Originally published in the 2025 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

Tulane’s School of Liberal Arts is committed to providing a dynamic and relevant education that prepares students for an evolving world. Our recently updated curricula reflect this dedication, creating new departments, enhanced pathways, and innovative courses. These strategic changes underscore our commitment to academic excellence and student success in the 21st century.

Woldenberg Art Center is now home to the Digital Ceramics Lab, a collaboration between the Tulane School of Liberal Arts Newcomb Art Department and the Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment. With the lab’s clay 3D printers — two Potterbot Super 10 XLs — ceramics students can design and create digitally fabricated sculptures, and architecture students have a chance to explore advanced material research in parametric design.

In the lab, Grace McIntyre-Willis, a design fabrication adjunct and lecturer in the Newcomb Art Department, teaches 3D Printing Ceramics. Students learn the basics of 3D modeling and slicing software to design innovative ceramic pieces for both sculptural and utilitarian applications, pushing the boundaries of the technology's dynamic and practical capabilities. As a result of this interdisciplinary bridge between art and architecture, they have witnessed the lab become a truly collaborative environment, enriching research opportunities in materials and fabrication for ceramicists and architects alike.

“As disciplines break down the silos that separate us, novel research can be conducted; in this case, research that furthers our understanding between digital technology and what humans deem natural,” explained McIntyre-Willis.

Possibilities for the lab extend even further: “We have had ecology students experiment with the possibility of creating bio-receptive ceramic modules, architecture students creating module facade systems, two graduate students complete their thesis work exploring 3D clay fabrication, and more,” they shared. “Students have utilized 3D photogrammetry/scanning techniques to fabricate objects, printed with non-clay materials, and used unconventional ways of printing to create clay forms.”

Current courses utilizing the lab include 3D Printing Ceramics and two architecture courses — Translations: Advanced Digital Fabrication and Ecological Tectonics: Architectural Ceramic Assemblies for Climate Adaptation. In Ecological Tectonics, students embrace technical knowledge as a way to realize ecological and climate-friendly agendas in architecture, learning how to program and operate the robots to create full-scale ceramic facade components.

Bryn Creager, a 4th-year architecture student, was enrolled in both the 3D Printing Ceramics and Advanced Fabrication courses this semester. “The ceramic 3D printing lab is exciting to me because it bridges the gap between the nonphysical world of digital design and the physicality of making,” Creager shared. “The Potterbot doesn’t replace the qualities of the hand; it extends them, creating forms that the hand alone couldn’t achieve. It’s a powerful tool that encourages cross-pollination between art and architecture, connecting digital precision with material experimentation." 

The Digital Ceramics Lab is open to all students who wish to experiment with digital and material fabrication, and welcomes workshops and tours from other disciplines. Students who wish to try out the lab can explore open lab hours and book a training session on the Newcomb Art Department website.
 

Thomas Beller, Director of Creative Writing & Professor, English

Originally published in the 2025 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

Recently, while doing research on my father’s mysterious immigration from Vienna in 1938, I came across an article about Professor Walter Sokel that appeared in a 1961 issue of the Columbia University Spectator. I first read the article a decade ago, but now some lines that had previously passed unnoticed jumped off the page in ways that seemed to speak directly to contemporary issues facing university education in 2025.

Sokel had been friends with my father and his older brother, Kuno, in Vienna when they were kids living in the 2nd district — the once Jewish neighborhood that sits in the shadow of the Prater and its famous Ferris wheel. Sokel’s family and my father’s family both escaped from Vienna in the immediate aftermath of the Anschluss in March 1938, eventually landing in America. Once their lives were reconfigured here, they stayed in touch. My father became a psychoanalyst. Sokel became a professor of German literature who taught at Stanford, Columbia, and the University of Virginia.

The Spectator article introduces Sokel as a product of the European educational system — the gymnasium — which, he explains, “stresses factual knowledge in a few subjects over discussion. Mathematics and the classical languages are taught by rote from the earliest grades, and become quite mechanical by the end of the studies at the gymnasium.” This was in juxtaposition with the American system, which, he said, “stresses discussion, with the factual knowledge of secondary importance.”

He was referring, specifically, to the humanities courses at Columbia, which were “the last stronghold of the discussion class over the lecture class. In these classes, the instructor not only teaches, he learns.”

