In a competitive job market increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence (AI), Associate Professor of Anthropology William Lempert proposes that “the liberal arts are what’s left.” From “Humanity’s Mirror: Aliens and Outer Space” to “Hip Hop, Joy and Critical Civic Literacy,” spring semester course offerings highlight the diversity of a liberal arts education.

As current technology alters career prospects, curriculums like Bowdoin’s prove controversial, with critics often citing a lack of practical skills and immediate market application as complaints. Among debates over liberal arts curriculums, college students and professors alike are reassessing the lasting value of liberal arts in an evolving world.

Faculty members across disciplines at the College have responded to these criticisms by considering their own courses in relation to the liberal arts curriculum and the implications of AI.

“There will be endless specialization. There will be the commodification of intelligence, but what the liberal arts offers is the ability … to think creatively in the big picture [and] to ask the right questions,” Lempert said.

For the second time, Lempert is teaching “Humanity’s Mirror: Aliens and Outer Space” next semester, a course that examines humanity’s fascination with the extraterrestrial through science fiction, anthropology and creative ventures.

Despite the course’s abstract, imaginative components, Lempert explains that his class and the liberal arts involve many “unexpected connections.”

“It’s about asking the big questions in a lot of unusual ways and bringing together really disparate ways of thinking to engage things that are vital in our world,” Lempert said.

The liberal arts curriculum, renowned for its versatility, teaches students to think critically, pose insightful questions and resolve problems with interdisciplinary solutions, reducing their reliance on simplified narratives to define their surroundings.

In Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Cinema Studies Allison Cooper’s new course, “The Art and Technology of the Video Essay,” students will partake in moving-image training exercises before producing a video essay inspired by a sustained research topic.

Cooper explains that in an age of avid entertainment consumption, critical thinking is essential among viewers to analyze not only the entertainment medium itself but the intentions of those who created it.

“You understand how things are put together, and it allows you to see them with a much more objective perspective than if you were just consuming them without asking any questions,” Cooper said.

Furthermore, the liberal arts curriculum embraces multiple forms of intelligence, encouraging what Visiting Assistant Professor of Education Jonathan Tunstall terms “different literacies.” Tunstall maintains that these literacies teach educators and students to expand their definitions of intellect, brilliance and “doing good.”

“You might not be able to articulate your brilliance in this five-paragraph essay or this PowerPoint, but your insight into interpreting this song or your ability to put together this lyrical text [is] a type of brilliance that is underseen,” Tunstall said.

Tunstall will introduce his new course, “Hip Hop, Joy and Critical Civic Literacy,” next semester, which chronicles the history of hip hop’s musical predecessors and the cultural conditions of its emergence in the Bronx.

Along with discussion about hip-hop as a counternarrative, Tunstall will reflect on the genre’s implementation in schools.

“The critical civic literacy part, for me, is how [hip-hop] could be used in [school] environments for people to reflect not just on their environment and what’s around them, but who they are, how they fit in with the world and their different kind of experiences, which can be mediated by their various identities,” Tunstall said.

Tunstall hopes the course will attract students who wouldn’t otherwise express an interest in education and prepare prospective educators to joyfully integrate hip-hop into learning.

Distinctive course offerings allow students to develop passions, even if they remain pastimes, rather than practical components of their careers. Liberal arts distribution requirements also encourage students to engage with content outside of their chosen areas of study.

“I am always thinking, as a professor, about how I can give students an opportunity to truly immerse themselves into something so absorbing that they forget the time is going by and they’re not distracted by a million screens and notifications,” Cooper said.

Multifaceted courses and curriculums also enhance students’ engagement in the classroom, reinforcing their inherent desire to learn, which Lempert argues is a value in its own right.

“It’s a joyful exuberance about the big picture, and that’s what I think liberal arts and Bowdoin in particular has to offer,” Lempert said. “I’m delighted to be part of it.”