Scholarship on the Humanities

This program supports scholarship and research into the history, evolution, state, and meaning of the humanities. It explores such questions as: What role do the humanities play in American life? How have the humanities evolved over time? How should the humanities be defined in the twenty-first century? What can the humanities teach us about life, meaning, and the human condition?

These questions do not have absolute answers, but in supporting scholarship in this area, the Academy is generating thoughtful dialogue and reflection about disciplines – history, art, language, literature, philosophy, religion – that have been with us since the dawn of human culture and civilization. Project leaders Patricia Meyer Spacks (University of Virginia) and Steven Marcus (Columbia University) oversee a series of coordinated analyses produced by teams of leading scholars. Taken together, these research projects provide complementary narratives about the emergence, purpose, legitimacy, and limitations of the humanities.

Thus far, the Academy has produced two collections of essays on the recent history of humanistic academic disciplines. The Humanities and the Dynamics of Inclusion since World War II, edited by David Hollinger (University of California, Berkeley) and published in 2006 by The Johns Hopkins University Press, examines the effects on humanistic disciplines of the new forms of diversity that developed in American colleges and universities in the twentieth century. The second volume, edited by Patricia Meyer Spacks (University of Virginia) and published as the Spring 2006 issue of Dædalus, provides narrative histories of seven humanities disciplines in an effort to illuminate and better understand the humanities today.

The Winter 2009 issue of Dædalus, titled "Reflections on the Humanities," focuses on the importance of the humanities in American life and the challenges faced by humanities disciplines within and beyond academia. A number of essays draw on data from the Humanities Indicators.

A national conference, also titled "Reflections on the Humanities," was held on March 9, 2009 in Washington, DC. The conference presentations spoke to the importance of the humanities to the nation's intellectual and civic life. Speakers included Edward L. Ayers, President, University of Richmond; Francis Oakley, President Emeritus and Edward Dorr Griffin Professor of the History of Ideas, Williams College; Don Michael Randel, President, The Mellon Foundation; David Souter, Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court; and Patricia Q. Stonesifer, Chairwoman, Smithsonian Institution.