Humanities in the News
I actually chose an opinion piece from the Portland Press Herald weeks ago to review for this class as an option for “Humanities in the News”. I saw that the article was recent and local, so I immediately downloaded it. I hadn’t read much of the article at all, but it was recently posted on August 30th, 2024 and is titled, “Opinion: No, the humanities are not dying out”, by Josh Pahigian.
Opinion: No, the humanities are not dying out
What I didn’t realize at the time of downloading the article was that Josh Pahigian is the director of UNE’s Center for Global Humanities, so he was writing in defense of the humanities from a university perspective.
Pahigian believes that there is a humanities crisis, as more students are seeking STEM degrees for a quick return on investment, but he does not think that the humanities are dying. He talked about how his masters in creative writing actually prepared him for multiple professional positions throughout his career. Pahigian calls for a “humanities rebrand”, in which the humanities lens is applied to solving the big problems of society: climate change, how to respond to AI, mental health, etc. I believe he is on the right track; universities should try this tactic to integrate the humanities throughout traditional STEM courses.
As I performed another search this week for a new article, I recognized that most of the current humanities article topics were written by college newspapers, discussing the importance of the humanities, especially in the context of the rising influence of AI. There were a few stories that covered some colleges in Europe slashing their humanities programs. Other prominent newspapers covered the humanities by President Biden’s recent appearance at the National Arts and Humanities Reception on October 21st. It seems like the coverage of this event did bring some attention to the humanities, which was a plus.
I also ran across a reference in a current article that linked to a great 2019 New York Times piece called, “In the Salary Race, Engineers Sprint but English Majors Endure”. Basically it discussed how STEM high tech skills are in great demand, but as technology improves, those skills become obsolete, whereas humanities majors use their knowledge to achieve management and law careers, which at the time were the highest paying jobs in the US. This picture seems to be consistent with what we are seeing today and may be enough to keep the humanities thriving. However, it would be interesting to see the article updated with current statistics.
