Defending letters: a pragmatic response to assaults on the humanities

ABSTRACT

This paper is a mainly pragmatic response to utilitarian criticisms of the humanities. It first outlines political, public and practical fronts on which the humanities are under assault, identifying critics and their conspirators. Then, as a part of its defence of the humanities it expounds some of their central strengths. These range from the philosophical to the practical: lending critical perspectives to knowledge production, enriching lives, developing skills for uncertain and increasingly connected futures, improving science and supporting institutional income and credibility. Finally, the paper suggests that humanists must not only continue valuable conceptual and empirical disciplinary work but must add the very defence of the humanities to professional activity.

KEYWORDS:

• Arts
• crisis
• defending
• humanities
• liberal arts
• utility

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on presentations delivered to the College of Humanities at the University of Otago and the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Flinders University. I thank the audiences at those presentations for their helpful comments and suggestions. Particular thanks are due to Dr Heather Brooks (Flinders’ School of Social and Policy Studies) for her remarks. I would also like to thank Professor Richard Shaw (Massey University) for his valuable remarks on an earlier draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.