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 a professor of Philosophy and holds the Catherine & Henry J. Gaisman Chair in Judeo-Christian Studies. Her new book The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth and On Plato's Euthyphro, is a revised and expanded edition that includes a new preface, “The Death of Socrates and the Post-Socratic Schools,” and an essay, “On Plato's Euthyphro.”

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

In the ongoing “Great Liberal Arts Debate,” the most compelling arguments often come from those who have lived its impact. We caught up with four distinguished School of Liberal Arts alumni, each with their own diverse career path. They shared how their Tulane education — be it rooted in core curriculum or more interdisciplinary in nature — profoundly shaped their career paths and continues to inform their success in an ever-evolving world.

Sophia Gutierrez (SLA ’21)

English, Classical Studies, SLAM Minor, Simon & Schuster Sales Associate

I approach this topic from a very unique perspective. My solution to this whole debate is that it is a trick question, though, because they both matter, so it works out.

Every single person I work with was an English major. So, while it is a very direct connection, I don’t think the specific things I learned while getting my English degree directly correlate to my day-to-day role. I’m a salesperson — I’m not editing. I’m not trying to tell someone how to make their book sound better. But I am using persuasive writing, critical thinking, and creative problem solving.

One of the favorite things I did at Tulane was take History of the Canon of American Literature, with Dr. Ed White. I learned why we included certain pieces in the canon. What caused changes? I would make the argument that what you’re reading and what you’re learning is almost irrelevant, as long as you’re developing certain skills. And I think the thing that’s most important to learn is general history. You know the classic line: if you don’t learn history, you’re doomed to repeat it. Which is, I think, very topical for our current political moment.

The aptitudes that I learned are far more relevant to whatever I choose to do for the rest of my life. I’m 25. My career could go many different ways. Currently, it’s publishing, and I love it, but I could do so many other things. When you choose a major at 18, you can’t know for a fact that it’s going to translate to your career. Yes, it’s useful to have read the classics and have that common knowledge. But I’d also argue that in a world where people are reading less and less, getting people to read anything is more important than getting them to read something specific, because there’s inherent value in just about anything you read.

John Strasburger (A&S ’86)

Political Science and International Relations, Litigation Trial Lawyer

What I do for a living requires a law degree. And so, from that standpoint, nothing that you know before the law degree is disqualifying in any way, but the attributes that are most important for being any kind of lawyer are the ability to read, write, and communicate clearly. It is also important to be able to tear an issue apart, dissect it, understand it, and analyze it.

When I was in school, the engineering students and the business students had so many requirements that they had to take. They did not have the time to dabble in many of the courses within the liberal arts. Within the liberal arts, you have a lot more flexibility to take Psychology classes that may discipline your mind in a different way than the study of Economics.

When I’m looking for young talent to hire, I don’t care if they studied Biology, Economics, Engineering, or played the oboe in the Rice University Symphony. I care that they learned how to analyze all the possibilities and effectively communicate them in written and oral form.

The worst possible outcome is to study something you’re not particularly interested in. Your career is a fool’s errand. If you’re the right kind of student, you can learn important skill sets in any discipline.

Jennifer Mills (SLA ’01)

Music Vocal Performance, Internal Medicine Doctor

As a doctor who also has a BFA in Musical Vocal Performance, I obviously needed to take a lot of science classes as an undergrad. But the truth of the matter is that all of the pre-med prerequisites are not of use to me in my current role. You learn to memorize and memorize efficiently, but the actual assimilation of information, restructuring, and making connections to health issues is entirely liberal arts thinking — not science. The actual creative thinking and problem solving, which I do every day as an internist, are not based on or reinforced by any Physics class or Calculus class that I took.

With science, something exists. There is a truth, and we have to find the truth and excavate it. With the arts, anything can be true, and we can create something new. I think the critical thinking of other disciplines, like Philosophy or English, is where you learn to think beyond memorization and regurgitation.

When communicating with patients, I often reference something from classical literature rather than using scientific vocabulary. I think people are more conversant in arts and disciplines, versus having to learn the mathematical thinking of Chemistry or Physics. I think I’m better at it because of my liberal arts background.

Maria Cordero (SLA ’25)

Philosophy and International Relations, Philosophy PhD Candidate

There is, in Philosophy, I think, the advantage that you can study anything under that label. There’s philosophy of art, philosophy of love, and philosophy of action. I read political philosophy in my Political Science classes. Reading allows you to choose what to believe in, but you still have to go through the content. You might sometimes say, “I took away nothing from that,” but other times you might say, “This is the most valuable thing I’ve ever learned.”

