This article makes a compelling argument for why the humanities - TopicsExpress

This article makes a compelling argument for why the humanities (and social science!) departments should work together to fight recent narratives on the decline in the Humanities. Humanists encounter a constant stream of articles proclaiming a crisis in the humanities. They are rooted in the alleged high unemployment rate and low pay of humanities graduates, the collapse of the number of humanities majors, and the shrinkage of the discipline’s total tenure-track positions and programs. Each article is a potential falling acorn that could be interpreted as evidence that the sky is falling. As a humanist, it’s hard to resist the urge to run into a cave for cover. Interestingly, although programs and tenure-track lines may in fact be under stress, actual data do not support the overall crisis narrative. Unemployment rates and salaries in the humanities are near the median for all majors, and salaries for graduates in philosophy, English, and history are higher than the median. Following a drop in total major numbers in the 1970s, humanities degrees have remained constant. However, these data seem to have little effect on the humanities’ detractors, and the narrative that they weave about the demise and irrelevance of the humanities can seem impervious to empirical reality. Unfortunately, false crisis narratives have real effects.... We needed to reinvigorate the humanities at our own institution and display their value and meaning.... Our guiding insight was that the humanities were weakened by being seen as a series of small, disconnected, discrete programs. The institution was asking whether English or history mattered to the university, not whether the humanities did. This is not the situation in the sciences. Institutions do not begin by asking whether biology or chemistry matter because these are seen as parts of the sciences, and everyone knows why the sciences matter to the university. In contrast, the humanities were splintered, lacking a powerful unifying message or brand. If we could articulate that larger brand, we could go from defense to offense, changing and taking charge of the narrative on our campus by displaying why the humanities mattered.

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