Starting from informal cross-disciplinary conversations between colleagues, this volume is the result of an experiment in understanding the standpoints and methodologies of others in a multidisciplinary setting. At its heart are the core values of a liberal arts education: intellectual curiosity and the ability to communicate across borders. Written with the aim of communicating academic content to non-specialists, the essays interweave narratives about truth with various kinds of dialogue and the importance of historical consciousness. Together they illustrate the power of writing as a tool for strengthening a scholarly community. “A treasure trove of inventive, accessible, and deeply thoughtful writing, that ranges from astrophysics to anthropology, from literature to law, and from politics to public health. These are essays very much in the spirit of Montaigne: wise and witty, their open, exploratory, and at times personal approach make them ideal for classroom discussion. They offer us opportunity and space for valuable reflection and learning, and remind us that the liberal arts and sciences must be at the heart of debates about the human condition and the world’s most important and pressing concerns.” - Professor Ian Gadd, Academic Director of the Global Academy of Liberal Arts (GALA) “The classroom is where important but complex issues are explained in accessible form and language. This book offers its readers a crash course in such essential topics as truth, language, the law, religion, statistics, and history, but you don’t have to stick to a school timetable and there is no exam afterwards. It’s a feast for the mind; enjoy!” - Maarten Prak, Emeritus Professor of History at Utrecht University and first chair of the Board of Studies at University College Utrecht Mary Bouquet is anthropologist, associate professor, and fellow at Utrecht University College. Annemieke Meijer was trained as an eighteenth-century scholar and is currently the director of UCU’s Writing programme. Cornelus Sanders is a dermatologist at the University Medical Centre Utrecht and the fellow of Medical Science at University College Utrecht. Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: Writing the Liberal Arts and Sciences Mary Bouquet, Annemieke Meijer and Cornelus Sanders I Truth The indispensable Truth : Postmodernism and the possibility to understand each other Floris van der Burg Fictionality, or the importance of being earnest Agnes Andeweg And Justice for All Alexis A. Aronowitz Handling tricky questions Jocelyn Ballantyne What is Meaning? Gaetano Fiorin II Dialogue Parmenides and Dōgen – an encounter Chiara Robbiano On being a doctor Cornelus Sanders Law, imagination, and poetry Bald de Vries Religion 2.0: Thinking about religion through technology Katja Rakow Global mental health and the evolution of clinical psychology Robert Dunn Heroes of the in-between Rozi Tóth and Gerard van der Ree III Historical Consciousness What history’s most overqualified calculus student tells us about liberal arts mathematics Viktor Blåsjö Statistics: The art of seeking sense in numbers Guus de Krom The canon of the Netherlands revisited James Kennedy Love thyself: An abridged history of Western portraiture Tijana Žakula Two Monuments Mary Bouquet The challenge of living on renewable energy Anton E.M. van de Ven The earth as an observatory: Team work in science Filipe Freire The First Assignment Markha Valenta List of contributors List of figures Notes Index of names