4Humanities interviews Humanities Watch. Ashley Champagne asks about the origins and mission of Humanities Watch, and the humanities' place in society. From the exchange: The point of my website is to demonstrate how the humanities are also in constant conversation with these practical and present interests: science, technology, healthcare, and business. As a matter of fact – [...]
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 a field of research called human-computer interaction, or HCI. And for Ben Shneiderman, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland, [...]
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 editorial: Its greatness derived not alone from its contributors or its organization but from the spirit infusing it. This spirit [...]
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 relevant to make an intelligent, continuously learning citizen, and a more adaptable human being in our increasingly more complex, diverse [...]
Freedom of thought in twelfth-century Paris: how Latin learning (and love) left us a legacy of creative inquiry A good man asked the doctors of [twelfth-century] Paris if it were better to learn what one did not know or to apply what one knew, and when they approved the second, concluded upon them that they [...]
The Humanities Code: how literature helps to write software. The author talks about the creative process required to compose ideas in all languages, including the technological. From the article: I’ve worked in software for years and, time and again, I’ve seen someone apply the arts to solve a problem of systems. The reason for this [...]
Free speech and the humanities: do the humanities foster, or inhibit, freedom of expression? The author decries the "identity politics" and "improper advocacy" among the humanities, which undermine open, rigorous inquiry. From the article: The problem of political correctness is intensified by the increasing fixation of humanities and even history departments on “presentism,” that is, a preoccupation [...]
Happy graduation, humanities students! "Better a few good scholars than many indifferent ones." You embody the meaning of George Washington's mandate to James McHenry, to paraphrase: it is infinitely better to have a few good scholars, than many indifferent ones. For the number of humanities majors has now decreased to the lowest level in a [...]
Triumph of the Advocates: a vision for this world, or the next. Lapidus. Hey you, Lepus! What are you doing there, sitting around? Are you stargazing? Lepus. Lapidus, what’s wrong? You look distressed. Lapidus. I’m tired, that is all. Perhaps that is the reason for my distress. I just dreamt the most amazing dream, a [...]
Beyond Op-Eds: New Ways of Advocating the Humanities: the former director of the National Humanities Center discusses ways to get teachers, and students, more involved in explaining how and why the humanities are important. From the article: "...what is most needed right now: not making the case but developing richer and more meaningful ways of [...]
