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Great article (February 2009) by John Ellis of UC Santa Cruz in response to Patricia Cohen's article in the NYT which theorized why the number of humanities majors was falling. Ellis makes the case that the real culprit isn't the economy, but instead the teachers who have basically abandoned the canon of humanities in the name of modernism/political correctness, which in turn fails to inspire students. He uses the English major for most of his examples, but he suggests that the history major follows the same pattern. Excerpt:
For the race, gender, and class obsessed orthodoxy that now dominates English departments, those great literary works are suspect: they reflect and promote the sexism and racism of the past, and so might stand in the way of the social change that is now the goal of the professoriate. That?s why students at major American universities can now get a degree in English literature without having read William Shakespeare: when Shakespeare is seen as an apologist for and ideologist of imperialism, this should not be a surprise.
This is an excellent article and only too true. I have run into this many times in school so far. A case in point is my current class on 18th and 19th century Europe. I have been continually beaten up by the other students for not worshipping the Philosophes as visionaries who diagnosed the disease and treatment for monarchism and religion.Ellis points out the postmodernist trend in scholarship as well. I particularly liked this quote
I need not further belabor this question of the health of a field that in recent years has been far more concerned that its students read the incoherent Derrida and the paranoid Foucault that William Shakespeare.
He is hitting the nail on the head with this one. I have discussed this aspect of historiography at length in other threads on this very board. The number of Humanities majors will continue to decline until we get back to objective viewpoints in scholarship and in the academy as a whole.
Interesting discussion in the two articles. Here's a link to the NYT article that Ellis is responding to: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/books/25human.html?_r=1Reminds me of something that Admiral James Stockdale once said in an interview: : ?I was always being asked by the Navy brass what a destroyer skipper needs to know about Immanuel Kant: a liberally educated person meets new ideas with curiosity and fascination. An illiberally educated person meets new ideas with fear.?In addition to honing a student's ability to concisely and succinctly express themselves in both the written and oral format, along with the ability to think critically and analytically, an education in "the humanities" will give students and ethical grounding that is not necessarily a part of a technical and vocational education. And a solid ethical grounding is the foundation of society and responsible citizenship. I remember reading somewhere about the obligation of each citizen is to be educated and informed.Food for thought.
That's an interesting quote from Stockdale. It seems to ring true.I also just read the original NYT article and am figuratively shaking my head at it. I am not impressed when lefties share their ideas on why the humanities are important. The meaning of life? Ethics? Please! And that President Obama been the "the person who has done the best job of articulating the benefits" of the field? Whatever! As Mr. Ellis nicely suggested, the professors who have tried to disassemble Western culture over the past 30 years or so are now trying to figure out why students aren't thrilled with hearing what are basically the opinions of leftist elites. Imagine that!
