The Art of Freedom
Teaching the Humanities to the Poor
18 January 2013
Territory Rights — Worldwide.
Description
A conversation in a prison cell sparks an ambitious undertaking to attack the roots of long-term poverty.
Over the course of seventeen years the course expanded to many U.S. cities and foreign countries. Now Earl Shorris has written the stories of those who teach and those who study the humanities—a tribute to the courage of people rising from unspeakable poverty to engage in dialogue with professors from great universities around the world.
This year, in a high school on the South Side of Chicago, a Clemente Course has begun that may change the character of public education in America and perhaps the world.
Reviews
"Earl Shorris was the most authentic and radical of educators: he thought the poor were human, entitled to know as much as anyone else. Told with verve and humor, this memoir might inspire a revolution." — John R. MacArthur, president and publisher, Harper’s
"To read The Art of Freedom is to learn what should be the first and fundamental purpose of an American education. More instructive than any academic analysis or government policy paper, Earl Shorris’s book furnishes both the how and the why to empower the nation’s public schools." — Lewis Lapham, editor, Lapham’s Quarterly
"Earl Shorris was one of a kind and his story should inspire us all." — Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus, The Nation
"Shorris demonstrated, in 17 short years, that well-designed and well-taught courses can ‘pierce the structure of the surround of force’ that holds poor people down. Many changes must be made before the culture of the streets becomes a culture of learning. But Earl Shorris has earned the right to rest in peace." — Glenn C. Altschuler, San Francisco Chronicle
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