“What are the humanities? It is like the notion of ‘time’ in St. Augustine: if you don’t ask, we know, but if you ask, we are left empty handed. Since the nineteenth century the humanities have generally been defined as the disciplines that investigate the expressions of the human mind. Such expressions include language, mu- sic, art, literature, theatre, and poetry. Thus, philology, linguistics, musicology, art history, literary studies, and theatre studies all belong to the realm of the humanities.” – Rens Bod, A New History of the Humanities: The Search for Principles and Patterns from An- tiquity to the Present (Oxford Univ. Press, 2013) “The humanities are academic disciplines that study human culture. The humanities use methods that are primarily critical, or specu- lative, and have a significant historical ele - ment—as distinguished from the mainly em- pirical approaches of the natural sciences. The humanities include ancient and modern languages, literature, philosophy, religion, and visual and performing arts such as music and theatre. Areas that are sometimes regarded as social sciences and sometimes as humanities include history, archaeology, anthropology, area studies, communication studies, classical studies, law and linguistics…. The humanities and social sciences teach us how people have created their world, and how they in turn are created by it.”
WHAT DOES THE TERM "HUMANITIES" EVEN MEAN? HERE ARE A FEWDEFINITIONS
“The term ‘humanities’ includes, but is not limited to, the study and interpretation of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; ju- risprudence; philosophy; archaeology; com- parative 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 hu- man environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the hu- manities to the current conditions of national life.” - National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, 1965, as amended (the U. S. Congressional Act that created the National Endowment for the Humanities)
“Research stemming from a detailed under- standing of human behavior, economies, cul- tures and societies can dramatically redefine the crucial decisions we need to make. These decisions may involve the future direction of our economy, ways of broadening and strengthen- ing education provision at all levels, or how we deal with the effects of climate or constitutional change… The humanities and social sciences teach us how people have created their world, and how they in turn are created by it.”
– The British Academy for Humanities & Social Sciences, “Press Pack”
“The humanities—including the study of lan- guages, literature, history, jurisprudence, phi- losophy, comparative religion, ethics, and the arts—are disciplines of memory and imagina- tion, telling us where we have been and helping us envision where we are going.” - The Heart of the Matter (Report of the American Academy of Arts & Science’s Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences to the U. S. Con- gress in June 2013)
– Wikipedia, “Humanities,” 2014
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Arts & Humanities
Don’t Leave College Without Them
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