ROSS DOUTHAT notes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opinion/humanities-internet-novels.html
The quest, understandably enough, has always been to sustain relevance and connection — to politics, to professional life, to whatever trends appear at the cutting edge of fashion, to the idea of “progress.” But that quest can end only in self-destruction when the thing to which you’re trying so desperately to bind yourself — the culture and spirit of the smartphone-era internet, especially — is actually devouring all the habits of mind that are required for your own discipline’s survival. You simply cannot sustain a serious humanism as an integral part of a digitalized culture; you have to separate, at least until we figure out a way to be digital that isn’t just the way of the addict, or the surfer skimming and never going deep.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opinion/humanities-internet-novels.html
The quest, understandably enough, has always been to sustain relevance and connection — to politics, to professional life, to whatever trends appear at the cutting edge of fashion, to the idea of “progress.” But that quest can end only in self-destruction when the thing to which you’re trying so desperately to bind yourself — the culture and spirit of the smartphone-era internet, especially — is actually devouring all the habits of mind that are required for your own discipline’s survival. You simply cannot sustain a serious humanism as an integral part of a digitalized culture; you have to separate, at least until we figure out a way to be digital that isn’t just the way of the addict, or the surfer skimming and never going deep.
The End of the English Major
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/the-end-of-the-english-major
Enrollment in the humanities is in free fall at colleges around the country. What happened?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/the-end-of-the-english-major
Enrollment in the humanities is in free fall at colleges around the country. What happened?
The Putative Defenders of Liberal Education Are
Destroying It
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/liberal-education-desantis-humanities-western-canon/673395/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/liberal-education-desantis-humanities-western-canon/673395/
Some see liberal arts education as elitist. Why it’s really pragmatic.
Liberal arts education: Waste of money or practical investment?
Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson:
Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson:
What Are We Doing Here?
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/11/09/what-are-we-doing-here/
Robinson notes:
"Our great universities, with their vast resources, their exhaustive libraries, look like a humanist’s dream. Certainly, with the collecting and archiving that has taken place in them over centuries, they could tell us much that we need to know. But there is pressure on them now to change fundamentally, to equip our young to be what the Fabians used to call “brain workers.” They are to be skilled laborers in the new economy, intellectually nimble enough to meet its needs, which we know will change constantly and unpredictably. I may simply have described the robots that will be better suited to this kind of existence, and with whom our optimized workers will no doubt be forced to compete, poor complex and distractible creatures that they will be still.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/11/09/what-are-we-doing-here/
Robinson notes:
"Our great universities, with their vast resources, their exhaustive libraries, look like a humanist’s dream. Certainly, with the collecting and archiving that has taken place in them over centuries, they could tell us much that we need to know. But there is pressure on them now to change fundamentally, to equip our young to be what the Fabians used to call “brain workers.” They are to be skilled laborers in the new economy, intellectually nimble enough to meet its needs, which we know will change constantly and unpredictably. I may simply have described the robots that will be better suited to this kind of existence, and with whom our optimized workers will no doubt be forced to compete, poor complex and distractible creatures that they will be still.
Why teach the humanities? Why study them? American universities are literally shaped around them and have been since their founding, yet the question is put in the bluntest form—what are they good for?"
The ‘Suicide’ of the Liberal Arts
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-suicide-of-the-liberal-arts-higher-education-students-teachers-educators-degree-america-learning-11669994410
He worries that students are “making themselves small too soon” by picking a major without first getting a broad education.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-suicide-of-the-liberal-arts-higher-education-students-teachers-educators-degree-america-learning-11669994410
He worries that students are “making themselves small too soon” by picking a major without first getting a broad education.
