In the Forum
The final word at On the Human belongs to the man best suited for that role, Geoffrey Harpham, director of the National Humanities Center. You can verify the truth of this claim for yourself by turning to his essay, In Praise of Pleasure. “Pleasure” is the perfect book-end to close our multi-year project, a project that began with Geoff’s 2006 piece Science and the Theft of Humanity. There, Geoff suggested controversially that scientists with their modes of empirical investigation and explanation were poaching on turf once reserved for humanities scholars with their methods of literary and historical understanding. Here, Geoff returns to respond to some of the more aggressive “scientistic” claims made in our pages and to celebrate—we won’t provoke further by saying “one last time”—the enduring pleasures of the humanities.
Geoff’s vision in 2004 created the Autonomy, Singularity, and Creativity (ASC) project and his persistent efforts over the years nurtured ASC into a phenomenon of international prominence. On the Human extended the face-to-face ASC gatherings into the virtual world; we held our seminars online. Without Geoff’s guidance and support, OTH could not have carried out its mission. Virtually single-handed, Geoff Harpham stimulated an interdisciplinary dialog as probing and deep as it has been wide and sustained. What a privilege it has been for all of us at OTH to work alongside him.
Geoffrey Harpham is president and director of the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, the only institute for advanced study in the world dedicated exclusively to the humanities. He was trained as a literary scholar, but his work has encompassed a wide range of topics and fields. Among his many books are On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature (1982); Shadows of Ethics: Criticism and the Just Society (1999); and Language Alone: The Critical Fetish of Modernity (2002). His longstanding scholarly interests include the role of ethics in literary study, the place of language in intellectual history, and the work of Joseph Conrad. He has collaborated with M. H. Abrams on A Glossary of Literary Terms, now in its tenth edition. In recent years, he has become a prominent historian of and advocate for the humanities; The Humanities and the Dream of America appeared in 2011. He has received fellowships from the J. S. Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Please join us in this discussion of the significance and uncertain future of the humanities. We’ll leave the comment section on Geoff’s article open until February 20. After he replies, we’ll deposit all of OTH’s holdings in a permanent archive easily accessible from the NHC website. No one will be home, but the door will be open for you.
Adieu, and thank you.
Updates
Ray Tallis has posted his final reply to commentors on his essay A Suicidal Tendency in the Humanities.
In the News
In the News is a monthly round-up of recent developments in the study of humans, animals, and machines. We provide links to two references for each story: first, to the scholarly record in the professional literature and, second, to a popular media account illustrating how the research is being presented to the public. Compiled by Curtis Tigges. Read more.
Previous Contributors
Banaji, Mahzarin. The Dark Dark Side of the Mind
Bateson, Sir Patrick. Hunting and Science
Batson, Dan. Empathic Concern and Altruism in Humans
Beer, Dame Gillian. Late Darwin And The Problem Of The Human
Biletzki, Anat. The Sacred and the Humane
Benzon, William L. Cultural Evolution: A Vehicle For Cooperative Interaction Between The Sciences And The Humanities
Bérubé, Michael. Humans, Disabilities, and the Humanities?
Blackmore, Susan. Temes: An Emerging Third Replicator
Blier, Suzanne Preston. Animalia: The Natural World, Art, and Theory
Boden, Margaret. Can Computer Models Help Us To Understand Human Creativity?
Broch-Due, Vigdis. Animal In Mind: People, Cattle and Shared Nature on the African Savannah
Carroll, Joe. The Adaptive Function of Literature and the Other Arts
Carruthers, Peter. Knowledge of our own thoughts is just as interpretive as knowledge of the thoughts of others.
Churchland, Patricia and Christopher Suhler. Control: Conscious And Otherwise
De Waal, Frans. Morals Without God?
Deacon, Terrence. On the Human: Rethinking the Natural Selection of Human Language
Dennett, Daniel. Whole-Body Apoptosis and the Meanings of Lives
Doris, John. Do You Know What You’re Doing?
Gillespie, Michael Allen. Science and the Humanities
Gruen, Lori. The Ethics of Captivity
Hacking, Ian. Commercial Genome Reading
Harnad, Stevan. Doing, Feeling, Meaning and Explaining
Hayles, Katherine N. Distributing/Disturbing the Chinese Room
Hrdy, Sarah Blaffer. How Humans Became Such Other-Regarding Apes
Kaufman, Les. Loaves, Fishes, and the Human Side of Ecosystems
Knobe, Joshua. Do People Actually Believe in Objective Moral Truths?
Krech III, Shepard. The Nature and Culture of Birds
Leiter, Brian. Moral Skepticism And Moral Disagreement: Developing An Argument From Nietzsche
Lenoir, Tim. Contemplating Singularity
Lycan, William. Qualitative Experience in Machines
MacKinnon, Catharine. Are Women Human?
Marino, Lori. A Trans-Species Perspective on Nature
Marks, Stuart A. Wild Animals and a Different Human Face
McCarty, Willard. Who Am I Computing?
McLennan, Rebecca. When Felons Were Human
McMahan, Jeff. The Meat Eaters: Would the controlled extinction of carnivorous species be a good thing?
Mills, Charles. The Political Economy of Personhood
Moya, Paula. A Story in Two Parts, With An Ending Yet To Be Written
Pippin, Robert. Participants and Spectators
Pogge, Thomas. The Health Impact Fund: A Better Way to Reward New Medicines
Prinz, Jesse. Does Consciousness Outstrip Sensation?
Rabinow, Paul. Biopower, Dignity, Synthetic Anthropos
Railton, Peter. Moral Camouflage Or Moral Monkeys?
Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights
Ritvo, Harriet. Going Forth and Multiplying: Animal Acclimatization and Invasion
Ritvo, Harriet. Humans And Humanists (And Scientists)
Robinson, William. Challenges for a Humanoid Robot
Rosati, Connie S. Narrative and Personal Good
Rosenberg, Alex. The Disenchanted Naturalist’s Guide to Reality
Rosenberg, Alex. Final Thoughts of a Disenchanted Naturalist
Sandler, Ronald. Enhancing Moral Status?
Sapolsky, Robert. This Is Your Brain on Metaphors
Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue. Human Language—Human Consciousness
Serpell, James. One Man’s Meat: Further Thoughts on the Evolution of Animal Food Taboos
Singer, Peter. Taking Life: Animals
Sober, Elliott. Common Ancestry and Natural Selection in Darwin’s Origin
Sterelny, Kim. The Evolved Apprentice
Stoneking, Mark. Does Culture Prevent or Drive Human Evolution?
Strier, Karen B. The Challenge of Comparisons in Primatology
Suhler, Christopher and Patricia Churchland. Control: Conscious And Otherwise
Tallis, Raymond. A Suicidal Tendency in the Humanities
Tallis, Raymond. Does Evolution Explain Our Behavior?
Tabbi, Joseph. On Reading 300 Works Of Electronic Literature
Turner, Mark. The Scope of Human Thought
Vazire, Simine. Bright Spots and Blind Spots in Self-Knowledge