From Bethlehem to Bedlam: classifying the incurables through science. What was founded as a place open to those in need became a palatial institution that housed those deemed mentally unsound. From the article: By the 17th Century, the asylum was well-known enough to appear in numerous Jacobean dramas and ballads. Often – as in Shakespeare’s plays [...]
Between wisdom and enlightenment: self-understanding outshines knowledge of other people and things Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment. Mastering others requires force; Mastering the self needs strength. He who knows he has enough is rich. Perseverance is a sign of power. He who stays where he is endures. To die but not [...]
Historians and health care: how the humanities can heal, body and soul. From the article: From my particular hospital bed, it seemed increasingly, blindingly clear how much humanities and sciences – in this case history and medicine – truly complemented each other. As Gretchen Busl wrote last year, training in the humanities teaches us “the language necessary [...]
The busyness of business, and the practice of inwardness: how business leaders are profiting from the ancient method of mindfulness, as it leads to more rewarding decisions. From the article: Research has found that mindfulness training alters our brains and how we engage with ourselves, others, and our work. When practiced and applied, mindfulness fundamentally alters the operating [...]
Humanities aid the growth of STEM: a mathematics professor calculates their value, an important formula...when others are now estimating the worth of the NEH as close to zero. From the editorial: ... [F]or STEM majors, as much as for other future professionals, a broad background in the humanities is likely to give them a tremendous advantage in [...]
How language shapes the minds of infants: our early listening, in our mother tongue, stays with us throughout our lives. More evidence on the fundamental power of language in our cultural development. From the article: ''Please remember that [the] language learning process occurs very early in life, and useful language knowledge is laid down in [...]
Addressing or dismissing the anxieties of conscience: is this the purview of medical science? Or of other therapy? In our time (this is truth, and it is significant for the Christianity of our time), in our time it is the physician who exercises the cure of souls. People have perhaps an unfounded dread of calling in [...]
Mocking the humanities: a pundit recounts how a scientist used parody -- a classic literary mode of expression -- to mock academic practices in the humanities. From the commentary: Alan Sokal's point ... was that intellectual inquiry in the humanities often is not open. The humanities, he today tells The Chronicle, had become a “subculture” [...]
What do the humanities have to say? And who should listen? A note from Mary Beard, at year's end: They have just issued on the website a top 24 of Cambridge research stories this year. On my reckoning, 19 of those are pure science.... You’d think from looking at this roster that none of the work that [...]
The "third culture" integrating science and humanities: employing a term developed by C.P. Snow and John Brockman, an Italian astronomer reflects on the creative way forward: Emotion therefore is common to science and art, humanistic and scientific culture. Emotion is conveyed through language. Emotion and language (be it literary, artistic or scientific) are the links [...]
