Sprenger has been involved in an innovative project at BYU called “Humanities +.” On the undergraduate level, they have radically restructured humanities advising, bringing in job specialists, organizing recruitment fairs, and setting up internships for humanities majors. Sprenger points out that the Fortune 500 crowd still talks about how the ideal CEO is a humanities type: broadly educated and worldly wise, familiar with different cultures and well read, not someone trained narrowly in a business track. Sprenger sees the real crisis as the takeover of mass consumerism and the absence of coherent theoretical arguments against it, not to mention a general lack of intellectual curiosity in our hyper-fragmented, ADHD society. This is particularly important in the field of French Studies, which played such a prominent role in the 70’s and 80’s (think Foucault, Derrida, and company). Much of the criticism was fueled to varying degrees by Marxist thought, an approach that has come to be seen as largely illegitimate and irrelevant with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellite countries. This is a provocative argument that contains plenty of food for thought…
I really enjoyed reading this guest post in the Brainstorm blog in the Chronicle by my friend and former mentor Scott Sprenger, who is a French professor and associate dean of humanities at BYU. Sprenger points out that the narrative of the "humanities in decline" has been going strong since the 80’s, and quotes a funny quip by the renowned French historian David Bell, “Between 1980 and 2000 a ‘crisis in the humanities’ was discussed more than a hundred times in the pages of major scholarly journals. Is there anything new to be said about it? Has the hypochondriac finally come down with a life-threatening disease?” (Dissent Magazine, fall 2010) Sprenger looks at statistics that are often brought out as proof that the study of the humanities in higher education is in a state of inexorable decline. He points out that most people who make these points follow them up either with radical prescriptions for professionalizing the humanities or, for those living a more Ivy Toweresque existence, insisting on anti-utilitarian, purely aesthetic justifications for the study of the humanities (Nussbaum, Fish, etc.). Sprenger also makes some important observations about how the reading of the data is overly simplistic. (For example, the big drop in humanities degrees occurred in the 1960s; it’s actually held pretty steady since then. And using only three years of data about MLA job postings, a three-year period that coincides with the worst economic meltdown in decades, is a pretty narrow way of looking at the job market situation.)
Sprenger has been involved in an innovative project at BYU called “Humanities +.” On the undergraduate level, they have radically restructured humanities advising, bringing in job specialists, organizing recruitment fairs, and setting up internships for humanities majors. Sprenger points out that the Fortune 500 crowd still talks about how the ideal CEO is a humanities type: broadly educated and worldly wise, familiar with different cultures and well read, not someone trained narrowly in a business track. Sprenger sees the real crisis as the takeover of mass consumerism and the absence of coherent theoretical arguments against it, not to mention a general lack of intellectual curiosity in our hyper-fragmented, ADHD society. This is particularly important in the field of French Studies, which played such a prominent role in the 70’s and 80’s (think Foucault, Derrida, and company). Much of the criticism was fueled to varying degrees by Marxist thought, an approach that has come to be seen as largely illegitimate and irrelevant with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellite countries. This is a provocative argument that contains plenty of food for thought…
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I think it would be a great idea to show Humanities students how they can apply their degree and education to many different jobs - like business. This is something I would not have though of, but it makes sense that a large enterprise would want someone who has world knowledge, is familiar with other cultures, and is well-read: so basically any Humanities graduate. This article reminded me of something you said a while ago about how some people see the Humanities departments as the Hermès scarf of the university - something that you just sort of have because people say you should. A program like the one at BYU is doing the right things to change that attitude.
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AuthorI am an associate professor of French literature and culture at the University of Kansas. The opinions expressed here are my own. They do not in any way, shape, or form represent the views of my department or university. Archives
September 2015
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