Article Summary #11

The Value of the Humanities

Simpson, David, “The Humanities and the Crisis of Everything,” POV @ DHI, November 18, 2009

Andrew Delbanco’s speech on the crisis in the humanities sought to explain what the humanities are and why they are valuable. Unlike science, which seeks to develop a vaccine for the swine flu, for example, the value of the humanities is more difficult to clearly define.

Delbanco also described what goes on in humanities classrooms. In order for someone to understand this classroom experience in the humanities, he or she should speak to the alumni who would confirm what went on in their humanities courses. According to David Simpson, an English professor and the writer of the article, “It has often been said that the ‘outcome’ of a true college education reveals itself twenty years later, when the person who was once a student reflects on the ongoing, realized value of the arts and of a critical training in the understanding of culture and cultures, and imagines how much poorer life would be without that education.”

Delbanco emphasized the crisis that the humanities are currently facing. Because there are few humanists that hold top decision-making positions, a pre-existing understanding of the humanities cannot be assumed.

Simpson explained that the humanities and science actually have many similarities. Like scientists who engage in research, humanists do scholarship. Both research and scholarship produce a variety of questions and answers. Furthermore, the success of scholarship and research is directly related to a humanist’s or scientist’s competence in the classroom. Therefore, a humanist or scientist who is passionate about teaching their field of work usually generates successful scholarship or research. Both scientists and humanists utilize a body of gathered or stored information, like a library, to aid them in their research or scholarship. Additionally, in the humanities and science classrooms, grades should properly reflect students’ work. Similar to scientists, humanists teach complicated skills, such as speaking and comprehending foreign languages.

While science and the humanities have several similarities, they also have obvious differences. Humanists begin by focusing on the sphere of culture and move toward the understanding of nature. Conversely, scientists start in the opposite direction. But, according to Simpson, both fields of work are still on the same team, “Team University.”