The Humanities Indicators Project takes an expansive view of the humanities that encompasses the knowledge, skills, and activities that help people interpret and engage with language, culture, history, and the ongoing search for meaning and connection in human life. This includes:
reading and creative writing;
discussions of literature at public libraries, in book clubs, or online;
debating ethical and civic issues in public fora;
transmission of humanistic inquiry and scholarship via books or mass media in print or digital form;
interpretation of the past at museums and historic sites; as well as
systematic study of music, theater, film, and media.
Of course, the humanities are most often associated with higher education, where the scope narrows to a specific set of disciplines:
Academic Study of the Arts: Art history; the study of music, musicology, music theory and composition, and music history; the academic study of drama and cinema, but not programs primarily aimed at musical performance or music technologies.
American Studies & Area Studies: Though some of these programs include strong social scientific components, their emphasis on history, language, and literature places them within the humanities.
Archeology
Communication: Includes mass communication, media studies, and rhetoric, but excludes professionally-oriented programs.
Cultural, Ethnic, & Gender Studies: Programs studying from an interdisciplinary perspective race, ethnic, gender, or cultural groups, such as Black studies, Hispanic studies, women’s studies, and gay/lesbian studies.
English Language and Literature: English, American, and Anglophone literature; general literature programs; creative writing; speech and rhetoric (does not include technical and business writing programs).
History: Includes history of science and medicine.
Languages & Literatures Other than English: Modern languages and literature; linguistics; classics and ancient languages; comparative literature.
Jurisprudence: Includes philosophy of law.
Philosophy: Includes history of philosophy.
Religion: Programs in the comparative, nonsectarian study of religion; studies of particular religions; history of religion; does not include programs in theology or ministry (which are classified as vocational subjects of study for the Indicators).
Selected Interdisciplinary Studies: General humanities programs; programs in the study of a particular historical period (e.g., digital humanities, medieval and Renaissance studies, classical and ancient studies, holocaust studies, etc.). We recognize that new intellectual formations are constantly emerging, and will include new interdisciplinary programs as they emerge.
These categories are aligned with the Department of Education’s Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP, which is used to gather and report data on specific degrees) in the HI’s Degree Program Catalog.
Deviation from the Standard Usage
The organizations and studies from which indicator data are drawn may include different disciplines within the humanities. For example, some count all theology and ministry courses as humanities instruction; others class history as one of the social sciences; still others assume all general education to be humanistic. When a chart or section deviates from the standard usage of humanities adopted for these Indicators, this is clearly noted and the nature of the discrepancy between the two usages is described.
Categorizing Non-Humanities Fields
In many parts of the Indicators, comparisons are made between the humanities and non- humanities fields. The disciplines included within such non-humanities fields are inventoried below:
Natural Sciences
In the categorization used by the Humanities Indicators, the natural sciences consist of the following subfields:
- Physical sciences (astronomy, chemistry, geology, physics, etc.);
- Life sciences (zoology, botany, molecular bioscience, etc.--excludes agricultural science);
- Mathematics and statistics (although these are occasionally treated separately, as in the tabulations of Advanced Placement tests taken in various fields); and
- Interdisciplinary science fields combining the above, such as biophysics.
The term “natural sciences” as used here does not include technology, engineering, or computer science. In separating the natural sciences from these fields, we depart from some other systems of categorization, most notably that employed by The National Science Foundation’s Science & Engineering Indicators.
Medical Sciences
Drawing from the definition adopted by the National Science Foundation, “medical sciences” include general medicine and all medical specialties, along with dentistry, veterinary science, pharmacy, public health, and epidemiology.
Behavioral & Social Sciences
For the purposes of the Indicators, the social sciences encompass the following fields: anthropology, criminology, economics, geography, government, international relations, political science, psychology, sociology, and urban studies. For the purposes of determining the number of degrees awarded in these fields, public administration is also included, since this is combined with political science within the National Science Foundation classification of academic disciplines.
Engineering
The Humanities Indicators includes the full array of engineering fields, as well as computer science, under this heading.
Fine & Performing Arts
This category includes all arts-related fields not included in the definition of the humanities, including music and dance performance, dramatic and film production, and studio arts.
Social Service Professions
This category encompasses all types of social work.
Education
The education category includes instruction and pedagogy in all subject areas, as well as special education and education administration.
Law
This category includes the legal professions and, for the purposes of degree counts, undergraduate pre-law programs. While jurisprudence, defined as the theory and philosophy of law, is treated by the Humanities Indicators as a humanities field, it is usually impossible to distinguish between jurisprudence and preparation for legal professions within the classificatory frameworks utilized by the entities that collect the data serving as the basis of the Indicators.
Business and Management
Included under this field heading are business administration and economics, nonprofit/public management, and accounting.
Like the humanities, this definition has evolved over time, and we welcome thoughts and suggestions from our readers. Please submit them to the co-director of the project, Robert Townsend, at rtownsend@amacad.org.
