What Are the Humanities For?: On the Value of Humanistic Inquiry
Cambridge University Press, 4/29/2021
EAN 9781108838412, ISBN10: 1108838413
Hardcover, 202 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
What are the humanities for? The question has perhaps never seemed more urgent. While student numbers have grown in higher education, universities and colleges increasingly have encouraged students to opt for courses in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) or take programs in applied subjects like business and management. When tertiary learning has taken such a notably utilitarian turn, the humanities are judged to have lost their centrality. Willem B. Drees has no wish nostalgically to prioritize the humanities so as to retrieve some lost high culture. But he does urge us to adopt a clearer conception of the humanities as more than just practical vehicles for profit or education. He argues that these disciplines, while serving society, are also intrinsic to our humanity. His bold ideas about how to think with greater humanistic coherence mark this topical book out as unmissable reading for all those involved in academe, especially those in higher educational policy or leadership positions.
I. What are the Humanities?
1. Humanities
a tentative definition
2. Understanding others
3. Self-involving
philosophy and theology
4. Responsible scholarship
II. Who Needs the Humanities?
5. Professionals
how to live with interpretations
6. Humans
7. The value of the humanities.