Sokel was retired and well into his 90s by the time we began to correspond by letter. I sent him my first book of stories and he responded that the characters reminded him of people he had once known — “complicated people, ambivalent, inward looking and quasi-intellectual, with an oblique relationship to the world” — and said he felt amazed “that the city had sustained that kind of person.”

The gift of a humanities education is that you might be lucky enough to find work that you so want to keep doing.

I had one long, gratifying conversation with him on the phone. To my great irritation, I failed to record it. But I took contemporaneous notes. The most striking detail was his use of the word “emancipation” to describe the effect of arriving in America on him, my father, and uncle, an effect that was much less pronounced for their parents. I did not, at the time, think to ask if this freedom was from the strictures of the gymnasium, or from Jewish life in Vienna, even before the Nazis, or if it was something more fundamental to their generation, who had been freed of the mentality of the Shtetl from which their parents had fled during and after World War I. Even without the specific context, “emancipation” rang out. There are many kinds of freedom — political, financial, and that elusive inner freedom to see oneself, to be in dialogue with oneself, to change.

A quote in the Spectator article that suddenly seemed conspicuous was in connection with Sokel’s opinion that the ideal form of education was a synthesis of the European and American models. “However, the recent advent of IBM machines makes factual knowledge necessary. Professor Sokel hopes that America will not go overboard in its quest for facts.”

Our current preoccupations with automation in the age of AI has a strong parallel to the early computer age, a more primitive form of automation that nevertheless sparked similar anxieties about machines replacing acts of the human, making life more streamlined and efficient. A form of assisted living that deprives us of something essential to our experience of life. A metaphor and reality that have now taken on existential dimensions with the advent of AI in which the player piano no longer just replaces the human hand that plays the music but also the mind that makes it.

The provocation of AI has made me consider what it is I am doing in my classes as a professor of creative writing. The information I impart to students involves contemporary authors they have not previously read or even heard of, as well as my feedback on their own work, for which they have deadlines. “No one is giving you deadlines for creative writing once you leave college,” I tell them. We talk about literature and their own writing. These discussions, moderated but free flowing, seem most valuable of all. But conversation is, all in all, rather slight; if you could weigh it, it would be light as a feather.

And yet, as I get older, and as my own children approach college age, it has dawned on me that for my students, this is it. This is their education. For all the nonsense that accompanies discussions of a college education — how much it costs, how its value can be assessed — what is indisputable is that it’s an important time in life. This is when these young people have time to read short stories and essays and write things and lie around with thoughts half-formed and then stay up late, or wake up early, putting those thoughts into words and on the page. It’s a way to test their limits, and find their way towards interests, creative and intellectual, that will last long after the class is over.

In my conversation with Sokel, which took place in the spring of 2011, he remarked that he was working on a paper about time in Nietzche, Einstein, and Kafka, to be presented in Vienna in the fall, and added that he had had an acute anxiety attack about it.

“It came about because I realized I was close to the, you know, the finish line, the deadline,” he said. “I didn’t have much time left, and I wasn’t nearly done.”

At first, I thought he was talking about the sudden realization that he was going to die soon, and that there was so much more he wanted to accomplish. But this was not the case, or not entirely the case — he died in 2014. He meant he was so near the deadline of this piece, and he still had much more work to do. And thinking about that now, I think surely the gift of a humanities education is that you might be lucky enough to find work that you so want to keep doing. To find an education that offers glimpses of a way of living: “with sensitivity, irony, conversation, general knowledge, reflection, learning, and humanity,” to quote his daughter Shari, with whom I corresponded in preparation for this piece.

Mastering Unstructured Problems: The Liberal Arts Advantage

The liberal arts, and especially the humanities, are important for everyone. Although the specific disciplines included under the umbrella of liberal arts have evolved over time, they have been a significant part of higher education for more than a millennium. The term “liberal arts” derives from the Latin for “free” (liber/liberalis) and “skill/practice” (ars/artes) because these studies were essential in preparing free citizens for life as leaders in their communities. This is just as true now as it ever was — perhaps even more so. We live in a world where movement around the globe and interaction with international communities is easier and more frequent than in the past. In this world, the liberal arts offer ways of engaging with other cultures through its variety of disciplines. In addition, the liberal arts prepare one to work through “unstructured problems” and to understand specific issues within a broader context — the “big picture” view.

Science can teach you how to clone a dinosaur. Humanities can tell you why this might be a bad idea.

