Two articles in a series I highly recommend are "Will the Humanities Save Us?" and "The Uses of the Humanities, Part Two," which address the question, "What is the value of a humanities education to society?" I don't agree with him; I tend to be more utilitarian. But as I said above, he writes well and the reader comments are quite interesting in their own right. As graduates in English, the debate goes to the heart of our efforts.
Dr. Fish's New York Times bio:
Stanley Fish is the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and a professor of law at Florida International University, in Miami, and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has also taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins and Duke University. He is the author of 10 books. His new book on higher education, "Save the World On Your Own Time," has just been published.
Ugh. That was just irritating. You would think a person who has spent a life benefiting from the study of literature would be more supportive of it. He also trashes tenure, again something he benefited from. Humanities departments have enough problems than having to defend them from within.
ReplyDeleteHe is a bit contrarian. I don't think he makes a good case of "humanities for humanities' sake." That doesn't seem like an effective way to get money out of people. Legislators need to see a return on investment. The public, people who work at Stripes and WalMart, is forking over a portion of their paycheck for us to do scholarship. There needs to be something in it for them at some level. If we're helping produce insightful leaders, if we're producing good writers, if we're training people at all levels of society to think critically and flexibly, the public is getting their money's worth. If what we're doing is a good separate from results and without results, I don't have the shame do go asking someone making $8 an hour to chip in for my hobby, or even take it down a chain of hands in the form of taxes.
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