[lbo-talk] Terry Eagleton on "The death of universities"

123hop at comcast.net 123hop at comcast.net
Mon Dec 20 14:07:14 PST 2010


I mentioned the trivium (grammar (Latin/Greek), logic, and rhetoric)) because those topics are now included in a humanities curriculum. But OK, I guess I agree with Carrol so far as the secularization of the humanities is concerned. The loss of the classics is also significant because it is the study of the classics is sort of the DNA of western culture. If you don't know that, you are severely handicapped in understanding western notions of "discipline," "order," "grammar," "structure," and even "science."

But rather than argue about when our notion of the "humanities" was shaped, I'd rather point out that this is a great door opening for the left: to create and make available material for those who want to understand this subject matter. THe CP took this kind of thing very seriously, making a lot of this stuff accessible and comprehensible to the masses as part of a general literacy/education campaign.

Joanna

----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 10:22:28 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Terry Eagleton on "The death of universities"

I'm way behind on e-mail; missed this thread.

I would like to hear evidence to the contrary, as I've never given this a thought, but off the top of my head, there is no relationship whatever between what we call the humanities and what the Middle Ages called the trivium. There is a (weak) relationship between the humanities and the "Humanist" scholars of the Renaissance. But until I see contrary arguments, I would ay the Industrial Revolution is a bit too early for the humanities: they are post-Arnold and in part reflect the decay of Calvinism into Unitarianism and the disestablishment of the church. (I mean by this the slow switching of u.s. religious schools to secular colletges.

The Humanities are rooted in a watered-down version of Calivin8ist/Rouseuian "human nature" and "self-knowledge."

Carrol

-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Jim Farmelant Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2010 2:24 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Terry Eagleton on "The death of universities"

On Sun, 19 Dec 2010 19:37:54 +0000 (UTC) 123hop at comcast.net writes:
> This essay is a mess. The "humanities" predate the industrial revo as
> the "trivium" constituted an aspect of higher learning since the
> middle ages.

Well, Eagleton says that it the humane disciplines "in their present form" which emerged in the 18th century, presumably, as opposed to their earlier forms such as the trivium of the medieval universities. I think he is basically correct here. Certainly, universities in their modern form began to take shape in the late 18th and early 19th centuries with the advent of the French university model in the wake of the French Revolution, and the emergence of the German university model in the wake of reforms promoted by Wilhelm von Humboldt, based on Schleiermacher's ideas on higher education. Humboldt's reforms led to the development of the modern research university in Germany.


>
> Moreover the humanities will not disappear from all universities;
> they will remain in the elite institutions (at least in the U.S.),
> where they will be taken up by the children of the rich, who can
> afford to pursue non-practical ends. The humanities will then become
> the domain of courtiers and revolutionaries.

But at least for 90% of students, the humanities will be but a memory.


>
> As for the humanities existing apart from other disciplines....that
> has been the case for a long time. In fact, it has been even worse;
> they have been isolated and have attempted to reintegrate themselves
> by becoming "scientific," that is by stripping away their social and
> political dimension and by adding various distorting professional
> jargons.

True enough, but it seems even that is not likely to save the humanities. It's interesting to look at what's been going on in the UK in the last few years. Already, under the previous Labour government, efforts were well underway to close down humanities departments at many universities, a process that will no doubt be accelerated by the cuts being pursued by the current Tory/Liberal government. In the US, the erosion of the humanities has been a much slower, dragged out process, whereas in the UK, things have been proceeding in a much more dramatic manner.


>
> J.
>
>

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