[One Sip of a Book] A Sharp Diagnosis of the 'Future of Humanities'

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of the book itself, while others instantly reach the reader's heart, creating a point of contact with the book. We excerpt and introduce such meaningful sentences from the book. - Editor's note

It sharply diagnoses the reality of American universities and humanities education in the 1970s. It attempts a comprehensive approach, from what qualities a humanist should possess to how humanities should be taught and learned. The author, who has worked as a philosopher, professor, translator, book reviewer, editor, and poet, develops discussions that are not merely abstract but very concrete and closely connected to actual academic, publishing, and educational fields.

Another problem, which emerged in the 1970s but is actually much more threatening, is that young people with doctoral degrees in the humanities suddenly found it almost impossible to find jobs as teachers. There are mainly two reasons for this. First, the baby boom of the 1940s did not continue. As a result, the rapid growth of liberal arts colleges and comprehensive universities throughout the 1960s abruptly stopped. At one time, because of a shortage of teachers, excellent graduate students received offers with high salaries even before completing their doctoral programs, but after that period, new opportunities did not arise. Second, over the past half-century, so many positions (including tenure-track professorships) have been filled by young people that vacancies due to retirement have become rare.

The so-called clich?s like knowledge being a reward in itself, or following wherever truth leads, risk ignoring the crucial question of priorities. Knowledge does not always yield equal rewards. We do not encourage students and professors to waste years pursuing the truth about the father of a secretary to a U.S. vice-presidential candidate who lost the election. (It is now even difficult to come up with examples of topics that some scholars might no longer actually research.)

Visionaries are loners. Alienated from the common sense of their time, they see the world differently and continuously try to elaborate on their foresight. They usually realize that existing language is inadequate and often face serious communication problems.

On the other hand, pedants move from school to school, take pride in their rigor and professionalism, and heavily rely on their consensus or common ‘tricks.’ They are usually hostile to contemporary visionaries, especially those in their own field, while paradoxically venerating some visionaries of the past.

The Future of the Humanities | Walter Kaufmann | Translated by Park Jung-seo | Banbi | 372 pages | 20,000 KRW

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