The expanded worldview has many advantages. In recent years, the benefit of higher education itself has been questioned, especially the value of the liberal arts. The best argument in favor of a liberal arts education is that it supports and encourages creativity. All the liberal arts disciplines encourage students to think about complex issues for which there are often no specific rules or frameworks. The outcome is that the student learns how to develop strategies for dealing with the “unstructured problems” of the world. Most of the challenges that we confront in our lives are not neatly packaged with rules and instructions on how to fix them. In the liberal arts, you prepare yourself to think deeply and in a more constructive way. Moreover, learning how to approach the unstructured research problems presented in the liberal arts curriculum outfits you to become a lifelong learner, someone capable of adapting to new situations and problems. In other words, you are learning how to learn, not just mastering an array of facts.

A frequent concern expressed in higher education revolves around preparing students for the jobs of the future. How will we know what those are? The world as we know it is changing rapidly, and it may not be possible to predict what will be needed 10 or 20 years from now. Progress seems so rapid that we are outpacing our ability to consider its implications. A meme from a few years ago (“Science can teach you how to clone a dinosaur. Humanities can tell you why this might be a bad idea”) suggested that the liberal arts, particularly the humanities, could — indeed should — have a role in dealing with new technology. The key to preparing for the unknown is developing a flexible mindset grounded in reason, ethics, and creativity. If you immerse yourself in the liberal arts, you are equipping yourself with skills that last a lifetime and prepare you for nearly anything.

The liberal arts, and especially the humanities, are important for everyone. Although the specific disciplines included under the umbrella of liberal arts have evolved over time, they have been a significant part of higher education for more than a millennium. The term “liberal arts” derives from the Latin for “free” (liber/liberalis) and “skill/practice” (ars/artes) because these studies were essential in preparing free citizens for life as leaders in their communities. This is just as true now as it ever was — perhaps even more so. We live in a world where movement around the globe and interaction with international communities is easier and more frequent than in the past. In this world, the liberal arts offer ways of engaging with other cultures through its variety of disciplines. In addition, the liberal arts prepare one to work through “unstructured problems” and to understand specific issues within a broader context — the “big picture” view.

The expanded worldview has many advantages. In recent years, the benefit of higher education itself has been questioned, especially the value of the liberal arts. The best argument in favor of a liberal arts education is that it supports and encourages creativity. All the liberal arts disciplines encourage students to think about complex issues for which there are often no specific rules or frameworks. The outcome is that the student learns how to develop strategies for dealing with the “unstructured problems” of the world. Most of the challenges that we confront in our lives are not neatly packaged with rules and instructions on how to fix them. In the liberal arts, you prepare yourself to think deeply and in a more constructive way. Moreover, learning how to approach the unstructured research problems presented in the liberal arts curriculum outfits you to become a lifelong learner, someone capable of adapting to new situations and problems. In other words, you are learning how to learn, not just mastering an array of facts.

A frequent concern expressed in higher education revolves around preparing students for the jobs of the future. How will we know what those are? The world as we know it is changing rapidly, and it may not be possible to predict what will be needed 10 or 20 years from now. Progress seems so rapid that we are outpacing our ability to consider its implications. A meme from a few years ago (“Science can teach you how to clone a dinosaur. Humanities can tell you why this might be a bad idea”) suggested that the liberal arts, particularly the humanities, could — indeed should — have a role in dealing with new technology. The key to preparing for the unknown is developing a flexible mindset grounded in reason, ethics, and creativity. If you immerse yourself in the liberal arts, you are equipping yourself with skills that last a lifetime and prepare you for nearly anything.

Training prepares you to deal with the known. Education prepares you to tackle the unknown.

(Adapted from Thomas Ricks, The Generals, 2012)

Thomas Albrecht Chair and Professor, English

Originally published in the 2025 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

As many liberal arts students learn in their classes, a paradox is a proposition that runs contrary to received opinion and that careful investigation may nevertheless prove to be true. These days, the paradox I often put to my students is that three years after the release of ChatGPT, now is the ideal time to take courses in languages and Literature, History and Philosophy. I tell students that now, more than ever, is the perfect moment to declare a major in one of the liberal arts fields.

Today’s conventional wisdom of course tells students that from an employment point of view, now is the time to major in Computer Science and applied STEM fields. But by an ironic turn of fate, the technical jobs for which those majors prepare students are increasingly being outsourced to AI. Human coding skills are being replaced by “vibecoding” programs, and software engineering and development tasks are more and more being performed by AI-powered chatbots. The revolution devours its own children, Jacques Mallet du Pan famously remarked about France in 1793, offering just the kind of critical insight that a liberal arts student might have.

