Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Further Acadecadence

I've referenced before my contempt for the sham which is most of humanities academia. In that vein, I'm further recommending this article along with the following video:


3 comments:

Who Am I said...

HEY !!!

I'm an Anthropologist ! What exactly are you trying to say ? The video could apply to ANY given department save for the physical sciences and a few others.

A Sinner said...

Anthropology is a social science, I think, not exactly the humanities as intended here. It's still "softer" than something like physics, of course, but at least it deals in facts rather than trying to make connections between texts by selectively quoting them in order to "prove" points that can't really be proven.

Who Am I said...

Dude I'm just busting your chops. :P

Anthropology is queer in that regard. It falls into both the social sciences AND the humanities.

For what it's worth, this is what wiki has to say on the subject:

Humanities

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The humanities are academic disciplines which study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytic, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences.
Examples of the disciplines of the humanities are ancient and modern languages, literature, law, history, philosophy, religion, and visual and performing arts (including music). Additional subjects sometimes included in the humanities are technology, anthropology, area studies, communication studies, cultural studies, and linguistics, although these are often regarded as social sciences. Scholars working in the humanities are sometimes described as "humanists". However, that term also describes the philosophical position of humanism, which some "antihumanist" scholars in the humanities reject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanities