The calling and condition of the humanistic disciplines

Abstract

In July 1978, under the joint chairmanship of Professor Bernhard Fabian of the University of Munster and Professor Rudolf Vierhaus of the University of Gottingen a group of scholars from several countries met at the Max-Planck-Institut fur Geschichte in Gottingen to discuss " The Future of the Humanities The conference, sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation, was not intended to be a meeting of specialists concerned with particular humanistic disciplines. It was rather designed to provide, in more general terms, an international forum for the exchange of ideas on the present state and the likely prospects of humanistic scholarship as a whole and of the humanities, understood as a group of academic disciplines which have a special cultural and educational significance. The starting-point of the discussion was the common observation that both in the academic and the wider cultural context the humanities no longer occupy the unchallenged position which they held in the past and which they continued to hold until even a few decades ago. As the participants of the conference communicated the experiences of their own countries and in their respective fields of study it became clear that the present state of the humanities should more appropriately be called not a crisis " but a " new situation In spite of differences in viewpoint and emphasis, there was general agreement on the nature and the significance of the fundamental academic and cultural changes which have occurred in the last few years. Though some of them are hindrances to humanistic scholarship and can even be regarded as actual or potential threats to the cause of the humanities, they also present themselves as challenges which, if properly met, need not necessarily have a negative impact on the future role of the humanities. The " new situation " is marked by a number of paradoxes. One of the most striking is that the humanities as academic disciplines, which in the nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries had a stronghold in the universities, seem to be in a state of relative decline there at a time when large-scale cultural needs which can only be satisfied by the humanities are being expressed. The various factors which have contributed to this decline remain to be analysed. At any rate, the past decade has seen the establishment outside the universities of a number of centres, institutes and foundations for the encouragement of research in the humanities. It is perhaps too early to say whether the humanities will follow "big