The Public Fallout of the Humanities Crisis: Critiquing the Public Turn in Rhetoric and Composition Studies Repository Citation (original) (raw)

The State of the Humanities

Rendezvous Journal of Arts & Letters, 2017

From the Editors’ Introduction (Editor Sharon Sieber; Associate Editor Angela Petit). In this volume, Rendezvous Journal of Arts & Letters examines the evolving state of the humanities in higher education in the United States. This volume brings together 18 articles on the state of the humanities, and, as we discovered, the subject is so large that most of the articles pursue topics we had not previously considered. This diversity has led to a rich and varied collection of perspectives on the humanities. Despite their variety, the articles cohere in that they all, to some extent, touch on questions of value and definition.

Reframing the Public Humanities: The Tensions, Challenges & Potentials of a More Expansive Endeavor

Daedalus

This essay assesses the so-called crisis in the humanities from the vantage point of the state humanities councils, looking at the richness and increasing diversity of public humanities work happening outside the academy. The essay posits that the humanities are flourishing in a variety of public spaces, where voices outside the academy are more effectively questioning what it means to commemorate the past and build in community and meaning through that process. But even with such work thriving, the humanities face challenges. Some of those challenges are related to definitional and communications issues in and between both the academic and public sectors. Other challenges are related to access and allocation of resources. While this essay does not pretend to have “answers “ to these perennial issues, it suggests that both the academy and the public might benefit from and create more lasting and relevant impact from bridge-building that marries the expertise and knowledge from both ...

Calls to action for the Arts and Humanities in the US

Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 2014

June 2013 was a notable month for Americans devoted to the humanities, marked by the release of two major-and very different-reports. First out of the gate was 'The Teaching of the Arts and Humanities at Harvard College: Mapping the Future' (Harvard University, Arts and Humanities Division, 2013). Just a few weeks later, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2013) published 'The Heart of the Matter: The Humanities and Social Sciences for a Vibrant, Competitive and Secure Nation,' which takes as its central task making a case for the crucial importance of the humanities and social sciences to Americans and America. These reports differ in some basic and important ways: the former was commissioned by Harvard College for its own members, though with a clear eye to a wider audience, and its major concern is to articulate and analyze the distinctive nature of the humanities and propose remedies for their apparently shrinking place in undergraduate education. The latter responds to a request from the United States Congress about how to maintain 'national excellence in humanities and social scientific scholarship and education' as a means of 'achieving long-term national goals for our intellectual and economic wellbeing, more vibrant civil society, and for the success of cultural diplomacy in the 21st century.' That said, they both work from the premise that the humanities shape our world in fundamental ways (the Harvard report is eloquent on this point, articulating the humanities' power to 'describe,' 'evaluate' and 'imaginatively transform' our experience of the world) and that humanities education gives us the tools we need to function constructively and critically in that world. Further, they both know that, true as this may be, the message is not being heard-by students, academic leaders, policy makers, and the larger public-and make strong recommendations for how to remedy this situation. These reports are calls to action that are complementary, feasible, and could yield powerful results. The question is: who's going to answer? Harvard's vision of Mapping the Future is a frank and even bold (self-)assessment of why the humanities have a more tenuous hold on the academy than in times past. Even taking into account discussion of whether the humanities' share of

What Everyone Says: Public Perceptions of the Humanities in the Media

Daedalus

Using computational means to understand patterns in how the humanities are mentioned in U.S. journalism, the WhatEvery1Says project brings into focus challenging problems in the perception of the humanities. This essay reports on the project's findings and some of the further questions that emerged from them. For example, how does the “humanities crisis” appear among the many crises of our time? Why do the humanities figure so often in connection with concrete, ordinary life yet also seem abstract in value? How can more of the substance of humanistic research be communicated as opposed to appearing as just academic business? And why is there so little focus in the media on how underrepresented populations are positioned in relation to the humanities by comparison to science and social, political, or economic issues? The essay concludes by recommending that the humanities reframe their crisis as part of larger human crises requiring multidisciplinary “grand challenge” approaches.