What is Humanities for?

Humanities as a field encompass various specialties. These include literacy, history, philosophy, gender, area studies, and medical, computational, environmental, digital, and urban humanities. However, following the 2008 financial crisis, investment and funds in humanities have been falling. This resulted in the closure of some arts and liberal sciences departments. As in the case of the previous historical economic crises, this downturn also seems to curtail democracy. Humanities seem to share the burden of this democratic relapse. It might be a chicken and egg situation, or it might be the fact that the lack of investment in humanities might be one reason for the lack of analysis, the spread of ignorance, showing itself as social fracture, otherisation, and increasing populist tendencies. Regardless, since 2008 many have been discussing both the democratic backsliding and the decline of the funds and interest in humanities education.

While immediate solutions may be hard to identify and implement, sharing terms and definitions produced in the Humanities with wider audiences might be one immediate act everyone can contribute. This blog aims to share terms developed in various fields in the humanities (and the social sciences). I have the contention that the gap between the universities and public knowledge is indicative of the gap between the elite and the people creating a dichotomy that causes many social and economic conflicts. However, knowledge belongs to all.

Having a language of precision, definition, and openness to reinterpretation is what academic scholarship teaches ideally to its practitioners. Why not carry this practice to everyday settings? Besides, the privileged who have time and energy to spend in libraries have a duty to share what they discovered with others. I am also curious what kind of scholarship we would have in a society that knows the decades-long discussions that developed new terminology and the latest discussions. I am curious if it is possible to have a renaissance society that knows all that is taught under various fields and disciplines in our highly industrialised and specialised educational institutional structure. I am curious if we can implement the equality principle in society about knowledge by creating accessible platforms where we can invite all to join in thinking and knowledge production.

Terms defined and developed by academic writers and scholars are not only valuable and imperative to have a well-established academic discussion and debate. Just like a language is essential to communicate, these terms form a language that can help communicate complicated topics in a shorter time. However, this is not the only purpose of learning terms developed in humanities. Many social conflicts and miscommunications originate in the language lost in socio-cultural translation and communication. These terms help to clarify and summarise the ideas that help to communicate better. Thirdly, thinking requires discipline, which is not only needed to produce an intellectual or scholarly piece. Thinking is an everyday activity. We all read about how the vocabulary learned during the K-12 years of education helps children develop critical thinking skills. A rich vocabulary helps people do better in whatever they do. Moreover, a social problem discussed by scholars might help immensely to prevent further conflict in everyday life. It is like learning from history. Only this time, the history of terms and terminology.

Universities and knowledge production in the modern world has a history. However, knowledge production is not limited to the learned circles where knowledge production is a paid profession. Society is a source of knowledge not as a study topic but as an actor in knowledge production. To have this society, the people in various workspaces need to have access to knowledge produced in academic circles. Moreover, the brain does not act alone in knowledge production. Think of post-WWII grieving scholars who channeled that grief into knowledge production. There are emotions behind many of the research projects. These can be seen in fifty years. Historians write about how earlier scholars discussed specific themes and topics. These show the mentalities and emotions of the time they lived, their friends’ ideas and emotions, and collective emotions. How society thinks and behaves shapes scholars and thus their scholarship. Therefore, disseminating knowledge produced in the ivory towers of universities is not a charity act. A learned society has the potential to inspire a new generation of outstanding scholars in an environment with increased quality of critical thinking skills, thus education and knowledge production.

If you like to join the blog on Everyday Humanities as a researcher/writer, please let me know. Let’s do this together!

The link for the Blog: https://everydayhumanities.blogspot.com

For Further Readings:

Levenson, Michael. The Humanities and Everyday Life. Oxford, 2017.

Steven Mintz’s writings at the Inside Higher Ed

• https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/reimagining-humanities-21st-century
• https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/humanities’-scholarly-infrastructure-utter-disarray