The global financial crisis presents interesting opportunities and possibilities for the humanities on a global level,” says Prof Tawana Kupe, dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Wits University.
These opportunities and possibilities relate to both the value of the humanities as a form of not only intellectual currency, but also its market value. At Wits the humanities comprise the fields of arts, education, human and community development, literature and language, and social studies and the department is a major contributor to research in all these fields.
Says Prof Kupe: “The humanities have traditionally not been the choice of intellectually gifted students, and have often been treated as nothing but a refuge for those who cannot be admitted to science, engineering and commerce degrees or fail to make it in the sciences in the first year.” But there is a slow shift taking place.
The course offerings at the different universities in the humanities field are quite diverse. Education is mostly grouped under this study direction, as are human and social studies. The University of Johannesburg (UJ) includes — among others — philosophy, psychology and public governance under this grouping. At the University of Pretoria and Unisa, theology also falls under this umbrella.
At the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the college of humanities comprises two faculties: that of education, and humanities development and the social sciences faculty. The college advocates for African and global scholarship, transformation, academic freedom and academic responsibility as its core values. It is the academic home of 50 vibrant research teaching and learning centres. Its aim is to become the premier university of scholarship.
Unisa’s school of humanities, social sciences and theology brings together these disciplines, which form the heart of the university’s education, because it collectively teaches critical and creative skills that can be applied in a wide range of occupations. The teaching and application of modern research technologies are at the basis of teaching skills that allow for the ability to deal with developmental challenges.
Rhodes University’s humanities department is the largest on campus, hosting 40% of the total student intake.
Prof Louise Vincent of Rhodes University’s department of political and international studies, within the Faculty of Humanities, says that the public often perceive the study of humanities as being pointless. Those in this arena often seem to engage in arguments that go round in circles. While this seems, at first glance, like a pointless pursuit, she points out that studying in humanities hones the ability to interpret, summarise and critically engage on various platforms. It also fosters understanding across the barriers of race, class, gender and ethnicity.
Prof Martin Hall of the University of Cape Town, in a paper about higher education presented at a symposium recently, points out that community engagement, along with research and teaching, is one of the three primary purposes of higher education as set out in the 1997 White Paper. He illuminates the value of the humanities in today’s society because of the core values of analytical study and understanding of life in all its colours and creeds.
It is becoming clear that, although we have a technology-based society, the overall knowledge base is being eroded, perhaps due to the fact that technology makes accessing information easier, but this gathering of information is a shallow process with little substance. Companies have already seen the result of this by taking on new employees, who are unable to solve problems, lack critical thinking skills and lack interpersonal communication abilities.
Against this backdrop the humanities and the ability of these courses to create people with critical research abilities that are able to apply world-class standards in their daily jobs, will be seen in future as a discipline worthy of more than just a nod.
Prof Kupe says it is now evident that the promise of high-paying jobs, in particular the commerce or scientific fields, is a thing of the past. He says that one of the most interesting opportunities facing the humanities is the possibility of developing new academic programmes, particularly at postgraduate level, that occupy the space between the humanities, commerce and science.
He says that it is time to dispense with the old dichotomies of the humanities and the sciences as if they were mutually exclusive domains of knowledge.
Clearly, with new frontiers of knowledge able to address pressing global concerns while also requiring multiple forms of new knowledge, the humanities are at the centre of these growing global concerns as well as those that are in the nucleus of the financial crisis such as HIV/Aids, poverty, social re-identification and the like.
“We should rethink our existing knowledge domains and create new academic programmes that are better predictors of risks in a 21st century in which the world is ever more interlinked in ways that can lead to mutually assured destruction,” says Prof Kupe.
The UJ’s humanities department echoes this by saying that graduates are sought for their proficiency in problem solving. Its teachings aim at developing each student’s ability to think critically, imaginatively and to clearly convey ideas to others.
In short, the humanities are facing a new period in which opportunities are being presented that should be explored, expanded and introduced.