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and will not get by just with words. As
Bhopal is points out, educators and admin-
istrators will need to cultivate an openness
toward diversity that includes deliberate
steps towards learning, understanding, and
respecting other cultures and perspectives.
The race and gender of the student
body matters. Students of various racial
ethnic groups need others who look like
them and understand their culture and
experience so that they will not be prob-
lematized as exotic objects on display. The
differences within minority groups must
be recognized and accepted. The race and
gender of the faculty and administration
also matters. Both represent concrete
public demonstrations that the institution
is sincere about engaging diversity issues
head-on.
Bhopals book is informative and pro-
vocative, providing a trove of cultural
insights into the impact of race, religion,
and class on a group of South Asian
women university students in England.
It provides concrete material for self-
reflection and basis for good conversation
among theological educators intent on
strengthening diversity in their own
institutions.
Lai Ling Elizabeth Ngan
George W. Truett Theological Seminary,
Baylor University
Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the
Humanities. By Martha C. Nussbaum.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 2010. xv + 178 pages. ISBN 978-0-
691-14064-3. $22.95.
Martha Nussbaum has done it again. She
has written a provocative book that contrib-
utes significantly to current discussions of
the Liberal Arts and Humanistic studies.
Although much important scholarship has
been published recently bemoaning the
corporatization of higher education and
2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
defending the value of the Liberal Arts and
Humanities, Nussbaums penetrating
analysis is by far the most systematic and
global. As a volume in The Public Square
series, this short and beautifully written
book was clearly intended for a broad audi-
ence, which means busy faculty could read
it easily in a weekend. (The reader wanting
more should consult Nussbaums earlier
works, especially Cultivating Humanity: A
Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal
Education [1997] and Hiding from Human-
ity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law [2006],
wherein many of the ideas in this book are
explored in greater detail.)
Stated simply, Nussbaum argues that
our educational systems ought to strive to
cultivate democratic, global citizens. Stu-
dents graduating from U.S. colleges and
universities: (1) ought to be capable of
engaging in robust critical discourse, pos-
sessing the skills to sift and analyze evi-
dence, to articulate well-structured
positions, and to evaluate the arguments
presented to them by others; (2) ought to
be sensitive to the heterogeneity of the
nation (and of the world), possessing the
ability to identify the structural, socio-
cultural, and personal bases for our differ-
ing perspectives, the willingness to see
things from others points of view,
and the recognition of all humans equal-
ity and dignity; and (3) ought to hold
themselves responsible for their ideas and
actions (or inactivity), which shape human
conditions. It is, Nussbaum concludes,
these sorts of graduates who will be able
to engage actively, creatively, critically,
and morally in our increasingly complex
world.
Unfortunately, Nussbaum argues,
many institutions of higher education are
becoming persuaded given the demands
of the nation, students, and their parents
that their primary objective is to help
students become economically productive.
As such, resources are gradually being
reallocated to pre-professional programs
397
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at the expense of the Arts and Humani-
ties, and colleges and universities are pro-
ducing a class of educated persons who
cannot respond critically and creatively to
new circumstances, a citizenry with little
sensitivity to the effects political and eco-
nomic decisions have on the lives of real
people, and a passive society that prefers
convention to innovation, that defers deci-
sions to those in power, and that is
unable to raise a critical voice against
injustice. Of the current state of affairs,
she concludes: We are in the midst of a
crisis of massive proportions and grave
global significance (1). Although this
argument has been made by others, it is
refreshing that Nussbaum does not do
what others tend to do: to sideline eco-
nomics altogether, to argue naively that
economics should not be a factor as insti-
tutions of higher education negotiate their
identities and structure their curricula.
Nussbaum grants that one cannot escape
economic realities, but she offers a differ-
ent economic model the Human Devel-
opment model as a resource for
contemplating education, democracy, and
economics together.
In Nussbaums opinion the solution to
the current educational crisis is to make a
case for social-intellectual outcomes (out-
comes that matter as much as fiscal secu-
rity and success), to recognize anew the
value of a liberal arts education, and to
conduct an extensive overhaul of primary
and secondary school curricula. Drawing
on a handful of progressive educational
models (56-72), Nussbaum shows how
particular content areas, as well as peda-
gogical styles, produce the globally
minded, democratic citizenry she prizes.
398
In an ideal world, students would learn
how to analyze sources and situate com-
peting perspectives in required history
courses (91) and they would be exposed to
well-crafted arguments and fair dialogue
in required philosophy courses (55). But
these skills could be learned in a course of
any subject area if classes were pedagogi-
cally vibrant. A science class, for example,
could probe the logic, rhetoric, and ethics
of genomic research through in-class
debates or position papers (48). Further-
more, to activate and refine the capacity
to see the world through another persons
eyes, Nussbaum insists that students learn
factual knowledge about the histories,
cultures, and traditions of the worlds
communities in classes devoted specifi-
cally to that purpose (96). But again, these
content courses ought to be supplemented
with participatory types of education
that help students to embody others
culture by singing their songs, learning
their language, acting in their plays, and
reading their literature. The book is
sprinkled with similar types of advice on
how we ought to structure our distribution
requirements in a liberal arts curriculum
and on how we ought to be training teach-
ers to be pedagogically effective.
Nussbaum has produced a book filled
with stimulating ideas that not only helps
us structure our institutional priorities and
pedagogical strategies, but also provides
us with the rationale we need to defend
our field as we face increasing scrutiny
from our students, our institutions, and the
public at large.
Kristi Upson-Saia
Occidental College
2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd