"The Pursuit of Inquiry for Its Own Sake"

"As their topics show, these students, drawn to knowledge for its own sake, ironically end up receiving a version of the liberal arts education that feels very out-of-date in our modern, professionalized university system. With no hope of putting their educations to any career-oriented purpose, they turn to literature, history, and philosophy--subjects in the humanities that outside of our prisons are beleaguered, endangered, and derided as useless."

Leon Botstein in The New Republic writes about his experience teaching college classes in prison.