WHAT ARE THE HUMANITIES?
Through the humanities we remember our history and envision our future. The humanities include the study of history, literature, ethics, philosophy, language, and the various legal, cultural, religious, and folk traditions – past and present – that define the human condition. Reading, writing, storytelling, research, and many forms of public dialogue and conversation are central to the humanities and at the core of what we do at VFH. Watch “Opening Minds to Great Ideas” produced by The History Channel for the National Endowment for the Humanities to learn more about the humanities.
The humanities can be described as the study of the myriad ways in which people, from every period of history and from every corner of the globe, process and document the human experience. Since humans have been able, we have used philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history and language to understand and record our world. These modes of expression have become some of the subjects that traditionally fall under the humanities umbrella. Knowledge of these records of human experience gives us the opportunity to feel a sense of connection to those who have come before us, as well as to our contemporaries. Within the contemporary American university, the humanities are comprised of a group of academic departments that deal with these questions. At Stanford, all incoming freshman are exposed to the humanities through the required Introduction to the Humanities Program.
Including such areas of study as Philosophy, Literature, Religion, Music and Art, the Humanities is that sphere of intellectual inquiry that seeks answers, however incomplete, to the central questions of the meaning of human life. The Humanities interprets these answers as they emerge from the classical and modern products of human experience, from religious rituals, from symphonies, from novels, or from ethical codes, for example. The Humanities is the realm where values compete, where scholars compare them, and evaluate their significance. Ultimately, the Humanities seeks the clarity of wisdom gained through a disciplined engagement and nuanced examination of oneself and others. The nature of this engagement revolves around critical thinking, around, that is, asking questions, evaluating assumptions, and analyzing beliefs. Essentially, this critical thought process is stimulated by facing the historical and cross-cultural diversity of human experience (the basic material of interest
According to the 1965 National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, “The term ‘humanities’ includes, but is not limited to, the study of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life.