The paradoxical value of studying the liberal arts is that they teach us things that AI can’t do. They do not simply impart information or teach technical skills. The true value of the humanities lies in how they galvanize our humanity. One example is creativity. Truly original creative expression, in whatever form, cannot be derived from a database, no matter how vast. Another example is three-dimensionality of thought, as opposed to the characteristic flatness of what AI generates. A third example is empathy. Some people regard feelings as a liability, especially for men. But in the age of AI, emotional understanding is a rare and increasingly precious asset.

Thomas Albrecht is a professor of English and chair of the English Department. Professor Albrecht’s research areas include 19th century British and European literature, in particular, narrative fiction and the novel; literary realism; British women writers; and British and European aestheticism and literary decadence.

Ronna Burger, Catherine & Henry J. Gaisman Chair and Professor, Philosophy

Originally published in the 2025 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

The question of liberal arts education, if framed as a debate between “content” and “aptitude” taken as a mutually exclusive dichotomy, is seriously misleading. In fact, the most meaningful way to develop intellectual aptitude, I would argue, requires engagement with a particular content: the classic works that have inspired thinkers, writers, and artists over centuries, traditionally called “the great books.” Grappling with these demanding texts fosters skills in articulating, expressing, and assessing ideas. Entering into dialogue with their authors, we rise to a level we were not even aware of before. Teaching classes devoted to the study of those works over many decades, I have often heard students remark, “This is what I thought a college course would be like.”

The exciting endeavor of interpreting a great book does not come about by simply opening up its pages. A beginner needs guidance in learning what it means to read carefully and thoughtfully, what questions to raise, how to proceed in a paradoxical spirit of moderation and courage. On the one hand, we must assume that these authors are wiser than we are and we have much to learn from them; on the other hand, we must boldly think for ourselves, asking what that wise author could have meant by a puzzling point, pondering how it might shed light on our own concerns. In returning to such a book a second time, or more, we discover new riches, in part by recognizing what we missed before. Since that is just as true for the one who provides this guidance, the teacher is always a student at the same time.

The classics are books that have shaped us and our study of them a journey to understanding who and what we are. Our tradition is rooted in two sources, “Jerusalem and Athens” in shorthand, or the Bible and Greek philosophy, and the nature of the relation between them is a dynamic force in determining our identity. Whatever their dispute answers, an open-minded exploration of these two sources brings to light fundamental questions about issues that continue to occupy us: humanity and divinity, reason and revelation, man and woman, nature and law, opinion and knowledge, individual and community, democracy and tyranny, justice, nobility and the good.

The “canon” of works in which such fundamental questions are addressed should not be approached as a repository of doctrines; on the contrary, one mark of a great book is the way it precludes dogmatism. This is exemplified by the philosopher Socrates, engaged in the activity of “examination of opinion.” Plato’s representation in his dialogues draws the reader into the inquiry, uncovering the partial character of the opinions expressed, and animating a pursuit of the truth. This is not just an intellectual exercise, but the core of a way of life.

The exciting endeavor of interpreting a great book does not come about by simply opening up its pages. A beginner needs guidance in learning what it means to read carefully and thoughtfully, what questions to raise, how to proceed in a paradoxical spirit of moderation and courage.

Plato illustrates the challenges to education in his inventive and profound image of the cave, perhaps especially applicable in our technological epoch. Every society is an enclosed world, we citizens are chained in seats able to see only shadows on a wall in front of us, produced by artifacts carried along behind us, projected by the light of a fire. But we are not fated to imprisonment: Every cave has an opening to the light outside, and it is always possible to be turned around, to discover the cause of the images previously taken for reality, and ultimately to consider whether and how those constructions reflect what is true by nature. Plato offers a subtle hint of the role of the philosopher in this process: A figure inside the cave is busy asking a newly released prisoner about the passing artifacts, “What is it?” This is the question addressed in each Platonic dialogue: What is justice, or courage or moderation or knowledge, love or friendship or pleasure, among other matters of the greatest importance to us.

Pursuing such questions through our study of the classics — reading, thinking, and conversing — frees us from an “unexamined life,” unlocking the valuable potential of a liberal arts education, for which college years should be a preparation.

Ronna Burger is professor of Philosophy and holds the Catherine & Henry J. Gaisman Chair in Judeo-Christian Studies. She has taught at Tulane since 1980.