The Origins of German Self-Cultivation

Recent devaluations of a liberal arts education call the formative concept of Bildung, a defining model of self-cultivation rooted in 18th and 19th century German philosophy and culture, into question and force us to reconsider what it once meant and now means to be an “educated” individual. This volume uses an arc of interdisciplinary scholarship to map both the epistemological origins and cultural expressions of the pivotal notion of Bildung at the heart of pursuit in the humanities. From its