The Art of Freedom: Teaching the Humanities to the Poor
My students live on the razor’s edge of truth. . . . If they fall over backwards, they die. For the alcoholics and addicts Mary Ann Kohli teaches in the Clemente Course in the Humanities, learning is no mere academic exercise. Rather, it is the struggle to wrest from Shakespeare or Shelley a way out of life-threatening pathologies. As the founder of this bold educational experiment, Shorris introduces his readers to the remarkable men and women willing to take the liberating message of the world’s greatest poets and philosophers to the most impoverished and desperate students. Many share with Kohli a commitment to emancipating hard-pressed Americans—from the Yup’ik and Cup’ik peoples of northern Alaska to the vulnerable adolescents in inner-city Chicago high schools. But some are taking the humanities to needy groups in other lands—including refugees in Darfur and (soon) Aborigines in Australia. In the fierce resolve of Clemente champions and in the surging hopes of their intellectually starved students, readers see the world-changing power of humane knowledge. --Bryce Christensen