ANSWER
The humanities are academic disciplines investigating various aspects of human society and culture. The term was used in the Renaissance to contrast with divinity and to refer to what is now known as classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the time. Humanities are now more commonly defined as any field of study other than natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences (such as mathematics), and applied sciences (or professional training). [1] They employ primarily critical or speculative methods, with a significant historical component[2]—as opposed to the empirical principally approaches of the natural sciences;[2] However, unlike the sciences, there is no general history of humanities as a distinct discipline in its own right. [Another explanation is required] [3]
Foreign language studies, history, philosophy, language arts (literature, writing, oratory, rhetoric, poetry, etc.), performing arts (theater, music, dance, etc.), and visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography, filmmaking, etc.) are all part of the humanities; culinary art or cookery is interdisciplinary and can be considered both humanity and science. Law and religion are included in some definitions of the humanities, but these are only sometimes accepted. Although anthropology, archaeology, geography, linguistics, logic, and sociology have some similarities with the humanities, they are widely regarded as sciences; similarly, economics, finance, and political science are not commonly regarded as humanities.
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Humanities scholars, also known as humanists, are academics who study the humanities.
[5] (The term humanist also refers to the philosophical position of humanism, which antihumanist humanities scholars reject. Humanists include Renaissance scholars and artists.) Some secondary schools provide humanities classes, which typically include literature, global studies, and art.
Humanities such as history and Language extensively use the comparative method[6] and comparative research. Hermeneutics, source criticism, esthetic interpretation, and speculative reason are other methods used in the humanities.
Fields \sClassics
Classics is the main article.
Classics, in the Western academic tradition, refers to the study of classical antiquity cultures, specifically Ancient Greek and Latin cultures, as well as Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. Classical studies are regarded as one of the humanities’ cornerstones; however, their popularity declined during the twentieth century. Nonetheless, classical ideas continue to strongly influence many humanities disciplines, such as philosophy and literature. [Citation required]
History
History is the main article.
History is the systematic collection of information about the past. As a field of study, history refers to the analysis and interpretation of the record of humans, societies, institutions, and any topic that has changed over time.
History has traditionally been considered a branch of the humanities. History is sometimes classified as a social science in modern academia, though this definition is debatable.
Language
Linguistics and Language are the main articles.
While linguistics is a social science,[7] a natural science,[8] or a cognitive science,[9] the study of languages remains central to the humanities. A significant amount of twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophy has been devoted to the analysis of Language and the question of whether, as Wittgenstein claimed, many of our philosophical misunderstandings are caused by the vocabulary we use; literary theory has investigated the rhetorical, associative, and ordering features of Language; and historical linguists have studied the evolution of languages over time. Literature, which encompasses a wide range of Language uses such as prose forms (such as the novel), poetry, and drama is also at the heart of the modern humanities curriculum. College-level programs in a foreign language typically include the study of significant literature in that Language and the Language itself.
Law
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A criminal trial at the Old Bailey in London
Law is the main topic of this article.
In common parlance, the law refers to a rule that, unlike an ethical practice, is enforceable through institutions.
[10] Depending on how one views research into its objectives and effects, the study of law crosses the boundaries between the social sciences and the humanities. Law is only sometimes enforceable, particularly in the context of international relations. It has been defined as a “system of rules,” [11] an “interpretive concept”[12] to achieve justice, an “authority”[13] to mediate people’s interests, and even “the command of a sovereign, backed by the threat of a sanction.” [14] Whatever one thinks of law, it is a fundamental social institution. Legal policy incorporates the practical manifestation of almost every social science and humanities discipline’s thinking. Laws are political in the sense that politicians enact them. Because moral and ethical convictions shape their ideas, the law is philosophy. Because statutes, case law, and codifications accumulate over time, the law tells many of history’s stories. And the law is economics because any rule regarding a contract, tort, property law, labor law, company law, and many others can have long-term effects on how productivity is organized and wealth is distributed. The noun law is derived from the late Old English lagu, which means something fixed or laid down, and the adjective legal is derived from the Latin word LEX. [16]
Literature is the primary topic of this article.
