For this post, think about how you would describe the humanities to someone outside this area (how this field is different from, say, the social sciences or natural or physical sciences) AND think about the part of During’s article that best helps you do this. (Of course, you can discuss parts of his article that muddy things for you, too). You’ll need to do some work with During first, and this is where Harris comes in. Focus on “Projects” (p. 25) in Harris and write a paragraph that “expresses your understanding of During’s ‘project.’” Harris wants you to paraphrase and use at least one direct quotation, so do that.
What are the humanities?
If I were aiming to describe the humanities to someone totally outside this area, I think, as During’s article discusses, it’s important to be able to explain its expansive qualities while not minimizing the richness of each discipline that falls within the humanities. For instance, I might try and list different fields of study or thought like literature, history, philosophy, anthropology, arts, etc., just to give a sense that there are very real and rigorous discourses within each one of these fields and just because academia has agreed to group them within humanities it doesn’t mean each one lessens or becomes soft as some critics say. I also have a bone to pick with these connotations of soft and hard skills or discipline and the gendered subtext it brings.
Nonetheless, I would much rather try and appeal to my audience with this underlying love that humanity has had with trying through numerous angles to try and understand why we do and like what we do, why we want to know what others before us thought and how we can gain such valuable insight in our present from digging into the cultures we have created. While the natural/physical sciences might be easier for someone outside academia to get behind because of their quantifiable qualities, I would push against this idea and quote Karl Popper, a philosopher of science and someone whose ideas on the modern scientific method are evident today. He said, “I do not care what methods a philosopher (or anybody else) may use so long as he has an interesting problem and so long as he is sincerely trying to solve it.” I might urge others to view the humanities in the same way – it is neither more nor less than other scientific inquiries. It is just an interesting way to go about solving questions that humans have pondered since our existence.
During’s article helped me with this idea, and he urges us to first adequately understand this over-aching world of the humanities through its own history. Especially this idea that, “…the humanities cannot be defined by reference to a limited set of objectives they cannot be defined by a single purpose, either”(4). This makes me think of Oscar Wilde and this era of ‘art for art’s sake’ where he said, “Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not meant to instruct or to influence action in any way” (https://www.victorianweb.org/authors/wilde/artforartsake.html). Why do we have to quantify or make the knowledge and feelings that emerge from the humanities official? A helpful and interesting idea to grapple with that During raises is the concept of critique to construction – “In doing stuff, they make stuff”(6).
During’s project…
I would restate During’s project by saying that it is an endeavor to clarify the discussion surrounding the humanities from defensive, loosely defined history to one of a storytelling project that gives a lineage of the humanities history as a reflective analysis. He helps us see this through the organization of his work, which explains why it has been so hard to define the humanities and what has been said thus far and forces us to look at its ambiguity. After doing this groundwork, During can expand out become more specific in how the discipline has changed over time and where we can usually encounter the humanities such as academia, political theory, literature, etc. During’s project can seem to overwhelm us with all these unanswered questions of how to figure out what the humanities are. Still, in doing so, it opens a discussion of how interconnected they are and all the areas it touches upon, from objects, purpose, knowledge, ethos, or construction. Yet the analysis of those histories in showcasing the layers makes his point that there are barriers of what they were and what they are now. Braiding in narratives surrounding the humanities from the past to the present creates a more wholistic understanding of the term and where I think During’s central aim lies -telling the story of the humanities that assesses where it has been to feel more comfortable in the future of its abilities. For instance, During says, “The humanities exists as an archive which continually throws up “monuments” – works worthy of commentary – but no less continually demotes them”(9). By grounding the humanities in its actual history rather than abstract notions of what it does, During’s project allows the weight of the humanities tradition to be felt without neat borders and definitions because it wouldn’t accurately reflect its expanse.
