How to Fix the Permanent Crisis in the Humanities

Prof. Eric Adler and Jessica Hooten Wilson discuss his book Battle of the Classics: How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today in conversation with Reitter and Wellmon's The Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age. Adler creates a lengthier narrative of the humanities that predates the modern version and shows how rooting the identity of the humanities in this story encourages a return to their humanizing character.

[@psikeyhackr6914]

Read the Two Cultures essay by C P Snow.

[@stephenconlon4411]

A great discussion

[@joergmeindl2887]

Good discussion but in my opinion not coming up with a convincing concept to “fix the permanent crisis” - at least not for the American context. It sounds like we should get better at the arguments we have delivered again and again over the years. Make better arguments for goals of humanities as character building and being humanitarian does not convince students who do not want to go to college for character building or being humanitarian. The existence of pseudo-humanitarians is lamentable, but we won’t change this by just telling people they have their goals for education wrong and we know better. Side note: the comparison between universities with many majors and a restaurant with a large menu seems not useful: one chef cannot be expert for everything, but different majors in universities are not taught by the same people. There is more than one chef.