Daedalus articles from January 2009

Daedalus archives from January 2009

Reflecting on the humanities.
January 1, 2009... The essays assembled here enact as well as reflect the humanities. As they explore the twenty-first-century state of humanistic study and humanistic commitment, they exemplify historical awareness, analytic power, and critical consciousness. In...

The public good: knowledge as the foundation for a democratic society.
January 1, 2009... While we have much to celebrate, our democracy needs continuing attention. (1) We might well take the view that it needs more attention now than it has in some time. Consider the terms "the public good," "Knowledge," and "a democratic society,"...

The power of the humanities & a challenge to humanists.
January 1, 2009... The humanities protect and give life to our most enduring values. The very DNA of civilization is encoded in the poet's song, the painter's brushstroke, and the vibrant dialogue about ideas. Although the study of the humanities cultivates the...

Where the humanities live.
January 1, 2009... In 1964, the historian J. H. Plumb announced a crisis in the humanities: "Alas, the rising tide of scientific and industrial societies, combined with the battering of two World Wars, has shattered the confidence of humanists in their capacity...

The humanities in liberal arts colleges: another instance of collegiate exceptionalism?
January 1, 2009... Because liberal arts colleges are "in certain respects more diverse than any other type of higher education institution," (1) and because their nature, history, generally shared characteristics, even their very number, are so often a matter of...

The humanities & social change.
January 1, 2009... The mere exercise of reading the text as it really is will make the reader moral and wise in a direct way that no systemic body of dogmatic teaching can rival... The real point of close reading is that it produces the right sort of...

A world without literature?
January 1, 2009... Just over ten years ago, the mood of a large section of the North American academic world was caught in the title of a volume published by Princeton University Press with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The volume asked, What's...

The twelfth day.(Poem)
January 1, 2009... The Twelfth Day FOR PAM CANTOR It is the twelfth day The hero will not take food He refuses wine sleep women How can the body not spoil? Dragged by chariot gashed smeared in mud and horse droppings Mutilate Mutilate...

Perspectives, connections & objects: what's happening in history now?
January 1, 2009... In 1997, Princeton University Press published a volume, What's Happened to the Humanities?, which rang with alarm. (1) Even contributors such as Francis Oakley, Carla Hesse, and Lynn Hunt, who tried to warn against despair by explaining how the...

Apocalypse in the stacks? The research library in the age of Google.
January 1, 2009... Research libraries take up a vast amount of physical and psychic space. They inhabit spectacular buildings, old and new, which occupy prime real estate in cities and on campuses. They mount costly, splendid exhibitions of everything from...

Engaging the humanities: the digital humanities.(technology's impact to humanities)
January 1, 2009... We seldom speak of the electrical, the automotive, or the aeronautical humanities, for all that those technologies have done to revolutionize the social order of scholarship and transform the practices of scholars. Someday we will no longer...

Performing the humanities at the Ethiopian Millennium.
January 1, 2009... The performing arts, sometimes regarded as separate from the humanities, in fact bring the humanities to life. (1) Through performance, the written word travels from the mind's eye to the lips and to the ear; painting and sculpture suddenly...

The future of the humanities--in the present & in public.
January 1, 2009... Since the mid-twentieth century, the professionalization of our disciplines has been a hallmark of higher education in general and the research university in particular. Despite the repeated calls over the past twenty-five years for a renewal...

Recent trends in funding for the academic humanities & their implications.
January 1, 2009... Never abundant, financial support for the "academic humanities" (1) is now scarce. How scarce it is, both in absolute and relative terms, and whether the humanities now confront particularly hard times, are the pressing questions. To piece...