I don’t usually post simple applause entries, but Patricia Nelson Limerick pretty much speaks for me in every respect in this column for the Chronicle of Higher Education.
I think she’s particularly correct when she argues that the “lament of the humanities” about a lack of support is a consequence of one mode of practice in the humanities being actively hostile to connecting to public discourse. I am ok with intellectuals who believe that they should reject the public sphere as it exists, but then don’t complain that there isn’t any public or institutional underwriting of that rejection.
It’s a great article, I agree. The one thing I couldn’t quite figure out was the operative definition of the “humanities” here. Most of the projects she defines have more to do with politics, environmental issues, social science… So “applied” work in the humanities turns out to be mostly … social science?
Which makes sense in a way. It just seems easier to apply some parts of the humanities than others.