The H word

Humanities. A summer of glossy manifestos and thoroughgoing press response kicked off when Harvard published its treatise on the future of arts and humanities there. In mid June the American Academy of Arts and Sciences released its report on the status of humanities and social sciences in the nation: The Heart of the Matter. And the first repercussions from Stephen Pinker’s piece in the New Republic of 6 August, “Science is Not Your Enemy” (and its in-your-face subtitle: “an impassioned plea to neglected novelists, embattled professors, and tenure-less historians”), are still being felt. Oh, and the House Appropriations Committee proposed to cut NEH funding by 49%.

Musicology and musicologists are at the table: for instance Anne C. Shreffler, a scholar of the 20th-century avant-garde, is among the signers of the Harvard piece, and former AMS president Elaine Sisman represented the AMS at the launch of The Heart of the Matter in Washington DC. (We expect to offer, in due course, her thoughts on what is missing from The Heart.)

A selection, then, of summer reading in case you missed it:

Harvard’s report, 31 May 2013

• The Teaching of the Arts and Humanities at Harvard College: Mapping the Future
• Short version: In Brief: The Teaching of the Humanities at Harvard College
• Web summary at Harvard
• Jennifer Levitz and Douglas Belkin, “[Harvard] Humanities Fall from Favor,” Wall Street Journal, 6 June 2013
• Alexander Beecroft, “The Humanities: What Went Right?” Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 July 2103
• Anthony T. Grafton and James Grossman, “The Humanities in Dubious Battle:What a New Harvard Report Doesn’t Tell Us,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 31 August 2013

American Academy of Arts and Sciences: report of the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences

• The Heart of the Matter: The Humanities and Social Sciences for a Vibrant, Competitive, and Secure Nation
• David Brooks, “The Humanist Vocation,” New York Times, 20 June 2013
  

Steven Pinker in The New Republic 

• Steven Pinker, “Science is Not Your Enemy,” New Republic, 6 August 2013 
• Concerning the pushback from Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic posted on YouTube, in Jerry A. Coyne’s blog Why Evolution is True, 8 August 2013
• Massimo Pigliucci’s take, “Bad Move, I Think,” from his blog Rationally Speaking, 12 August 2013

etc. etc. etc.

Still More (those pesky numbers)

• Michael Bérubé, “The Humanities, Declining? Not According to the Numbers,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 1 July 2013
• Katy Waldman, “How Women Killed the Humanities (To Save Ourselves!),” Slate, 6 August 2013
• Brown University president Christina H. Paxon, “The Economic Case for Saving the Humanities,” New Republic, 20 August 2013 

                                                                              —DKH