Shakespeare wrote some of English literature’s most acclaimed works.
Literature is a term without a universally accepted definition, but it has variously included all written work, writing with literary merit, and Language that emphasizes literariness over ordinary Language. The term is derived from the Latin literature/literature, which means “writing formed with letters,” though some definitions include spoken or sung texts. Literature can be classified based on whether it is fiction or non-fiction and whether it is poetry or prose; it can also be classified based on major forms such as the novel, short story, or drama, and works are frequently classified based on historical periods, or their adherence to certain aesthetic features or expectations (genre).
Philosophy
Philosophy is the main topic of this article.
Sren Kierkegaard’s works cross many humanities disciplines, including philosophy, literature, theology, music, and classical studies.
The study of problems concerning existence, knowledge, justification, truth, justice, right and wrong, beauty, validity, mind, and Language is commonly referred to as philosophy. Philosophy differs from other approaches to these issues in that it takes a critical, generally systematic approach and relies on reasoned argument rather than experiments (experimental philosophy being an exception). [17]
Philosophy used to be a broad term that included what have since become distinct disciplines, such as physics. (According to Immanuel Kant, “Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three sciences: physics, ethics, and logic.”) [18] Today’s four major branches of philosophy are logic, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology. Nonetheless, it continues to intersect with other disciplines. The field of semantics, for example, brings philosophy and linguistics together.
Since the early twentieth century, philosophy has shifted from the humanities to the formal sciences, becoming more analytic. In contrast to Continental philosophy, Analytic philosophy emphasizes the use of logic and traditional methods of reasoning, conceptual analysis, and symbolic and/or mathematical logic. [19] This line of inquiry owes a lot to the work of philosophers like Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Religion
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We are unaware of any people or tribe from history or the present that is (or was) completely devoid of “religion.” Religion can be associated with a community because humans are social animals. [20] [21] Rituals are used to unite the community. [22] [23] Rules are necessary for social animals. Ethics is a societal requirement, but it is not a religious requirement. There are no ethical codes in Shinto, Daoism, or other folk or natural religions. Because not all faiths have deities, the supernatural may or may not include gods. (Daoism and Theravada Buddhism)[24] [Citation required] [Neutrality is contested]. Magical thinking generates explanations that are not empirically verifiable. Myths and stories are narratives that are both didactic and entertaining. [25] They are required to understand the human condition. Other aspects of religion include pollution and purification,[26] the sacred and profane,[27] sacred texts,[28] religious institutions and organizations,[29][30] and sacrifice and prayer. Religions face and attempt to solve major problems such as chaos, suffering, evil,[31] and death. [32]
Hinduism, Shinto, and indigenous or folk religions are non-founder religions. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, Daoism, Mormonism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and the Baha’i faith are all founder religions. Religions must adapt and change over time to remain relevant to their followers. New religions will emerge when traditional religions fail to address contemporary concerns.
The performing arts
Main page: Performing arts
The visual arts differ from the performing arts in that the former uses the artist’s body, face, and presence as a medium. In contrast, the latter uses materials such as clay, metal, or paint that can be molded or transformed to create some art object. Acrobatics, busking, comedy, dance, film, magic, music, opera, juggling, and marching arts such as brass bands and theatre are examples of performing arts.
Performers are artists who engage in these arts in front of an audience, such as actors, comedians, dancers, musicians, and singers. Workers in related fields, such as songwriting and stagecraft, also contribute to the performing arts. Performers frequently change their appearances, such as with costumes and stage makeup. There is also a type of fine art in which the artists perform their work live in front of an audience. This is known as performance art. Most performance art incorporates plastic art in the form of prop creation. During the Modern dance era, dance was frequently referred to as a plastic art.
