Is the future of the humanities a public one? This Colloquy proposes that a truly public humanities must encourage critical attention to its own premises. Its ten contributions include reflections on the concept of public humanities, interviews with practitioners and critics, and accounts of public-oriented projects in action.
Presumably, it has never been a good time for the Humanities. Perhaps because it is simply in the nature of the discipline to find itself perpetually in crisis, lagging behind the times, dragging its leaden feet made out of indelible words, asking for more and more time in a civilization perpetually in a rush. It is constantly on the edge of a precipice, but we cannot deny that, while it is awkwardly balancing itself on the edge, it does enjoy magnificent views. After all, our field does not thrive on security, on solid facts, on controlled experiments with measurable outcomes.
As machines creep ever further into work that requires thinking and judgment, human creativity, interpretation, emotions, and reasoning will become increasingly important. STEM may just lead to its own obsoleteness, and in doing so increases the value of professionals trained in the humanities.
Quayson retells the urban social history of Accra through the singular Oxford Street, part of the city’s most vibrant and globalized commercial district.
Though many of us are frequently concerned with what we’re currently teaching and why, and though we might have strong opinions about what ought to be taught in the coming years, fewer of us have a comprehensive understanding of how the past century of institutional approaches to curriculum design has contributed to our present circumstances.
A leading scholar and institutional leader reflects on recent developments in her field, the public humanities, and the evolution of a research center for medieval and early modern studies.
There is perhaps something perverse in returning to Paris in a moment of transnational studies that has aimed to diminish the metropolitan center’s hold on critical attention. Yet the case of Americans in Paris in particular offers insight into the gravitational interactions between empires . . .
What are the historical stakes of prosody, and why should we ask? ‘Prosody’ refers both to the patterning of language in poetry and to the formal study of that patterning.