"Beneath and Beyond the "Crisis in the Humanities

Bibliographic Data

ID4270932
AuthorsGeoffrey Galt Harpham (corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume36
Issue1
Pages21-36
Publication date2005-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Literary History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0028-6087 • E-ISSN: 1080-661X
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/nlh.2005.0022
OpenAlexW1988760870
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited2

One way of focusing the perennial crisis in the humanities is to think of it as a crisis of rationale, an inability by humanists to articulate what they do in a way that makes clear its distinctiveness and value to the larger culture. This paper attempts to establish the elements of a rationale. The first is the fact that the object of humanistic study is best conceived as a "text," a material and public medium produced in the past and requiring disciplined attention. The second is the premise that humanistic understanding entails a speculative recuperation of a complex, deep, and overdetermined subject, situated in a particular time and place. Third, humanistic understanding requires the reader to engage with the mind of the author in a way that fosters self-understanding, strengthens and enriches our imaginative powers, and gives a distinctive kind of intellectual pleasure

Epistemology · Humanism · Humanities · Linguistics · Object (grammar) · Optimal distinctiveness theory · Pleasure · Premise · Situated · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Value (mathematics) · Computer Science · Media, Communication, and Education · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub