Crisis Among HUMANITIES DISCIPLINES in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

In Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age, Reitter and Wellmon have provided a timely account of the nineteenth century debates in the German academy that shaped the structural armature of the modern research university. Discord and discontent are inherent in the institutional culture of the humanities, making humanists exquisitely tuned to see attacks coming at them on all fronts. The argument is illustrated and extended by observations from J. Hillis Miller, an eminent literary critic, and opportunities literary critics have missed in using the Internet to reach citizen-humanists and enrich civic life. I use Plato’s The Crito and Goethe’s Faust as two examples of core humanities texts that have enriched and guided my own life.