What are the Humanities?

It often seems that "the Humanities" is an old-fashioned term that has lost its meaning in the modern world of highly specialized academic disciplines. It's interesting to see that Stanford University is making a conscious attempt to restore meaning and relevance to the term by creating umbrella resources on both the web and Facebook that try to consolidate and integrate the many different threads of Humanities-related activities at the University.

Stanford's web site, called The Human Experience, highlights the activities of 15 different academic departments, over 25 interdisciplinary programs, and over 30 research centers (including, of course, the Stanford Humanities Center, which works closely with Humanities West on many of our programs). Stanford has also created an excellent Facebook page, The Humanities at Stanford, that encompasses the same broad range of activity in a more dynamic environment.

So what are the Humanities? Stanford's web site defines it this way:
"The humanities can be described as the study of the myriad ways in which people, from every period of history and from every corner of the globe, process and document the human experience. Since humans have been able, we have used philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history and language to understand and record our world. These modes of expression have become some of the subjects that traditionally fall under the humanities umbrella. Knowledge of these records of human experience gives us the opportunity to feel a sense of connection to those who have come before us, as well as to our contemporaries."

Check out these two resources, and let us know what you think.