Class? Interpretive Communities and the Sources of Authority; The Trouble With Principle; Professional Correctness: Literary Studies and Political Change; There's No Such Thing as Free Speech: And It's a Good Thing, Too; and Save the World on Your Own Time. His essays and articles have appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Harper's Magazine, Esquire and The Atlantic.