I do think a lot of literature overlaps with philosophy. So, I don’t think they’re self-exclusive in any way. And this is a popular opinion, but there is a certain curiosity that you need to have in order to appreciate literature. It’s a practice of empathy. It’s a practice of nurturing your mind, and being human is part of that. You might hate the book outlined on your class syllabus, but the practice of reading it is so much more valuable than avoiding it.

I think there are two sides to Philosophy being so popular. The main one is that it has become a means to an end. So, it’s not necessarily that Philosophy attracts people because they are in it for the love of knowledge. It’s more like, if I study Philosophy, then I can go to law school, and it looks good. Or if I study Philosophy, I can do X and Y, and I’ll be employable. But you sit in Philosophy classes, and there’s a lack of engagement. A lot of people do find it interesting, but you will find very few people who will continue with Philosophy after undergrad. That’s something that I’m grappling with, too, being in classes where people aren’t as engaged and are only there for a career. But is this what liberal arts is actually about? Just a career?

Douglas N. Harris, Schlieder Foundation Chair in Public Education, Chair and Professor, Economics

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

A few years ago, I started to get worried about where we are headed as a country. Misinformation, distrust, anger, and polarization were — and remain — pervasive. I wanted to do something. So, I started to ask, how are we really doing? Is the nation’s bad mood really justified? If so, how and why?

We could not have come up with a sensible notion of the state of the nation without the liberal arts to help us understand the full and complex range of the human experience.

Fan Zhang, Jessie J. Poesch Professorship in Art, assistant professor in Asian Art at the Newcomb Art Department, Tulane’s Asian Studies Program, and Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program. 

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

Long before it became the focus of her fieldwork and current book project, Fan Zhang was drawn to ancient burial sites. Growing up in Chengdu, a city in Southwestern China, she remembers riding her bike to the royal tomb of a Ming dynasty prince and taking the bus to the Bronze-Age burial pits of Sanxingdui. “The most fun trips I remember were not to zoos or amusement parks,” she says, “but to burial sites and ancient remains.”

Today, Zhang is an assistant professor in Asian Art and holds the Jessie J. Poesch Professorship in Art at Tulane. As an art historian, she specializes in the material culture of early medieval China. Her book-in-progress, A Center on the Border: Migration, Identity, and Cosmopolitanism in Fifth-Century Chinese Art, explores the mortuary art of 300 burial sites in Pingcheng, a city in Northern China that served both as the capital of the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534) and as a border between nomadic steppes and China proper. Rather than focus on the distinction — and tension — between the Han Chinese and the nomads in Pingcheng, as traditional historiographies have done before, Zhang’s project reveals a more nuanced story of cultural pluralism, and of the creativity and innovation that emerged out of this transcultural exchange.

Zhang has come a long way from her childhood wanderings. Her research has earned support from prestigious institutions, including a 2025 Mellon Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton, a nearly $50,000 Award to Louisiana Artists & Scholars (ATLAS) grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents, and upcoming residencies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Fudan University. Though her process now includes archival research, months spent in the field, and collaboration with local scholars, she maintains a sense of wonder and excitement in her work.

One striking discovery was the tomb of Han Farong, a woman of a non-noble background who, despite the plain appearance of her tomb, was buried with an extraordinary set of jewelry, including a necklace of over 4,000 Indo-Pacific beads and an intricate pair of gold earrings designed with Indo-Bactrian motifs. The jewelry, Zhang explains, shows the cosmopolitan fashion at Pingcheng — that luxury goods and the foreign exotic were not restricted to royals or aristocrats, but were likely available to any city dwellers who could afford them.

She is also working on a 3D model of the tomb of Lady Poduoluo, a member of a non-Han ethnic group whose funerary portraits depict her seated equally with her husband — in distinct contrast to typically male-centered Han Chinese funerary art. The couple’s clothing blends Han and Xianbei styles, and Buddhist references appear in the mural composition. Dominating historical narratives assume the nomads simply assimilating into Han Chinese culture, but such findings prove the syncretism of cultures and give agency to the immigrants who played an important role in China’s artistic development and history.

When Zhang first left China to pursue her PhD at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), New York University, she experienced a shift in identity — from a member of the dominate majority in China, as Han Chinese herself, to a minority group in the United States. “This led me to consider the relationship of ‘us’ and ‘other,’ and the shifting and multiple identities one could have,” she says. In New York City, she experienced “true cosmopolitanism,” and began understanding the mechanism of cities as a place “where people from diverse backgrounds share the urban space and create something extraordinary and impossible for a closed society.”

