Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Discovering the humanities chapter 3
Reflection about humanities
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Discovering the humanities chapter 3
This article has allowed me to formulate an understanding of what the humanities are and how they are incorporated into everyone's life. The introduction of A New Deal for the Humanities gave me a clear idea of how different types of people can find different meanings for a subject matter. This passage speaks on how many professionals in higher education fear that the humanities are facing a crisis. The word “crisis” can be seen as a loaded word, just from the highly negative connotation and how it gains the reader’s attention from the beginning. However, if the eloquence about the word “crisis” is withdrawn, the humanities do face increasing pressure from outside parties. In A New Deal for the Humanities, Gordon Hunter and Feisal G. Mohamed
All though “The New Liberal Arts”, Sanford J. Ungar uses seven misconceptions about liberal arts on why learning the liberal arts. And explain why is still relevant and will be for coming years. The first misperception that he advocates is that a liberal arts degree is no longer affordable. Vocational training is better alternative to liberal arts in today. In this recession it is a financially wise decision to obtain a career oriented education instead. Students may not able to find jobs in the field that they are training after graduate. Ungar argues that especially collage students find it harder to get good jobs with liberal arts degrees, which is not the case. Which is the second misperception is that graduates with liberal arts degrees
In his book, A New Deal for the American People, Roger Biles analyzes the programs of the New Deal in regards to their impact on the American society as a whole. He discusses the successes and failures of the New Deal policy, and highlights the role it played in the forming of American history. He claims that the New Deal reform preserved the foundation of American federalism and represented the second American Revolution. Biles argues that despite its little reforms and un-revolutionary programs, the New Deal formed a very limited system with the creation of four stabilizers that helped to prevent another depression and balance the economy.
The most important aspect of the article “Northrop Frye Talks About the Role of Humanities” is Frye’s assertion that the inability to articulate thoughts and ideas results in the impoverishment of the means of verbal communication. Verbal communication becomes impoverished because the ability to articulate is discouraged in society, articulating thoughts are inconvenient for humans, thus simplistic means of communications is preferred and verbal communication is hindered by ill and unfit words to convey one's thoughts. Verbal communication becomes impoverished because the ability to articulate is discouraged in society. Modern technological systems of communication have evolved in a way that prevents the ability to articulate one's thoughts.
As I said before, math and science are important, but the humanities are just as important, if not more. “The humanities, done right, are the crucible within which our evolving notions of what it means to be fully human are put to the test; they teach us, incrementally, endlessly, not what to do but how to be” (Slouka). This quote taken from “Dehumanized” defines and truly puts Slouka’s beliefs into the perspective of what the humanities should teach students and how they should be taught, which I agree with fully. I believe that without the humanities, we, as humans, would all be the same and there would be no room to be different from one another. Whether it be by our culture, religion, or interests, not two people are alike. Individuals should not be bred into being something that they do not want to be or even like Slouka argues, students should not be a “capital investment” for the future of the economy. Students should be investing in themselves to express who they truly are, rather than being something that the economy expects them to
In conclusion, Mark Shiffman wrongly holds fear responsible for the decrease in students studying the humanities. Students today pursue more practical fields of study because the interests of human beings are ever-changing, prioritizing one’s passions is more difficult than determining their objective strengths, and one should focus on their various callings in society rather than striving solely
Hey, Computer Sciences Stop Hating on The Humanities is a magazine article written by Emma Pierson (2017) for employers seeking programmers and universities with computer science programs in which, Pierson addresses the consequences of ignoring the teachings of the humanities in universities. However, with the emphasis Pierson (2017) places on her ‘‘worrisome” thoughts and “difficult dilemma” she has on “algorithms” in paragraphs three and four and in conjunction with McLuhan’s (2009) philosophy of facing the anxiety that comes with critically analyzing flawed “algorithms” that “Narcosis narcotic” hides (para.16), the issue that Pierson targets is really the dependence that systems place on blind and arrogant programmers of flawed “algorithms” that cause “social disparities” (para. 4). These “social disparities” (para. 4) arise because of the programmer’s lack of education and respect or the humanities in moral decision making that universities can teach.
