This essay questions the digital humanities' dependence on interpretation and critique as strategies for reading and responding to texts. Instead, the essay proposes suggestion as a digital rhetorical practice, one that does not replace hermeneutics, but instead offers alternative ways to respond to texts. The essay uses the Occupy movement as an…

"Empathy" is a much-discussed term in the humanities these days. While some critics value it and argue that literature desirably promotes it, other critics worry that appeals to this emotion will neglect important matters of social context. In the literature classroom, the best approach is to take time to consider how texts complicate the impulse…

In the current economic climate, many corporate and political leaders seek to reform public education through entrepreneurial efforts that reflect a managerial approach. Similarly, several academic scholars are busily marketing their research. To counter these trends and improve one's own standing, the author suggests that those who are in the…

It is hard to think of a writer whose work has been more prominently upheld as an example of bad academic writing than the philosopher and literary theorist Judith Butler. In 1998, Butler was awarded first prize in the annual Bad Writing Contest established by the journal "Philosophy and Literature," and early in 1999, was lampooned in an…

Notes the lack of definition of the term "humanities" and the four-part litany that comprises the usual rhetoric of humanities advocates. Considers the Rockefeller Commission report on the humanities in light of the nondefinition, the four-part litany, and the fragmentation of any argument espousing "more attention to the…

When evangelical Christian students enter the academy, they often find that its tenets and values conflict with their reliance on the Bible as a source of truth and evidence. In this essay, the author attempts to articulate the ways in which rhetorical dexterity might enable students to use literacies they already possess (like deep knowledge of…

Materials for a humanities course on America in the 1930's are listed and described. (JH)

Much of the current North American academic crisis of publishing, tenure, and promotion is both the cause and the effect of this fetishization dominant in the humanities: that of the grand narrative of knowledge-production, respectably bound with a spine. Short works will get one only so far, no matter how many of them one produces, or how well.…

Addresses the climate of disappointment that characterizes English studies generally and composition studies--particularly writing program administration (WPA). Considers that the context of disappointment is shaped by a number of overlapping factors including: the widely perceived job market collapse in the humanities; the national abuse of…

This reprint of the author's essay is used as the focus of a symposium on the relationship between literature and the general culture. (Editor/MB)

Asserts that just as the methodology of science is hypothetico-inductive research, rhetoric is the methodology of the humanitites. (JL)

Examines the roles of collaboration in the sciences and humanities by focusing on the complicated relationship between syntax and semantics. Uses scholarship on the social study of science to discuss strategies for collaboration in the humanities. Discusses why those studying language and literature are in a particularly good position to…

Contends that the National Endowment for the Humanities is biased against scholarship by young persons on experimental literature. (DD)

Relates personal experiences about what constitutes the "real world." Shows how experiences from philosophy, history, literature, art, and the movies add meaning to "reality." Stresses a compromise of imagination and sensation to make the real world palatable. (RL)

English faculty in community colleges feel pressured to make their composition courses acceptable for transfer to four-year schools. In particular, many of them feel obligated to emphasize academic research and argument at the expense of literature. But community college students will benefit from first-year courses that address a wide range of…