Selling the Humanities: Essays - Softcover

Leo, Jeffrey R. Di

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1680033182 ISBN 13: 9781680033182

Verlag: Texas Review Press, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Selling the Humanities explores the challenges facing literature, philosophy, and theory at a time when the humanities appear to some as burnt out.  There is incredible pressure to demonstrate the value of the humanities within institutions dedicated to economic feasibility and job placement, not intellectual power and social commitment.  This situation is further intensified by the demand that one must always be prepared to sell the humanities to others in an effort to save them.  But is it even possible to commodify the humanities?  And if so, might our efforts to sell the humanities also have the potential to kill them in the process?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jeffrey R. Di Leo is Professor of English and Philosophy at the University of Houston-Victoria. He is editor and founder of the critical theory journal symplokē, editor and publisher of the American Book Review, and Executive Director of the Society for Critical Exchange and its Winter Theory Institute.

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from "Preface"

One way to look at the life of the humanities after the economic collapse of 2008 is to view it as a series of efforts to find a successful way of selling the humanities in the age of late capitalism.  The recent pandemic has only amplified this situation with most institutions dedicated to supporting the humanities struggling to stay financially above water.   If the effect of the economic crisis of 2008 over the course of the next dozen years was to turn the humanities into a business operation, then one might wager that the effect of the pandemic of 2020 will be to turn advocates of the humanities into full-blown salesmen—or, if you will, salespeople.
         Arthur Miller famously couldn’t decide whether Death of a Salesman was “the tragedy of a man who gave his life, or sold it” in pursuit of the American Dream.  For the emerging generation of humanities salespeople, a similar dilemma holds.  In working to sell the humanities to colleges and universities, to the benefactors who support them, to the agencies which fund them, to the public which benefits from them, and to all of the other institutions which support them including the world of publishing, we face a truly existential crisis: are we giving our lives to the humanities or selling them in their pursuit?
         It may be an open question whether the drama we are now living is about those who gave their life in pursuit of the humanities or those who have sold it.  But it is not open to debate that we are all participants in a living tragedy regarding the humanities.  Also, it is not open to debate that we need to work together to find better ways to sell the humanities to those who cannot find any value in them. 
         Academics like Fish who only aim to antagonize in order to draw attention to themselves work against a future for the humanities.  A decade or two ago this type of behavior may have been prime viewing on academic Showtime, but today those who exhibit it may themselves need to go “back to school.”  The fate of the humanities is in the hands of those who can balance arguments regarding the value of the humanities with a critique of the neoliberalism in all of its forms.  To do so is to walk the proverbial “razor’s edge” as a committed, progressive humanities advocate.
         Selling the Humanities explores the challenges facing literature, philosophy, and theory at a time when the humanities appear to some as burnt out.  There is incredible pressure to demonstrate the value of the humanities within institutions dedicated to economic feasibility and job placement, not intellectual power and social commitment.  This situation is further intensified by the demand that one must always be prepared to sell the humanities to others in an effort to save them.  But is it even possible to commodify the humanities?  And if so, might our efforts to sell the humanities also have the potential to kill them in the process?
         The essays here take up these and other topics regarding the situation of the humanities today by glancing backward to the thoughts of some of its forgotten heroes for inspiration and strength, and looking forward through the eyes of scholars who are working toward a future for the humanities.  My own perspective is that of a philosopher who served for a decade and a half as a university dean and has edited a humanities journal for twice that amount of time. From this vantage point, selling the humanities in order to save them is a task that should not just be left to a handful of high profile public intellectuals—but one required of anyone and everyone who cares about the future of the humanities.  Selling the humanities is the business of everyone who values them.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Texas Review Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1680033182
• ISBN 13: 9781680033182
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 222
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar