Education and the Humanities

Sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center and made possible by support from Claire and John Radway, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities

Education is one of the most contested spaces in American society today. The humanities historically have shaped these educational discourses and institutions, but has recently lost its authoritative influence on the public debate. Education and the Humanities (E&H) aims to provide a space to reinfuse the conversation with rigorous and resonant scholarship on education from across disciplines and to develop new directions for the humanities. Humanists have a uniquely valuable perspective on the history, literature, and philosophy of education. However, many of us work across disciplines and schools in distinct subfields and rarely talk to one another. Drawing on the unique interdisciplinary community that E&H provides, we strive to uncover the roots of current debates about educational institutions and ideas, promote pathbreaking scholarship, and create opportunities for collaboration to make a bigger impact on the public conversation. The objective of the workshop continues to be to build on two current collaborative research developments to create a long-term network and interdisciplinary space on campus that serves a previously untapped group: humanists who are interested in the rigorous study of educational ideas and institutions. Complementing the public-facing goals of the Cultivating Humanities Grant “Recovering the University as a Public Good” and the graduate student led group in the Graduate School of Education, Humanistic Inquiry and Research in Education (HIRE), E&H will continue to provide a productive space for faculty and graduate students to come together to engage one another.