Musicology
Mozarteum concert in Salzburg
Musicology can be studied in various ways, including historical, music literature, ethnomusicology, and music theory. Undergraduate music majors typically take courses in these areas, whereas graduate students specialize in one. Musicology is also used in the liberal arts tradition to broaden the skills of non-musicians by teaching skills such as concentration and listening.
The performing arts branch is concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound, and spectacle — indeed, any one or more elements of the other performing arts. Opera, ballet, mime, kabuki, classical Indian dance, Chinese opera, mummers’ plays, and pantomime are all forms of theatre in addition to the standard narrative dialogue style.
Dance
Dance (from Old French dancier, possibly Frankish) is a broad term that refers to the human movement used for expression or presented in a social, spiritual, or performance setting. Dance can also refer to nonverbal communication (see body language) between humans or animals (bee dance, mating dance), as well as motion in inanimate objects (the leaves danced in the wind). Choreography is the art of creating dances; those who do so are known as choreographers.
Dance definitions vary according to social, cultural, aesthetic, artistic, and moral constraints and range from functional movement (such as folk dance) to codified, virtuoso techniques like ballet.
The visual arts
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Visual arts history
Emperor Gaozong (1107-1187) of the Song Dynasty’s Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain; fan mounted as album leaf on silk, four columns in cursive script.
The great artistic traditions have their roots in the art of ancient civilizations such as Ancient Japan, Greece and Rome, China, India, Greater Nepal, Mesopotamia, and Mesoamerica.
The veneration of the human physical form in Ancient Greek art resulted in the development of equivalent skills to demonstrate musculature, poise, beauty, and anatomically correct proportions. Ancient Roman art depicted gods as idealized humans with distinguishing features (for example, Zeus’ thunderbolt).
The church’s dominance in Byzantine and Gothic art of the Middle Ages insisted on expressing biblical rather than material truths. The Renaissance saw a return to material world valuation, which is reflected in art forms that depict the corporeality of the human body and the three-dimensional reality of landscape.
Eastern art has traditionally worked in style similar to Western medieval art, with a focus on surface patterning and local color (meaning the plain color of an object, such as basic red for a red robe, rather than the modulations of that color brought about by light, shade, and reflection). A feature of this style is that the local color is frequently defined by an outline (a contemporary equivalent is a cartoon). For example, this can be seen in the art of India, Tibet, and Japan.
Islamic art forbids iconography and instead expresses religious ideas through geometry. The 19th-century Enlightenment’s physical and rational certainty were shattered not only by discoveries of relativity by Einstein[33] and previously unseen psychology by Freud[34] but also by unprecedented technological development. As global interaction increased during this period, so did the influence of other cultures on Western art.
Different types of media
Drawing
Drawing is the process of creating a picture with various tools and techniques. It generally entails marking a surface with an agency or moving a tool across a surface. Graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, pastels, and markers are common tools. There are also digital tools that simulate the effects of these. The most common drawing techniques are line drawing, crosshatching, random hatching, scribbling, stippling, and blending. A draftsman or draughtsman is a computer-aided designer who excels at technical drawing.
Painting
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is one of the most famous artistic paintings in the world.
Painting is the literal application of pigment suspended in a carrier (or medium) and a binding agent (a glue) to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas, or a wall. However, when used in an artistic context, it refers to the use of this activity in conjunction with the drawing, composition, and other aesthetic considerations to manifest the practitioner’s expressive and conceptual intention. Painting is also used to express spiritual motifs and ideas; examples include artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery, The Sistine Chapel, and the human body itself.
Color is highly subjective, but it has observable psychological effects, which vary depending on the culture. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but white may be. Some painters, theorists, writers, and scientists, such as Goethe, Kandinsky, and Isaac Newton, developed their color theories. Furthermore, the use of Language is merely a broad generalization for a color equivalent. For example, “red” can refer to a wide range of variations on the pure red of the spectrum. Although the Pantone system is widely used in the printing and design industry for this purpose, there is no formalized register of different colors in the same way that there is agreement on other notes in music, such as C or C#.
