Humanities at the crossroads Reflections on theory culture and resistance (original) (raw)
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The Revolution Will Not Be Peer-Reviewed: American Disconnects and the Production of Knowledge, 2017
Here is why the humanities and much of social science have so little impact on and are so disconnected from civil society’s discourse: (a) The lack of ability/ambition to produce technical knowledge to be implemented either to solve practical problems in people’s daily life or amend systemic issues; (b) esoteric, inaccessible jargon that favors big nouns ending with -arity, -ization, and -ality, which (however involuntarily) contributes to the public perception of academic aloofness; (c) an inability to reach consensus on virtually any topic, resulting in the public impression of end- and thus pointless quarrels; (d) the chic focus on all kinds of critique and criticism that has crystalized in a portrayal of seemingly inescapable crises which leaves hardly any room for a positive ‘scientific’ vision for society to strive towards. Today, one might think, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. This (contentious) talk wants to dissect these four sources of unscholarly discontent as they energize the ever growing disconnect between academia and the general (U.S., but also German) public. Pointing to their epistemological, economical, and of course political underpinnings will help to better mark the hurdles we, as young scholars, must overcome if our voices are to be heard by wider audiences. As a hopeful reminder, the presentation points to positive examples from various fields like psychology, sociology and economics that have generated visibility by virtue of their interest in people’s daily lives, their appealing language, synthesizing style, and greater vision.
The Promise and the Lie of Humanities
Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 2017
The rising regime of technocracy has generated a slew of self-appraisal on the role of Humanities in the contemporary world, and especially in the institutional location of University. The location of the university is not placed absolutely within the premises of learning but has from the colonial times imbricated itself with the question of social and economic mobility. The university in the postcolonial India continues to be a site of allocation of resources and as such is overdetermined by questions other than the purely academic. This paper delineates the twin concerns for Humanities in India and argues for Humanities which will creatively amalgamate the two concerns that have been worrying it in India-that of the rise of technocracy, and that of a non-complementarity between learner aspirations and institutional requirements. Towards this, the paper advocates on stressing the mutuality of the experience of modernity, thus stressing simultaneity over historicity.
How interdependent are the sciences and humanities? In this article I trace, in broad terms, a scientifically-grounded narrative that culminates in a world we describe using the humanities, and my field, literary studies, in particular. The longstanding presumption that science sits opposed to the humanities is fostered on both sides, to neither's benefit. I hope that by describing something of the bilateral relationship between these fields, arguing that they may be points on a web rather than discrete disciplines, we might better appreciate their places in a cultural ecosystem of interdependence. My hope is that scholars in both the sciences and the humanities appreciate better what one offers the other. Several scholars have pondered upon the role of the humanities recently. Helen Small reviewed arguments that arose in the nineteenth century from Jeremy Bentham and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, via John Stuart Mill, and from Matthew Arnold, among others. Jonathan Bate's collection of essays by various humanities scholars perhaps shows even more awareness of the pressure on the academy to justify its receipt of public funds, again on cost-benefit principles. Stefan Collini (What Are Universities For?) and Martha Nussbaum have weighed in on similar terms. My own position is largely sympathetic to all of these: Small's is a historically well-informed discussion of the kinds of value that may not be pecuniary, but which are socially significant nonetheless; Nussbaum repudiates the demand for economic value in and of itself, though this may be preaching to the choir, rather than those actually in charge of funding the choir; Bate's various essayists are likewise persuasive, but many of their essays read to me like research proposals to funding bodies, anxious to trumpet past financial returns from research into archaeology, classical studies and theology, with the promise of more if funding continues (the principal object of gratitude in that volume's acknowledgements is the United Kingdom's Arts and Humanities Research Council). Unlike the essayists in Bate's collection, I do not feel I can make much of a case for enhanced, or even continued, public funding. But if their arguments rest on the observation that the benefits of humanities research are often entirely unpredictable at the point of departure – which I would observe is also true of some of the most significant scientific research – then highlighting some of the unexpected consequences of language as an adaptive characteristic, challenging