Abstract
Despite historical advances in technology, science, and society, the humanities seem to remain stagnant. Humanities departments crumble as STEM departments rise from the rubble, relics of a bygone era. While the humanities face material and existential threats, the fact of their relevance does not change: the humanities are the study of human being. One need not have to be in academia to be a scholar of the humanities; the most raw and generative humanities work occurs in everyday life, in the unavoidable reality of being in relation with others. Contrary to popular belief, the humanities are not merely about celebrating creativity, beauty, and artistry—these are modes of human being, as much a technology as rockets or telephone lines. Their function is not to make sense of what is but of what is not. To be human is to be thrown into a world not of one’s choosing, bound to love, loss, pain, desire, and belonging. As Lacan writes, “We are all familiar with hell…it is everyday life.” This paper orients crisis in the humanities as not institutional but ontological: a crisis of being in the 21st century, not merely of content or method. Drawing from the Greek krisis—judgment, turning point—I reframe this crisis as an opportunity to rescue humanistic education from its “self-incurred minority.” Drawing from my own teaching experience, as well as methods in the superhumanities and psychoanalysis, the objective of this paper is to invite critical discussion about the ethical engagement of humanistic education today.
Presenters
Belgum ChloeGraduate Student, Department of Communication Studies, San Francisco State University, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Past and Present in the Humanistic Education
KEYWORDS
Ontological Crisis, Humanistic Education, Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Superhumanities, Critical Pedagogy, Ethnography