Modern artists have greatly expanded the practice of painting to include, for example, collages. This started with Cubism and is not painting in the traditional sense. For texture, some contemporary painters use materials such as sand, cement, straw, or wood. Works by Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer are examples of this. Modern and contemporary art has shifted away from the historic value of craft in favor of concept (conceptual art), prompting some, such as Joseph Kosuth, to declare that painting, as a serious art form, is dead. However, most artists continue to practice it as a whole or part of their work.
The sculpture is the process of constructing three-dimensional forms out of various materials. These typically include moldable materials such as clay and metal, but they may also contain material cut or shaved down to the desired shape, such as stone and wood.
The origin of the phrase
The term “humanities” is derived from the Renaissance Latin expression studia humanities, or “study of humanitas” (a classical Latin word that means “culture, refinement, education” and, specifically, “education befitting a cultivated man” in addition to “humanity”). The studio humanitatis was a course of studies in the early 15th century that included grammar, poetry, rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy, primarily derived from studying Latin and Greek classics. Humanitas also gave rise to the Renaissance Italian neologism humanistic, from which “humanist” and “Renaissance humanism” arose. [35]
History
The history of the humanities in the West can be traced back to ancient Greece as the foundation of a broad education for citizens.
[36] The concept of the seven liberal arts evolved during Roman times, involving grammar, rhetoric, logic (the trivium), arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music (the quadrivium). [37] The humanities were emphasized as skills or “ways of doing” in medieval education, which comprised most of the curriculum.
A major shift occurred in the fifteenth century with Renaissance humanism, when the humanities began to be regarded as subjects to study rather than practice. This resulted in a change away from traditional fields and into areas such as literature and history. This view was challenged in the twentieth century by the postmodernist movement, which sought to redefine the humanities in more egalitarian terms suitable for a democratic society, given that the Greek and Roman institutions from which the humanities arose were not democratic. [38]
Today
Employment and education
For decades, the public has believed that a humanities education does not adequately prepare graduates for employment.
[39] The widespread belief is that graduates of such programs will face underemployment and low-wage jobs, making a humanities education unprofitable. [40]
Indeed, humanities graduates are employed in various management and professional positions. Over 11,000 humanities majors in the United Kingdom, for example, found work in the following occupations:
Education (25.8 percent)
Management (19.8 percent)
(11.4%) Media/Literature/Arts
Law (11.3%)
Finance (ten percent)
Government (5.8%).
Non-profit (5.2%).
2.3% Marketing
1.7% medicine
Other (6.4%)
[41]
Many humanities graduates leave university with no career plans.
[42]
[43] As a result, many graduates spend the first few years after graduation deciding what to do next, resulting in lower starting salaries; meanwhile, graduates from career-oriented programs experience faster entry into the labor market. On the other hand, humanities graduates usually find an occupation or career path that interests them within five years of graduation. [44] [45]
According to empirical evidence, humanities graduates earn less than graduates from other university programs.
[46]
[47][48] However, empirical evidence shows that humanities graduates earn significantly more than workers without postsecondary education and have job satisfaction levels comparable to their colleagues in other fields. [49] Humanities graduates also earn more as their careers progress; ten years after graduation, the income gap between humanities graduates and other university graduates is no longer statistically significant. [42] Humanities graduates can increase their earnings by pursuing advanced or professional degrees. [50] [51]
In the United States of America
Humanities in the United States is the main article.
Indicators of Humanities
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences Humanities Indicators, unveiled in 2009, are the first comprehensive compilation of data on the humanities in the United States, providing scholars, policymakers, and the general public with detailed information on humanities education from primary to higher education, the humanities workforce, humanities funding and research, and public humanities activities.
[52][53] The Humanities Indicators, modeled after the National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators, provide a source of reliable benchmarks to guide analysis of the state of the humanities in the United States.
