John Ruskin and Nineteenth-Century Education

Edited by Valerie Purton

Publication date:

14 June 2018

Publisher

Anthem Press

Dimensions:

229x153mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781783088058

An art historian, cultural critic and political theorist, John Ruskin was, above all, a great educator. The inspiration behind William Morris, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust and Mahatma Gandhi, Ruskin’s influence can be felt increasingly in every sphere education today. John Ruskin and Nineteenth-Century Education brings together top international Ruskin scholars, exploring Ruskin’s many-faceted writings, pointing to some of the key educational issues raised by his work, and concluding with a powerful rereading of his ecological writing and apocalyptic vision of the earth’s future. In anticipation of the bicentennial of Ruskin’s birth in 2019, this volume makes a fresh and significant contribution to Victorian studies in the twenty-first century. It is dedicated to Dinah Birch, a much-loved Victorian specialist and authority on John Ruskin.

List of Figures; Foreword by Francis O’Gorman; Introduction, Valerie Purton; Section A. Changing the World; 1. ‘An Enormous Difference between Knowledge and Education’: What Ruskin Can Teach Us, Sara Atwood; 2. ‘Souls of Good Quality’: Ruskin, Tolstoy and Education, Stuart Eagles; 3. ‘To Teach Them How to Dress’: Ruskin, Clothing and Lessons in Society, Rachel Dickinson; 4. Mad Governess or Wise Counsellor? Sesame and Lilies Revisited, Jan Marsh; Section B. Libraries and the Arts; 5 ‘A Very Precious Book’: Ruskin’s Exegesis of the Psalms in Rock Honeycomb and Fors Clavigera, Emma Sdegno; 6. ‘Our Household Catalogue of Reference’: Ruskin’s Lesson Photographs of 1875–76, Stephen Wildman; 7. Ruskin, Music and the Health of the Nation, Paul Jackson; 8. Ruskin and the Fantastic, Edward James; Section C. Christianity and Apocalypse; 9. Ruskin’s ‘Many-Sided Soulfulness’, Keith Hanley; 10. ‘Catastrophe Will Come’: Ruskin, Nation and Apocalypse, Andrew Tate; Notes on Contributors; Index.

‘Building on Ruskin's growing reputation as an environmental and economic thinker, this timely and searching volume assembles work by leading scholars to show his equally powerful contribution as an educational theorist and practitioner.’
—Marcus Waithe, University Senior Lecturer, Faculty of English, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, UK