Prominent author and cultural critic Wendell Berry is well known for his contributions to agrarianism and environmentalism, but his commentary on education has received comparatively little attention. Berry has been eloquently unmasking America's cultural obsession with restless mobility for decades, arguing that it causes damage to both the land and the character of our communities. Education, he maintains, plays a central role in this obsession, inculcating in students' minds the American dream of moving up and moving on. Drawing on Berry's essays, fiction, and poetry, Jack R. Baker and Jeffrey Bilbro illuminate the influential thinker's vision for higher education in this pathbreaking study. Each chapter begins with an examination of one of Berry's fictional narratives and then goes on to consider how the passage inspires new ways of thinking about the university's mission. Throughout, Baker and Bilbro argue that instead of training students to live in their careers, universities should educate students to inhabit and serve their places. The authors also offer practical suggestions for how students, teachers, and administrators might begin implementing these ideas. Baker and Bilbro conclude that institutions guided by Berry's vision might cultivate citizens who can begin the work of healing their communities―graduates who have been educated for responsible membership in a family, a community, or a polity.

Wendell Berry and Higher Education: Cultivating Virtues of Place (Culture Of The Land)

Literature & Fiction

Bilbro, Jeffrey

Baker, Jack R.

History & Criticism

University Press of Kentucky

Product Description 
Prominent author and cultural critic Wendell Berry is well known for his contributions to agrarianism and environmentalism, but his commentary on education has received comparatively little attention. Berry has been eloquently unmasking America's cultural obsession with restless mobility for decades, arguing that it causes damage to both the land and the character of our communities. Education, he maintains, plays a central role in this obsession, inculcating in students' minds the American dream of moving up and moving on.\nDrawing on Berry's essays, fiction, and poetry, Jack R. Baker and Jeffrey Bilbro illuminate the influential thinker's vision for higher education in this pathbreaking study. Each chapter begins with an examination of one of Berry's fictional narratives and then goes on to consider how the passage inspires new ways of thinking about the university's mission. Throughout, Baker and Bilbro argue that instead of training students to live in their careers, universities should educate students to inhabit and serve their places. The authors also offer practical suggestions for how students, teachers, and administrators might begin implementing these ideas.\nBaker and Bilbro conclude that institutions guided by Berry's vision might cultivate citizens who can begin the work of healing their communities―graduates who have been educated for responsible membership in a family, a community, or a polity. 
 Review 
"A 
masterful argument. Baker and Bilbro have given us a brilliant companion to Berry's work that will guide readers―students, parents, professors, and administrators―to rethink educational values and institutional trajectories."―Morris A. Grubbs, editor of 
Conversations with Wendell Berry\n" 
Wendell Berry and Higher Education offers a helpful and much-needed counternarrative to the pragmatic visions of higher education that dominate the current discussion. Works like this are essential for finding a way forward in a time marked by the arrogance of Wall Street, the failure of political discourse, and educational practices that hide more problems than they address."―Matt Bonzo, coauthor of 
Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life: A Reader's Guide\n"The authors present an enlightening interpretation of Wendell Berry's philosophy for the pursuit of a holistic higher education."― 
Publishers Weekly\n"This book is a profound, expansive treatment of Wendell Berry's thought applied in a particular context. In this frame, the book serves as a helpful introduction to the vast writing works of Wendell Berry. For those largely unfamiliar with his work, this book can be a helpful place to start. This is especially true of Berry's holistic economic philosophy, to which he refers as The Great Economy, a complex and rich vision of holistic communal flourishing. In a competitive market, where college campuses engage in expensive marketing campaigns, amenities arm races, and cutthroat discounting to recruit students, 
Wendell Berry and Higher Education raises critical questions for higher education leaders. Those looking for a catalyst for deep conversations on the role of higher education within the fabric of local communities and economics, this is a provocative read."― 
Englewood Review of Books\n"Baker and Bilbro do a fine job pointing out the ways in which imagination, work, and language can become portals for learning the art of caring for our places. With a swift burst of energy and clarity, the authors show how Berry affirms the virtues of place through tradition (remembering our story), hierarchy (practicing gratitude and respecting limits), geography (reaping the fruits of fidelity), and community (learning to love the membership)."― 
Spirituality & Practice\n"Baker and Bilbro do admirable work of applying Berry to the Leviathan of higher education."― 
Ordained Servant\n"Baker and Bilbro have written a thoughtful treatise about conceptualizing and implementing education as grounded, embe

Wendell Berry thinks of himself as a storyteller. It's somewhat ironic then that he is better known as an essayist, a poet, and an advocate for small farmers. The essays in this collection consider the many facets of Berry's life and work, but they focus on his efforts as a novelist and story writer. Indeed, Berry had already published three novels before his seminal work of cultural criticism, The Unsettling of America, established him as an ardent defender of local communities and sustainable agriculture. And over the past fifty years, he has published eight novels and more than forty-eight short stories set in the imagined community of Port William. His exquisite rendering of this small Kentucky town challenges us to see the beauty of our own places and communities and to tend their health, threatened though it inevitably is. The twelve contributors to this collection approach Berry's fiction from a variety of perspectives--literary studies, journalism, theology, history, songwriting--to shed light on its remarkable ability to make a good life imaginable and compelling. The first collection devoted to Berry's fiction, this volume insists that any consideration of Berry's work must begin with his stories. ""The next best thing to reading Berry is to read those who write about Berry's writing. We should be extremely grateful that we now have this collection of wise investigations of Berry's novels and short stories. These essays do what they were meant to do which is nothing less than celebrate Berry's fertile imagination."" --Stanley Hauerwas, Professor of Divinity and Law at Duke University ""When I encounter readers, who share Wendell Berry's concerns but are unfamiliar with his work, I urge them to begin with his fiction. One finds there, more fully arrayed than in his essays or poetry, the web of relationships connecting persons, place, and community. The weaving of that web, on the page and in the world, is the subject of the dozen studies in this book, a worthy guide to the storytelling art of an essential author."" --Scott Sanders, author of Earth Works: Selected Essays Jack R. Baker is an Associate Professor of English at Spring Arbor University. He and Jeffrey Bilbro have previously co-authored Wendell Berry and Higher Education: Cultivating Virtues of Place (University Press of Kentucky, 2017). Jeffrey Bilbro is an Associate Professor of English at Spring Arbor University. He is the author of Loving God's Wildness: The Christian Roots of Ecological Ethics in American Literature (University of Alabama Press, 2015) and Practice Resurrection: Wendell Berry and the Virtues of Sustainable Forms (forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky).

Telling the Stories Right: Wendell Berry’s Imagination of Port William

Front Porch Republic

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Baker, Jack R.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Baker, Jack R.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Baker, Jack R.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Wendell Berry and Higher Education: Cultivating Virtues of Place (Culture Of The Land)

Wendell Berry and Higher Education: Cultivating Virtues of Place (Culture Of The Land)

Telling the Stories Right: Wendell Berry’s Imagination of Port William