If “The STEM Crisis Is a Myth,”[54] statements about a “crisis” in the humanities are also deceptive and ignore data from the Humanities Indicators.
[55]
[56]
The Humanities in Contemporary American Life
The Rockefeller Commission on the Humanities of the United States described the humanities in its report, The Humanities in American Life:
We reflect on the fundamental question of what it means to be human through the humanities. Humanities provide hints but never a complete answer. They show how people attempted to make a moral, spiritual, and intellectual sense of a world in which irrationality, despair, loneliness, and death are as prevalent as birth, friendship, hope, and reason.
As a significant
In 1950, slightly more than 1% of 22-year-olds in the United States had earned a humanities degree (defined as a degree in English, Language, history, or philosophy); by 2010, this had more than doubled to about 2%.
[57] This is due, in part, to an increase in the number of Americans with a college degree. (In 1940, 4.6 percent of the population held a four-year degree; in 2016, 33.4 percent did.) [58] However, the humanities are declining as a percentage of the degrees awarded. Harvard University is one such example. In 1954, 36 percent of Harvard undergraduates majored in the humanities, but only 20 percent did so in 2012. [59] According to Northeastern University Professor Benjamin Schmidt, between 1990 and 2008, degrees in English, history, foreign languages, and philosophy fell from 8% to just under 5% of all college degrees in the United States. [60]
Education in the liberal arts
The 2013 report The Heart of the Matter by the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences supports the concept of a broad “liberal arts education,” which includes study in disciplines ranging from natural sciences to the arts and humanities.
[61][62]
Many colleges offer such courses, and some require them. The University of Chicago and Columbia University were among the first to require all students to complete an extensive core curriculum in philosophy, literature, and the arts. [63] Fordham University, St. John’s College, Saint Anselm College, and Providence College are among the other colleges with nationally recognized, mandatory liberal arts programs. In the United States, prominent supporters of liberal arts have included Mortimer J. Adler[64] and E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
In this day and age,
Humanities researchers have created a plethora of large and small-scale digital corporations, such as digitized collections of historical texts and the digital tools and methods to analyze them. Their goal is to discover new information about corpora and visualize research data in novel and revealing ways. Much of this activity takes place in a field known as the digital humanities.
STEM
Politicians in the United States advocate for increased funding for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields.
[65] Federal funding for the humanities is much lower than funding for other fields, such as STEM or medicine. [66] As a result, quality in both college and pre-college humanities education has remained the same. [66]
Three-term In a 2014 video address[67] to the academic conference, Revolutions in Eighteenth-Century Sociability, Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards acknowledged the importance of the humanities. According to Edwards:
Without the humanities to teach us how history has succeeded or failed to direct the fruits of technology and science to the betterment of our tribe of homo sapiens, without the humanities to teach us how to frame the discussion and properly debate the uses—and costs—of technology, without the humanities to teach us how to safely argue how to create a more just society with our fellow man and woman, technology and science would eventually default to the owners.
[69]
Throughout Europe
The debate over the value of the humanities
The current debate in critical university studies revolves around the humanities’ declining value.
[70]
[71] In the United States, there is a perceived decline in higher education policy interest in qualitative research that does not produce marketable products. This threat manifests itself in various ways throughout Europe, but much critical attention has been paid to research assessment. For example, the UK [Research Excellence Framework] has received criticism for using assessment criteria from the humanities and social sciences. [72] In particular, the concept of “impact” has sparked heated debate. [73]
History of Philosophy
Citizenship and introspection
Since the late nineteenth century, one of the central justifications for the humanities has been that it aids and encourages self-reflection—self-reflection that, in turn, aids in developing personal consciousness or an active sense of civic duty.
