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Definitions
The
Humanities and its Disciplines. The humanities are academic disciplines
that seek to understand, appreciate and critique the human conduction in all its
depth and range of meaning. They, in varied ways, consider the
"big questions," both of the contemporary and the perennial, and with
these understandings and methodologies engage civic life, both locally and
globally, to address the challenges faced by humanity.
While there are many other disciplines that
also seek to understand the human condition, the approaches and methodologies of
the humanities are
primarily interpretive (analytical, critical, and/or reflective), as distinguished
from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences, and the
creative approaches in the arts.
The second distinction is in what the
humanities then attempt to do with the knowledge generated, in the
application of understanding. The Idaho Humanities Council goes on to say, “through [the] study [of the humanities
it seeks to] yield wisdom.” As written in the 1965 National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act which
established the National Endowment for the Humanities and all the state
councils, Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens.” Wisdom is that deep understanding that goes beyond knowing to
application, engaging civic life, both locally and globally, to address the
challenges faced by humanity. To take up the
“big questions.”
In his keynote address, Gary Williams,
my predecessor in this role of Distinguished Humanities Professor, emphasized
that the Humanities are “. . . a way of thinking
about and responding to the world – tools we use to examine and make
sense of the human experience in general and our individual experiences
in particular. The humanities enable us to reflect upon our lives and ask
fundamental questions of value, purpose, and meaning in a rigorous and
systematic way” (Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities). As the 1965 Congressional Act stressed, the term 'humanities' pays “particular attention to
our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current
conditions of national life" . . . . to both the particular and diverse,
as well as the national and general “shared in common.” Attempting to address the “big questions.”
The humanities disciplines typically
include anthropology/ethnography, communications studies, cultural studies (such
as American, Black, International, Latin
American, Native American, Religious, Women's Studies), languages,
law, literature, history, philosophy, and reflection and theory in creative
writing, in the performing arts of music, dance and theatre,
and in the visual arts of painting, sculpting and architecture.
According
to the 1965 National
Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, "The term 'humanities'
includes, but is not limited to, the study of the following: language, both
modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence;
philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism
and theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences which have humanistic
content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the
humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our
diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities
to the current conditions of national life" (emphasis added), to
both the unique and diverse as well as the national and shared in common. (from National Endowment for
the Humanities website, http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/overview.html).
Narratives.
The humanities landscape upon
which we'll travel and explore the interplay of our human diversity and shared
humanity will be through varied forms of narratives. "Narrative" will be defined
broadly,
entailing some sort of storyline and integrated
paradigm of more or less coherent thought and action, all premised on certain ontological
principles and expressed through certain symbolic languages. These
ontological principles could include some form of dualism or monism, and materialism,
idealism or animism among other principles, for instance. The
symbolic languages include prose, poetry,
mathematics, architecture, painting, dance and music, among others.
Examples of narratives can range from such mega-narratives such as Christianity and Science,
to specific aesthetic narratives such as Cubism and
Romanticism, as well as a Taoist Landscape
Painting.
They can be found in Plato's Cave, a
Plains Indian Tipi, and a
Catholic Cathedral. They can be viewed from the Apollo 17's
image of Earth and from atop the stone tower of
Jericho some 10,000 years ago.
They can be embedded in the Christian
Genesis,
Scientific
Human Evolution
and Inuit Sedna
stories. And they
can be found closer to home, in Dan Bikvich's
Missa Africa or in our own
Academy itself. See Resources for more
narrative examples.
Characteristics of the Unique-the Spokes and Universal-the Rim/Hub.
For the purposes of this humanities exploration, just how “human
diversity” and the many spokes, as well as “shared humanity” and the hub
and rim are defined will be left open, expressive the widest possible range of
human characteristics. No single metaphor or set of attributes will
ultimately serve us well.
Human diversity certainly covers familiar characteristics involving gender,
race, and ethnicity as well as characteristics of religion, sexual orientation,
age, class, ability and culture. It entails the varied ways individuals and
groups are distinct in meaningful ways at the local, national and global levels
of human society. And beyond these social distinctions, diversity
can also refer to differentiated ways of aesthetic, epistemological, literary,
psychological, and spatial thought and expression, including disciplinarity,
exclusivity,
the idiosyncratic, the finite and differentiated hinterland, for example.
On the other hand, shared humanity transcends the idiosyncratic in the human
experience and entails characteristics involving universality and
commonality. Beyond these characteristics, shared humanity can also
refer to inclusivity, trans-disciplinarity, the nomothetic, the
infinite and eternal, and the center and the axis mundi. We might look at the "hub" as referring to the
universality we share with one another, while the "rim" refers to
some sort of integration or assemblage of the diverse parts under an
inclusive, single umbrella.