Zhang sees border cities — particularly those like Pingcheng — not as sites of division, but as “contact zones for cultural interaction.” She hopes that this book will highlight the unique position of all borders, and emphasize migration as key to artistic innovation. Rooted in her love of fieldwork is the desire to eschew simple definitions, embrace complexity, and question our definitions of “center” and “periphery.” “I focus on individuals who facilitated and embodied these interactions, rather than label them generally,” she explains. “By investigating individual burial remains, it reveals a more nuanced picture than the binary divisions.”

Michael P. Kuczynski, Pierce Butler Professor of English

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

When I was an undergraduate in the late 1970s at a small Jesuit college outside Philadelphia, earning your BA was like getting on the elevated train at the first stop and not disembarking until the last. Study was organized around a humanities “core”: two courses in prose composition (at Tulane, we call this First-Year Writing), three in History, three in Philosophy, three in Theology, and three in foreign languages. Because I was an English major, there were numerous additional requirements in literature, historically arranged, from Chaucer through modern poetry. I was already intrigued by the Middle Ages and interested in becoming a medievalist, so I chose Latin for my language. The rest of the core set me up wonderfully for graduate school.

When I got to grad school, I sometimes found myself ahead of my peers because of my undergraduate training. I didn’t have many graduate electives, but that didn’t bother me. After all, I had elected — as a graduate student now — to continue working the core. The microchoices of my education were laid out before me, like a chef’s tasting menu. None of them were bland.

Most colleges and universities no longer offer this kind of core curriculum to either undergraduates or graduate students. I think, however, that the concept of a humanities core and its availability at a place like Tulane makes sense. Tulane combines the appeal of a Research 1 institution with a liberal arts college. Working the core, for faculty and students alike, enhances both those missions.

Proponents of AI in higher education, beware!

For many excellent reasons, students want more choices, especially across the undergraduate curriculum — and the core appears to restrict choice. The original core was popular at Columbia University after World War I, as a way of ensuring that all students received a basic grounding in what were regarded as the “classics” of Western thought and writing. The names of core authors are inscribed around the outside of Butler Library, a site of student activism since the 1960s. The marble lineup is exclusively male and Eurocentric. I once heard someone refer to it cynically as a tombstone. I’d argue, however, that working the core for many years has in fact enlivened and strengthened it: Certain muscles that the corpus of American education never knew it had, have become manifest. During the 19th century, figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau, whose educational programs were steeped in Latin and Greek, also advocated for the study of modern Western languages and literature — and for the editing, translation, analysis, and emulation of various Eastern texts, such as the Bhagavad Gita. That rebel Thoreau demonstrates, throughout Walden, how the discipline of studying classical languages is liberating rather than confining. In Columbia’s core today, Toni Morrison stands alongside Homer, Gandhi accompanies Plato, and Andy Warhol hangs with Raphael. What is required in the 2020s is more representative and various than in the early 1900s, in part because the original core stimulated the intelligence of those who submitted to it and encouraged a critical examination of the concept of “value.”

The other day, I was reflecting on how, in each of my core classes as an undergraduate, two figures were mentioned so regularly that they might have been enrolled as my fellow students: Freud and Marx. I am neither a Freudian nor a Marxist, but I learned an immense amount from hearing my professors — some Jesuits, others lay people — apply the ideas of these two monumental thinkers to the interpretation of literary texts. I never felt, in reading them, or Milton, or Thomas Aquinas, that I was being “indoctrinated.” I remember in particular reading a short book, Hamlet and Oedipus, first published in 1949 by a disciple of Freud, Ernst Jones. I’d obsessed over these core dramas before, but never thought of them together. Jones’s approach changed my imaginative engagement with Shakespeare and Sophocles for the better. I also remember reading Hard Times, Dickens’s novel about industrialized education, in the same class in which I read an abridged version of Marx’s masterpiece, Capital, and the full text of Darwin’s Origin of Species. At the end of the course, I was an avid student of fiction alongside nonfiction, and vice versa. My education in the core had helped me to escape the mechanical approach to life and learning that is encouraged at the corporate school in Hard Times — run by Mr. Gradgrind and supervised by his master teacher, Mr. M’Choakumchild. Proponents of AI in higher education, beware!

Some teachers and students of the core were undoubtedly more elitist and exclusivist than others. But for those of us who worked the core properly — in both a disciplined and enlightened way — its boundaries also became vistas. I am currently writing a book entitled White Jesus, about how one of the most influential figures in human history, an itinerant Middle Eastern preacher, became Europeanized during the medieval and early modern periods, in literature, theology, and the visual arts. I would not have been able to imagine such a book, let alone write it, without my training in the core. Working the classical core enabled me, as it has many others, to look imaginatively beyond it.