Conference to investigate relevance of Liberal Arts for the challenges of 21. century

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Nurturing Hope: Liberal Education, Democracy, and Designing Sustainable Futures is a title of a two-day international conference to be held at the University of Warwick and online on May 8^th and 9^th, 2025. Please click the link above for the full conference programme.

What is the relevance of Liberal Arts education for the challenges we face in the twenty-first century?

How can the critical tradition of Liberal Education nurture hope and foster democratic values?

Can Liberal Arts Education lead us to designing better and more sustainable futures for ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities?

These questions (and more) are at the heart of what this conference seeks to explore. As Jessica Riddell writes, the Liberal Arts can “help us metabolize despair, imagine what is possible, and create new ways of being in the world.” The rise of Liberal Arts programmes in the Netherlands, in Germany, and the UK over the past two decades is a testament to the value of this form of education in increasingly uncertain times. Through interdisciplinary talks, panel discussions, and engaging workshops, this conference will explore the value of Liberal Arts education today, its critical link with democratic values, and consider how this approach to learning can help us foster hope within ourselves, our communities, our institutions, and our world. Liberal Arts education has always been interlaced with hope: hope for a more expansive present; hope for a deeper understanding of ourselves; hope for a richer appreciation of the past; and hope in our human abilities to creatively craft more hope-full futures.

As Warwick’s Liberal Arts programme moves into its tenth year in 2026, and the University celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2025, this conference seeks to spark thoughtful conversations around the role of Liberal Education today, both in the United Kingdom and around the world. In doing so, it aims to revisit and further the vision of Warwick’s foundational alliance, who firmly believed that the idea of a holistic liberal arts education should sit at the core of the University’s broader educational mission (as described by Patel 2023).

The conference will feature talks from international speakers, experts in Liberal Arts education, Warwick staff and students, and members of the UK SLAE network (Society for Liberal Arts Education). Through the discussions the organisers hope to shed light on different approaches to the Liberal Arts today, while also highlighting the innovative and unique aspects of this centuries-old, interdisciplinary, civic-minded tradition in which true human flourishing is made possible through the nurturing of hope itself.

Registration is free and the conference will be fully hybrid. Organisers welcome staff, students, and anyone interested in Liberal Education to take part. You can register at the following link: registration form.