Instead, Sanford J. Ungar presents the arguments that all higher education is expensive and needs to be reevaluated for Americans. He attempts to divert the argument of a liberal arts education tuition by stating “ The cost of American higher education is spiraling out id control, and liberal-arts colleges are becoming irrelevant because they are unable to register gains i productivity or to find innovative ways of doing things” (Ungar 661). The author completely ignores the aspects of paying for a liberal arts degree or even the cost comparison to a public university. Rather, Ungar leads the reader down a “slippery slope” of how public universities attain more funding and grants from the government, while liberal arts colleges are seemingly left behind. The author increasingly becomes tangent to the initial arguments he presented by explaining that students have a more interactive and personal relationship with their professors and other students. Sanford J. Ungar did not address one aspect of the cost to attend a liberal arts college or how it could be affordable for students who are not in the upper class.
Ungar, S. J. (2010). The new liberal arts. In G. Graff, C. Birkenstein, & R. Durst (Eds.). “They say, I say”: The moves that matter in academic writing with readings. (2nd ed.). (pp. 190-197). New York: W. W. Norton. This article looks to prove that liberal arts education is just as valuable as “career education” because contrary to general belief, career education doesn’t guarantee high-paying jobs after they graduate.
Humanities have been shaped by various prominent personalities whose contributions have revolutionized numerous areas in the study of humanities. These intellectual and philosophical icons set the foundation for a richer understanding of the humanities.
Burke, Kenneth. "Literature as Equipment for Living." The Critical Tradition (1998): n. pag. Web. 7 May 2014. .
Going into this Humanities class, I had no idea what I was getting into. I didn’t know what the Humanities were and how it would impact my education at all. I had taken a number of history classes in high school and in college before and expected the Humanities to flow with my history classes in a sense. In my previous history class’s topics such as wars, The Great Depression, assassinations, the settling of different parts of the world, slavery, witch-hunts, and the use of animals were discussed. I thought that the Humanities would fall somewhere on the line with history. I wasn’t wrong with this assumption, but I wasn’t right either. The Humanities, I have learned, is so much more than the history that surrounds what people did, acted like, made as art, ate, and learned. The Humanities made all the different interactions between people clear. People to people, people to land, people to art, people to animals, and many other interactions that people come across. This class opened my mind to everything that art is and can be and to how important is it to learn from the past, grow for...
As I sit down to write about why I have chosen to study history for the past six years of my life and anthropology and sociology for the past three I find myself with a desire to continue my studies and I asked myself this huge, impossible question, why? It is the idea of the question that leads me to believe my reason for studying in the past, present, and future, is my drive to ask questions about what is now, what was, and what will be, and the biggest question of these is the why. Why were things the way they were and how they are now. We live in a world of science, we have a desire to explain everything with an exact answer, a definite right or wrong, a definite way things were or things should be. Humanities undermine this idea. It allows one to open their mind to a never ending world of opinions, beliefs, and truths and explore the ideal of cultural understanding and communication. By studying humanities, particularly the area of Black Culture and African Diaspora, I can be a part of the revolution that holds all peoples thoughts, beliefs, and ways of life, at the highest rega...
I want to suggest that the very ground on which Plato and many since have dismissed the humanities is in another view the basis for the enduring and vital importance of the humanities today. It is worth remembering that problem solving – the activity prized above all others at an institution such as MIT – is made possible only through the prior activity of problem making. Problem making begins with the recognition that there are questions that have yet to be asked, latent possibilities that remain unexplored. And this, ultimately, is where the humanities may have most to offer us. What may seem like the mere multiplication of “uncertainties” and “doubts” might equally serve as a conduit to new thoughts, fresh insights, and creative solutions.
In many American colleges and universities, the number of students majoring in humanities has declined greatly in the past few decades. However, professors of different schools have various opinions on the idea majoring in humanities as a pro or con. Schmidt and Hollinger are pro for humanities. Schdmit analyzed data that showed there is no crisis in humanities -- the major decrease of humanities majors dropped by more than half from 1970 to 1985 which greatly reflected gender roles. Women were switching into different fields of studies while men were just as likely to major in humanities today as they were in the past. Hollinger believes higher education is sold to students as vocational
For centuries, literature and public dissertations have regarded technology undecidedly, as both curse and cure. It remains tempting to state that the study of humanities in the University has undergone a massive sea change in the past decades as a result of the large-scale implementation of digital information processing and recovery (Berry, 2012). However, such a statement can be regarded as historical, for the reason that it is likely to bring about, precisely, a set of hypothesis regularly cross-examined by scholars in the field of humanities who study technology, technological transformation and the production of knowledge. Without doubt, the advancement in technology has profoundly helped in the study of humanities.