The study of the humanities in the United States includes the study of

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

disciplines such as literature, history, language, performing and visual arts or philosophy. Many American colleges and universities seek to provide a broad " liberal arts education", in which all

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

students study the humanities in addition to their specific area of study. Prominent proponents of liberal arts in the United States have included

Mortimer J. Adler Mortimer Jerome Adler (December 28, 1902 – June 28, 2001) was an American philosopher, educator, encyclopedist, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for long stretches in N ...

and E.D. Hirsch.

Conceptual validity

The very concept of the ‘humanities’ as a class or kind, distinct from the ’sciences’, has come under repeated attack in the twentieth century. T.S. Kuhn’s ''

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' (1962; second edition 1970; third edition 1996; fourth edition 2012) is a book about the history of science by philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn. Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philoso ...

'' argued that the forces driving scientific progress often have less to do with objective inference from unbiased observation than with much more value-laden sociological and cultural factors. More recently,

Richard Rorty Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher. Educated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, he had strong interests and training in both the history of philosophy and in contemporary analytic ...

has argued that the distinction between the sciences and the humanities is harmful to both pursuits, placing the former on an undeserved pedestal and condemning the latter to irrationality. Rorty’s position requires a wholesale rejection of such traditional philosophical distinctions as those between appearance and reality, subjective and objective, replacing them with what he endorses as a new ‘fuzziness’. This leads to a kind of pragmatism where "the oppositions between the humanities, the arts, and the sciences, might gradually fade away... In this situation, ‘the humanities’ would no longer think of themselves as such...."

Modernism and postmodernism

In the United States, the late 20th century saw a challenge to the "elitism" of the humanities, which

Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Whit ...

has characterized as a "conservative philosophy of gentlemanly refinement, or sensibility." Such

postmodernists Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

argued that the humanities should go beyond the study of "

dead white males The Western canon is the body of high culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly valued in the West; works that have achieved the status of classics. However, not all these works originate in the Western world, an ...

" to include work by women and people of color, and without religious bias. The French philosopher Michel Foucault has been a very influential part of this movement, stating in ''The Order of Things'' that "we can study only individuals, not human nature." However some in the humanities believed that such changes could be detrimental; the result is said to be what E. D. Hirsch Jr. refers to as declining cultural literacy.

National institutions

President Lyndon Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act in 1965, creating the National Council on the Humanities, and funded the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

(NEH) in 1969. NEH is an independent grant-making agency of the United States government dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities (see

Public humanities Public humanities is the work of engaging diverse publics in reflecting on heritage, traditions, and history, and the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of civic and cultural life. Public humanities is often practiced within feder ...

). NEH facilitated the creation of State Humanities Councils in the 56

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

s and

territories A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

. Each council operates independently, defining the "humanities" in relationship to the disciplines, subjects, and values valued in the regions they serve. Councils give grant funds to individuals, scholars, and nonprofit organizations dedicated to the humanities in their region. Councils also offer diverse programs and services that respond to the needs of their communities and according to their own definitions of the humanities.

Career prospects

Criticism of the traditional humanities/liberal arts degree program has been leveled by critics who see them as both expensive and relatively "useless" in the modern American job market, where several years of specialized study is required in most job fields. According to a 2018 report by the Humanities Indicators, in 2015, unemployment rates for humanities majors were modestly higher and their earnings were somewhat lower than the averages for college degree recipients with similar degree levels (though both were still substantially better than for those without a college degree). Their overall levels of satisfaction with their jobs and their lives, however, were essentially the same as graduates from other fields, with more than 85% of humanities graduates reporting they were satisfied with their jobs. As of 2015, approximately five million people employed in management and professional jobs had bachelor’s degrees in the humanities.

References

{{reflist

External links

National Humanities CenterNational Endowment for the Humanities