Longwood University is, as we all know, a Liberal Arts college. Liberal Arts can mean a variety of things; one of the definitions that come to mind is humanities. A humanities education is important, but how important is it? Well, the new series of talks called “Humans Being” tells us all why a humanities education is important.
Dr. David Magill, associate professor of English, along with Wade Edwards, associate professor of French, and Kimberly Stern, assistant professor of English, are all working together to bring this series of talks to students at Longwood. Magill wanted these talks to highlight the great aspects of Longwood, including the fact that the humanities education was not lost on Longwood.
With this series of talks, there will be six panels total – three each semester. Aside from the panels each semester, there are also different events throughout the semester that will give an inside look at a humanities education. On Sept. 11, Dr. Mark Edmundson from the University of Virginia will be speaking on “The Soul of the Humanities” in Jarman Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. This could be the beginnings of this semester's humanities education series of talks The first panel called “Why Music Matters” is on Sept. 23 at 7 p.m. in Hull Auditorium where all the panels will take place. At each panel there will be three speakers, two professors and one student, according to Magill. One of the professors will be of the discipline of the panel and one will be an outsider of that discipline, but this outside professor has some interest in the panel’s topic. For example, Magill is an English Professor, but he will be on the “Why History Matters” panel because of his personal interest in history as well as the fact that the style of English he teaches has some historical context.
The basic set up of each panel will include basic topics and an explanation of why the topic matters. According to Magill, each person sitting on the panel will have five minutes to speak, and then the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions to the panels. Magill noted that at the “Why Music Matters” panel, there will also be some sort of musical interlude.
Magill also mentioned that he is planning on meeting with the other professor and the student on his panel, and he can only say that the other people on other panels could be meeting to figure out exactly what the opening statements will be and who will field each question and so on.
According to Magill, a citizen leader is “someone who is widely educated and because of that they are uniquely equipped” with a liberal arts, humanities education. Attending these talks can help meld us all into better citizen leaders, to learn from other disciplines how important our liberal arts and humanities education can be.
All six panels will be in Hull Auditorium at 7:00 p.m.: Sept. 11 “Why Music Matters” Oct. 28 “Why History Matters” Nov. 18 “Why Literature Matters”
Jan. 27 “Why Art Matters” Feb. 17 “Why Philosophy Matters” March 10 “Why World Languages Matters”
For more information on any of the panels or talks visit http://blogs.
longwood.edu/humansbeing/
