News articles and commentary on the place of the humanities in the modern world.
The busyness of business, the practice of inwardness (R. Hougaard, J. Carter, G. Dybkjaer, Harvard Business Review)
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 [...]
Humanities aid the growth of STEM (Neil Kobitz, Chronicle for Higher Education)
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 [...]
How language shapes the minds of infants (Helen Briggs, BBC)
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: [...]
Mocking the humanities (George Will, Pittsburgh Tribune)
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 [...]
What do the humanities have to say? And who should listen?
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 [...]
Heralding the creative economy: Andrew Chitty leads the effort in the UK
Heralding the creative economy: Andrew Chitty leads the effort in the UK. The Arts and Humanities Research Council strengthens the fundamental ties between business and the humanities with its new Creative Economy Champion. From the press [...]
The English we thought we knew (Lennox Morrison, BBC Capital)
The English we thought we knew: now that the majority of English speakers is non-native, how is that changing the language, our prime means of communication? Is the English-speaking world getting larger, or more fragmented: more coherent, [...]
Daydreaming and neuroscience (Alison Gopnik, Wall Street Journal)
Daydreaming and neuroscience: how brain imaging may track the creative process fostered by the wandering mind. From the article: Dr. Christoff and colleagues suggest that creative thought involves a special interaction between these control systems [...]
Material success and intellectual life: worlds collide (Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg View)
Material success and intellectual life: worlds collide. Ramesh Ponnuru interviews Robert P. George and Cornell West, with surprising results. From his account: One thing that surprised me about our panel, though, was how little they [...]
Tiny bubbles, of the mind (Sydney Finkelstein, BBC Capital)
Tiny bubbles, of the mind (make us feel happy / make us feel fine): the way technological mathematics limits our thinking, enclosing us in ever-smaller circles of awareness. From the article: The ubiquity of incredibly [...]