A recent article on insidehighered.com entitled "The Shrinking Humanities" W. Robert Connor discusses the origin of the humanities. He notes the origins of this type of study in the 15th century work of "Renaissance humanists, such as Joseph Justus Scaliger, Marsilio Ficino and Lorenzo Valla, applied immense energy and learning to establishing reliable texts of ancient authors, commenting on them, making them accessible through translations, and teaching them in a way that created an understanding of human beings and moral agency not restricted by the dictates of medieval theology."
In modern literary studies we seek to understand the factors contributing the authoring a later interpretation of texts, both in their own milieu and in our own. The ability to critically analyze texts through theoretical lenses helps us to track the discourses lying just beneath the surface of novels, plays, poems--or any other type of "text".
But various factors have put pressure on colleges and universities to deemphasize the study of the humanities. These factors include the current recession, the disillusionment arising from huge college debt, the reality that many students cannot find work in their chosen field, and the corporatization of higher education. It seems counter-intuitive to many to invest larger amounts of time and money to subjects not directly related to the career goals of students. What relevance does Moby Dick have to trading stocks or climbing the corporate ladder?
For those who have degrees in the humanities, this means a shrinking job market, more competition for PhD programs, and a greater likelihood of needing to take work outside academia. As Connor puts it, the modern practice of the humanities risks "the uncritical judging of the past by today’s interests and standards" rather than maintaining a clear link between modern ideas and the ideas of the past. While much modern and postmodern art seeks to break from the past, creating a myopic preoccupation with our current milieu, perhaps we need to explore anew the ideas and values that motivated the scholars of the Renaissance.