some of the ways that language is routinely taken for granted in our disciplines, might raise the idea of its value more widely, validating its continued study as a driver towards social good. This article emerges from discussions I have had over the years with English students at Cambridge, recounting their experiences of the flurry of introductions that constitute Freshers' Week, where they so often face demands from students taking STEM subjects to justify the academic value of English. After an exhausting series of evenings being tormented by, say, one of the new intake of engineers, who has pointed out that the raw study of poetry has little saleable value in the marketplace, that all degrees encourage critical thinking and how to write; that they read books too, only in their leisure time, after they have finished their studies – at this point I propose to my weary students that they abandon the defensive mode and strike up a stealth attack, beginning with a question – " You've heard of Charles Darwin? " (Because if my English students are going to be patronized, they may as well give a taste of it back.) Anyway,
The critical and emancipatory role of the humanities in the age of Empire
It is no exaggeration to say that the humanities are under threat today. Indications abound that, in the age of 'Empire' and of the 'multitude', multiple powers combine to install a new world order at various, interlinked levels – juridical, political, economic and cultural. It is in the interest of these forces to minimize the critical and emancipatory role of the humanities globally in various ways – by de-prioritizing their place in university curricula, or by subjecting them to various forms of what Foucault called 'normalizing judgment' and 'examination' (via academic audits, for instance). This paper is intended to explore some of the ways in which the inalienable critical-philosophical function of the humanities is threatened at present, and turns to Julia Kristeva's notion of 'revolt', as well as comparable ideas in the work of Lacan (the ethical) and Foucault ('error' and the 'marginal'), among others, for suggestions regarding the continued relevance, and indeed, the indispensable role of the humanities concerning the existence of a world which is recognizably human. …the relationship to the world that modern science fostered and shaped now appears to have exhausted its potential. It is increasingly clear that, strangely, the relationship is missing something. It fails to connect with the most intrinsic nature of reality, and with natural human experience. It is now more of a source of disintegration and doubt than a source of integration and meaning. It produces what amounts to a state of schizophrenia: Man as an observer is becoming completely alienated from himself as a being. Classical modern science described only the surface of things, a single dimension of reality. And the more dogmatically science treated it as the only dimension, as the very essence of reality, the more misleading it became. Today…we may know immeasurably more about the universe than our ancestors did, and yet, it increasingly seems they knew something more essential about it than we do, something that escapes us. The same thing is true of nature and of ourselves… And thus today we find ourselves in a paradoxical situation. We enjoy all the achievements of modern civilization that have made our physical existence on this earth easier in so many important ways. Yet we do not know exactly what to do with ourselves, where to turn. The world of our experiences seems chaotic, disconnected, confusing… Experts can explain anything in the objective world to us, yet we understand our own lives less and less. In short, we live in the post-modern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain. Václav Havel.
Towards a New Enlightenment - The Case for Future-Oriented Humanities
THE NEW INSTITUTE.Interventions
What role can the humanities play in shaping our common future? What are the values that guide us in the 21st century? How can we unleash the potential the humanities offer in a time of multiple crises? This volume tackles some of these fundamental questions, acknowledging and developing the changing role of academic discourse in a turbulent world. This timely book argues that the humanities engender conceptual tools that are capable of reconciling theory and practice. In a bold move, we call for the humanities to reach beyond the confines of universities and engage in the most urgent debates facing humanity today - in a multidisciplinary, transformative, and constructive way. This is a blueprint for how societal change can be inclusive and equitable for the good of humans and non-humans alike.
Culture and Globalization, or, the Humanities in Ruins
CR: The New Centennial Review, 2003
It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident anymore, not its inner life, not its relation to the world, not even its right to exist. The forfeiture of what could be done spontaneously or unproblematically has not been compensated for by the open infinitude of new possibilities that reflection confronts. In many regards, expansion appears as contraction. The sea of the formerly inconceivable, on which around revolutionary art movements set out, did not bestow the promised happiness of adventure. Instead, the process that was unleashed consumed the categories in the name of that for which it was undertaken.