Obsessing about STEM: America seems entranced by STEM education, at the expense of our future, which requires more agile ways of thinkings that the humanities and liberal arts provide. "The United States has led the world in economic dynamism, innovation and entrepreneurship thanks to exactly the kind of teaching we are now told to defenestrate. A [...]
The clarion call for STEM: state legislatures and politicians -- from both parties -- stress education in the sciences, rather than in the humanities and arts: taxpayers should subsidize, the argument goes, those courses of study most likely to produce better taxpayers. "When it comes to dividing the pot of money devoted to higher education, [...]
Umberto Eco explains how books, as our familial elders, deepen our emotional lives across generations. Valentino Bompiani once circulated a saying: “one person who reads is worth two.” It was said by a publisher probably as a clever slogan, but I think it means that writing (and in general language) lengthen one’s life. From the time when [...]
The ways engineering, in order to succeed, requires training in the humanities (for example, Russian literature) and vice versa!
A Dream of Cicero Marbles: What’s wrong, Swan? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Swan: I have! I had a crazy dream last night I met Cicero. Marbles: You’re kidding. You’ve been reading your books too much. Swan: As little as I can, in fact, with all my teaching. I don’t have time [...]
We are mistaken when we believe that culture and the humanities are being served by scholarship. The truth is that art and culture do not belong in a university. It cannot be a home for them, because culture proper and scholarship proper are diametrically opposed.... [T]he objects of culture are not analyzable.... Great works of [...]
Rabbit: What are you doing, Hare? Hare: Nothing much, it seems. Rabbit: Ah, the dolce far niente again. It must be your modus vivendi. Hare: There's nothing like a mixture of languages to get me going. So what are you doing? Rabbit: Well, it's harvest season. I'm busy preparing for winter. Every day there seems more to do. [...]
Journalists have erected for themselves a small wooden chapel that they call the Temple of Fame, in which they continuously affix and remove portraits, making such a racket that one cannot hear oneself speak. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms
Grundlos: Watch out, you almost ran me over! Where are you rushing off to? Magnus: I'm off to give a talk and I'm in a hurry. Grundlos: What is the talk about? You're not very dressed up. Magnus: Look, that's not necessary. It's about the meaning of STEM. Grundlos: What is STEM? Magnus: Don't you [...]
Humanities folks need to hang together or ....
