This morning, I came across an excellent article by Dan McInerny, The Humanities in a Digital Age: Online Higher Education. In the piece, McInerny talks about many of the difficulties humanities programs are facing around the country, and he argues that while many of these institutions will continue to see the focus shift away from the humanities to a business school model, it is those other institutions that have the humanities and liberal arts as their main focus which should survive, as long as they keep the humanities as the heart of their institutions.
I agree with his points here, but it is his later claims about how we can continue to study the humanities in a digital setting which I find to be the most interesting. McInerny predicts "that in a not-too-distant future more students will be studying the humanities via digital devices than in brick-and-ivy institutions. The great conversation will transfer in large part to what John Paul II called the 'Areopagus' of modern digital media." He goes on to remind us that the humanities were not born in a formal, academic setting, but in the questioning of Socrates, who "went down to the Piraeus" to find the people where they lived, worked, and formed bonds.
In the article, McInerny revives my hope that study in the humanities, no matter what may happen in the halls of academia, will live on as long as there is someone willing to ask questions, even in the face of hardship.
To read the whole thing, which of course, you should, check it out here.
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