News articles and commentary on the place of the humanities in the modern world.
Thinking, feeling, reading (Susan Reynolds, Psychology Today)
Thinking, feeling, reading: how not just what you read, but how you read, affects your soul and self. From the article: Recent research also revealed that “deep reading”—defined as reading that is slow, immersive, rich [...]
Natural empathy and artificial intelligence (Satya Nadella, Slate)
Natural empathy and artificial intelligence: the CEO of Microsoft calls for a greater appreciation of the human condition as computational technology becomes more sophisticated. From the editorial: At a developer conference earlier this year, I shared [...]
Liberal arts needed in the tech world (David Kalt, Wall Street Journal)
Liberal arts needed in the tech world: why having a facility for languages, of all sorts, enhances the richness of software development. From the editorial: Most liberal arts degrees encourage a well-rounded curriculum that can give [...]
AI is coming, and it’s our boon (Brian Fung, Washington Post)
AI is coming, and it's our boon: how working with computers and technology can, in fact, aid the inquiry into ourselves. From the editorial: Making artificial intelligence easy for regular people to use and love depends on [...]
Literature, therapy, and healing (Andrew Solomon, The Guardian)
How language -- its clarity, immediacy, and nuance -- is vital to both patients and doctors, for it can overcome the split between scientific specialization and the experience of suffering. From the article: Many of the [...]
In Praise of Encyclopedias (Joseph Epstein, Wall Street Journal)
Has the age of the encyclopedic excellence passed us by, or can (or should) it be revived? The author praises the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica (1910-11) as "the last great encyclopedia." From the [...]
Science first, humanities later (Vinod Khosla, Medium)
Science first, humanities later: logic and computer science beat Jane Austen and Shakespeare. From the editorial: Though Jane Austen and Shakespeare might be important, they are far less important than many other things that are more [...]
Humanities fed the soul in communist Romania (Irina Dumistrescu, Zocalo)
Humanities fed the soul in communist Romania: how the study of the humanities kept people alive, and allowed them to find truth when surrounded by falsehood. From the article: When I heard this story, I [...]
The Joy of Reading (Ceridwen Dovey, The New Yorker)
The joy of reading: can reading offer therapy to those in distress and provide a greater sense of well-being? From the article: For all avid readers who have been self-medicating with great books their entire lives, [...]
The Republic of Science (Jim Tankersley, Washington Post)
Reading philosophy and economic theory, Charles Koch turns his business acumen and ambition to the spread of research ideas. From the article and interview: Polanyi’s “The Republic of Science: Its Political and Economic Theory,” published in [...]