What good are the arts? Plenty, speaker says

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November 18, 2016 - 12:00 AM

Aleksander Sternfeld-Dunn, a professor of music at Wichita State University and an amiable evangelist for the importance of the arts in public education, appeared before a small crowd in the recital hall at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center on Wednesday to make, as the title of his lecture spelled out, “The Case for Creativity.”

Sternfeld-Dunn didn’t attempt the sentimental job of arguing that exposure to the arts will improve the private sphere of your soul — though, as a highly-regarded composer himself, he doubtlessly believes this. His plea for creativity, rather, centered on the use-value of the arts and their practical application in a modern economy.

 

FACING a loose horseshoe of about 25 interested citizens — and standing before two big-screen TVs — Sternfeld-Dunn showed a still shot taken from an old episode of NBC’s “Today Show.” The segment, based on a popular Newsweek article, purported to educate the viewer on the “top 5 useless” college majors in the U.S. The image to which Sternfeld-Dunn drew the audience’s attention was a commonplace graphic listing the catalog of curricular duds: 1) fine arts; 2) drama and theater; 3) film, video and photographic arts; 4) commercial art and graphic design; and 5) architecture.

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