Geoffrey Harpham touts study of the humanities at UNC

The humanities are in a state of perpetual crisis, said Geoffrey Harpham, president and director of the National Humanities Center.

Harpham led the first in a series of lectures honoring the 25th anniversary of UNC’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities in Hyde Hall Thursday.

Although science-based studies command contemporary Americans attention, Harpham focused on the value of an education in the humanities today.

“Humanities cannot produce the same kinds of knowledge as the sciences, but they liberate the mind from subservience to brute fact,” he said.

He said the humanities are essential to human development because they promote self-understanding and are a field of knowledge based on man-made works such as books, speeches, music and art.

Humanists make contributions to knowledge through connecting different disciplines and are responsible for what people know about themselves, he said.

Studying these subjects embodies the value of academic freedom in the American education system, he said.

“We are a society that plows forward,” Harpham said. “This is uniquely available in our education system.”

He said the humanities are resistant from being driven out of the American education system, which has more and more become focused on the sciences.

“Humanist scholars cannot make their disciplines conform,” Harpham said, adding that the disciplines within humanities are constantly evolving.

He added that the humanities also expose undergraduate students to research and analytical thinking.

Freshmen Anastasia Bowden and Megan Yeargin attended the lecture for their first-year seminar, “What’s School Got to Do with Getting an Education?”

“Training versus getting an education is something we’ve talked a lot about in class,” Bowden said. “You can’t focus on training to get a career.”

“The humanities are important for understanding yourself and your opinions,” Yeargin added.

Freshman biology major Joseph Morris said he came to the lecture because he wanted to hear what Harpham had to say.

“I liked the point he made about having to tax ourselves in order to have a good education system,” Morris said.

The study of humanities shows the depth and variety of human achievement, Harpham said.

He said the education system is currently based on learning information and skills. But humanists see facts as things to be explored and speculated upon.

“Qualities can always be debated, unlike quantities,” he said.

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