Humankind’s desire to understand its own experiences was central to Wilhelm Dilthey and Hans-Georg Gadamer’s attempt to distinguish the humanities from the natural sciences. They claimed that this understanding connects like-minded people from similar cultural backgrounds and provides a sense of cultural continuity with the philosophical past. [74]
Scholars in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries broadened the concept of “narrative imagination”[75] to include the ability to comprehend recorded experiences outside one’s own individual social and cultural context. It is claimed that through narrative imagination, humanities scholars and students develop a conscience more suited to our multicultural world. [76] That conscience may be passive, allowing for more effective self-reflection[77], or it may extend into active empathy, facilitating the discharge of civic duties required of a responsible global citizen. [76] However, there is disagreement about the level of influence that humanities study can have on an individual and whether the understanding produced by a humanistic enterprise can guarantee an “identifiable positive effect on people.” [78]
Humanistic concepts and practices
The three major branches of knowledge are natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Politics is the practical extension of the social sciences, just as technology is the functional extension of the natural sciences. Similarly, the societies have their useful extension, which is sometimes referred to as “transhumanities” or “culturomics” (Mikhail Epstein’s term):
Nature – natural sciences – technology – natural transformation
Society – social sciences – politics – social transformation
Culture – human sciences – culturomics – cultural transformation
[79]
Technology, politics, and culturomics are all intended to transform the subjects of their respective studies: nature, society, and culture. Language planning, the creation of new languages, such as Esperanto, and the invention of new artistic and literary genres and manifesto movements, such as Romanticism, Symbolism, or Surrealism, are all examples of transformative humanities practices and technologies. The humanistic invention in the realm of culture is an important aspect of the humanities as a practice that supplements scholarship.
Meaning and truth
The distinction between humanistic study and natural sciences informs meaningful arguments in the humanities as well. What distinguishes societies from the natural sciences is not a specific subject matter but rather how a question is approached. Humanities, rather than explaining the causality of events or uncovering the truth of the natural world, focuses on understanding meaning, purpose, and goals and furthering the appreciation of singular historical and social phenomena—an interpretive method of finding “truth”—rather than explaining the causality of events or uncovering the truth of the natural world. [80] Aside from its societal applications, narrative imagination is a valuable tool in the (re)production of understood meaning in history, culture, and literature.
As part of an artist’s or scholar’s toolkit, imagination aids in the creation of meaning that elicits a response from the audience. Because a humanities scholar is always at the intersection of lived experiences, no “absolute” knowledge is theoretically possible; knowledge is a never-ending process of inventing and reinventing the context in which a text is read. Poststructuralism has complicated a humanistic approach based on questions of meaning, intentionality, and authorship. [doubtful – debate] Following Roland Barthes’ declaration of the author’s death, various theoretical currents such as deconstruction and discourse analysis seek to expose the ideologies and rhetoric at work in producing both ostensibly meaningful objects and hermeneutic subjects of humanistic study. Because of the changing contextual meaning, this exposure has exposed the interpretive structures of the humanities to criticism that humanities scholarship is “unscientific” and thus unfit for inclusion in modern university curricula. [doubtful – debate]
Pleasure, knowledge pursuit, and scholarship
Some, such as Stanley Fish, argue that the humanities can best defend themselves by refusing to make utility claims.
[81] (Fish may refer to literary studies rather than history and philosophy.) According to Fish, any attempt to justify the humanities in terms of external benefits such as social usefulness (say, increased productivity) or ennobling effects on the individual (such as greater wisdom or decreased prejudice) is unfounded and places impossible demands on the relevant academic departments. Furthermore, while critical thinking may be acquired due to humanistic training, it can also be acquired in other contexts. [82] And the humanities no longer provide the kind of social cachet (what sociologists sometimes refer to as “cultural capital”) necessary for success in Western society before the age of mass education after World War II.
Instead, scholars such as Fish argue that the humanities provide a distinct type of pleasure based on the shared pursuit of knowledge (even if it is only disciplinary knowledge). This pleasure contrasts with Western culture’s increasing privatization of leisure and instant gratification; thus, it meets Jürgen Habermas’ requirements for disregarding social status and rational problematization of previously unquestioned areas required for an endeavor in the bourgeois public sphere. According to this argument, only the academic pursuit of pleasure can bridge the gap between the private and public realms in modern Western consumer society and strengthen the public sphere, which many theorists[who?] believe is the foundation of modern democracy. [Citation required]
Others, such as Mark Bauerlein, argue that humanities professors have increasingly abandoned proven epistemological methods (I care only about the quality of your arguments, not your conclusions.) in favor of indoctrination (I care only about your findings, not the quality of your ideas.). As a result, professors and their students are rigidly committed to narrow viewpoints and need more interest in or understanding opposing viewpoints. Once they have achieved this level of intellectual self-satisfaction, they are prone to persistent learning, research, and evaluation lapses. [83]
Rejection and romanticization
Many of these arguments in favor of the humanities contain elements of arguments against public support for the humanities. According to Joseph Carroll, we live in a changing world in which “cultural capital” has been replaced by scientific literacy, and the romantic notion of a Renaissance humanities scholar has become obsolete. Such arguments appeal to judgments and anxieties about the humanities’ essential futility, especially in an age when it appears vitally important for scholars of literature, history, and the arts to engage in “collaborative work with experimental scientists” or to make “intelligent use of empirical science findings.” [84]
Despite many humanities-based arguments against them, some exact sciences have advocated for their return. Bill Nye, a science popularizer, retracted previous claims about philosophy’s supposed ‘uselessness’ in 2017. “People allude to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all the time, and I think many of us who make those references don’t have a solid grounding,” Bill Nye says. “It’s useful to understand the history of philosophy.” [85] Scholars such as biologist Scott F. Gilbert argue that the increasing dominance, and thus exclusivity, of scientific ways of thinking, must be tempered by historical and social context. Gilbert is concerned that the commercialization that may be inherent in some approaches to science (pursuit of funding, academic prestige, etc.) should be examined externally. “First and foremost, there is a very successful alternative to science as a commercialized march to “progress,” Gilbert claims. This is the approach of the liberal arts college, a model that values seeing science in context and integrating science with the humanities and social sciences.”
QUESTION
Competency
Formulate, express, and support individual perspectives on diverse works and issues.
Instructions
You will act as a critic for some of the main subjects covered in the humanities. You will conduct a series of short, evaluative critiques of film, philosophy, literature, music, and myth. You will respond to five different prompts, and each response should include an analysis of the topics using terminology unique to that subject area and should include an evaluation as to why the topic stands the test of time. The five prompts are as follows:
1: Choose a film and offer an analysis of why it is an important film, and discuss it in terms of film as art. Your response should be more than a summary of the film.
2: Imagine you had known Plato and Aristotle and you had a conversation about how we fall in love. Provide an overview of how Plato would explain falling in love, and then provide an overview of how Aristotle might explain falling in love.
3: Compare and contrast the two poems below:
LOVE’S INCONSISTENCY
I find no peace, and all my war is done;
I fear and hope, I burn and freeze likewise
I fly above the wind, yet cannot rise;
And nought I have, yet all the world I seize on;
That looseth, nor locketh, holdeth me in prison, And holds me not, yet can I ’scape no wise;
Nor lets me live, nor die, at my devise,
And yet of death it giveth none occasion.
Without eyes I see, and without tongue I plain;
I wish to perish, yet I ask for health;
I love another, and yet I hate myself;
I feed in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain;
Lo, thus displeaseth me both death and life,
And my delight is causer of my grief.
PetrarchAfter great pain a formal feeling comes—
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions—was it He that bore?
And yesterday—or centuries before?
The feet mechanical go round
A wooden way
Of ground or air or ought
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment like a stone.
This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived
As freezing persons recollect
The snow—
First chill, then stupor, then
The letting go
Emily Dickinson
4: Compare and contrast these two pieces of music:
Beethoven’s Violin Romance No. 2Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag
5: Explain in classical terms why a modern character is a hero. Choose from either Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones, Bilbo Baggins, Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen, or Ender Wiggins.