Taylor Littleton

Editor and academic; affiliated with Auburn University; editor of the Franklin Lectures in the Sciences and Humanities series.

Taylor Littleton was an academic associated with Auburn University who edited Approaching the Benign Environment, a volume drawn from the distinguished Franklin Lectures in the Sciences and Humanities. The book gathered contributions from a diverse group of about thirty-five people — scientists, scholars in the humanities, creative artists, social scientists, and administrators — who found substantial agreement on shaping a benign human environment. Littleton's preface framed the volume and introduced Fuller's contribution, "Education for Comprehensivity," alongside essays on engineers and the nation's future and on forging a working partnership between the sciences and humanities.

Relationship to Fuller

Relationship: chronicler. Littleton's connection to R. Buckminster Fuller was editorial and institutional. By editing Approaching the Benign Environment and writing its preface, he provided the scholarly frame for Fuller's argument that education should aim at comprehensivity — the ability to think across disciplinary boundaries. The Franklin Lectures brought Fuller to Auburn as a distinguished speaker, and Littleton's editorial work preserved and contextualized that engagement for a broader academic audience. His contribution is that of a facilitator who helped place Fuller's ideas within a formal academic discourse on the relationship between science, the humanities, and human environment.

See Also

• Approaching the Benign Environment — the volume he edited

Sources

• Approaching the Benign Environment — compiled topic page for the book