LEWISTON – An outspoken literary theorist and controversial critic of university politics will challenge the value of a liberal arts education in a talk at Bates College today.

Stanley Fish will present “Why Liberal Arts Education Cannot Be Justified” at 4:15 p.m. in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave. Sponsored by the Bates College Lecture Committee, the talk is open to the public free of charge.

The Fish lecture is the first in a three-part series co-sponsored by the lecture committee. Next up is a talk called “Globalization: Why It Has a Human Face,” by Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March, 2.

That will be followed by a lecture titled “Abrupt Climate Change, The Greenhouse Effect, and How We Can Make Money Cleaning Up After Ourselves” by Penn State geoscientist Richard Alley at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 10. The lectures will be held in Chase Hall Lounge.