the humanities are important to the process of critical thinking because they

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In defense of the humanities: Upholding the pillars of human understanding

This essay is part of a series exploring the enduring importance of the humanities. Stay tuned for more insights on why the humanities still matter.

Loss and literature

Maria and her grandmother, 2003.

Often, the shortest stories are the most resonant. 

In 2020, I lost my maternal grandmother. “Maternal,” in her case, was more than a qualifier–she quite literally played the role of “mother” in my life. My first words, my first steps, and the most formative milestones of my childhood and adolescence happened in her care. She bore the brunt of my insufferable teenage angst, offering a consoling embrace when life seemed to get ahead of me. When I lost her, a chapter of my life ended.

To lose such a constant in one’s early twenties is to lose a tether to one’s reality. The years after my grandmother’s death have been fraught with uncertainty. How could I possibly recover from such a loss? How are my accomplishments meaningful if she is not present to witness them? And, perhaps most disconcerting: who will I be by the time my own life begins to wane? 

Everyone copes with and experiences loss differently. For me, it was acutely alienating. My relationship with my grandmother was singular, making my perspective on loss unique. I operated for what felt like ages on the assumption that no matter how much support I had, I could not possibly be seen.

That is, until I picked up A Very Easy Death . This brief, 112-page memoir by Simone de Beauvoir details her mother’s final days from an honest, compassionate perspective. Laden with recollections of a mother-daughter relationship and personal confrontations with mortality, it resonated with me in a way that no other text had. The acts of death and grief are explored in her memoir as though de Beauvoir were sitting across from me at a bistro recounting the experience. For the first time since my own experience and despite preceding me by thirty-six years, someone had finally seen me.

The humanities: Studies of the human condition

The connection I achieved through literature highlights the critical importance of the humanities. Encompassing history, literature, philosophy, art, and more, the humanities provide a lens through which one can view one’s personal experiences–making the universal personal and the personal universal.

The humanities and humanism have evolved significantly over centuries. In Western society, humanism traces back to Greece in the fourth and fifth centuries BCE. Sophists saw humanism as a cultural-educational program, aiming for the development of human faculties and excellence, as noted in Perez Zagorin’s “On Humanism Past & Present.”  

Agrippa: Human Proportions in Square. n.d. Wellcome Collection.

In Rome, the concept evolved into “an ideal expressed in the concept of humanitas … [which] designated a number of studies–philosophy, history, literature, rhetoric, and training in the oratory.” Most influential, though, was the humanism that emerged from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that was “centered increasingly upon human interests and moral concerns rather than religion.” Its purpose was to cultivate a population of Christian men who were well-spoken, literate, and capable of integrating with high society. 

Growing more secular over time, humanist values began to compete with the physical and biological sciences, the social sciences, and other modern subjects which comprised nineteenth century liberal education. Zagorin suggests that scientific and empirical research approaches overtook human-centered perspectives, particularly after the massive loss of life in World War I and the disillusionment that followed. 

“Through de Beauvoir’s philosophical inquiries into life and death, I was able to confront and process my own grief more profoundly. Her reflections on mortality and the mother-daughter relationship resonated deeply with me, helping me to navigate my personal loss while also offering insights into the universal human condition.”

Scholarly perspectives on the importance of the humanities

Scholars argue that the humanities are essential for comprehending complex social dynamics and ethical questions. In “The Power of the Humanities and a Challenge to Humanists,” Richard J. Franke argues that humanistic interpretation “contributes to a tradition of interpretation.” Franke posits that human emotions and values are at the core of humanistic study, offering the ability to explore domains that “animate the human experience.” This is precisely how my engagement with Simone de Beauvoir’s memoir, A Very Easy Death, provided a foundation for evaluating broader human concerns.

Le Brun, Charles, 1619-1690., and Hebert, William, fl. 18th century. A Man Whose Profile Expresses Compassion. n.d. Wellcome Collection.

Through de Beauvoir’s philosophical inquiries into life and death, I was able to confront and process my own grief more profoundly. Her reflections on mortality and the mother-daughter relationship resonated deeply with me, helping me to navigate my personal loss while also offering insights into the universal human condition. This connection underscores the humanities’ power to transform personal experiences into a deeper understanding of shared human emotions and values.

Moreover, Franke postulates that subjects under the humanities all lend themselves to critical thinking, which he defines as “that Socratic habit of articulating questions and gathering relevant information in order to make reasonable judgements.” Through the humanities, one can approach topics from varied vantage points to develop a holistic understanding of them. 

In a study published in 2018 by the Journal of General Internal Medicine , medical students across institutions suggested that exposure to the humanities had an appreciable influence on their “tolerance of ambiguity, empathy, and wisdom.” The study’s discussion section further indicates that both the performance and observance of drama increase empathy, and that “even good literature prompts better detection of emotions.” These findings highlight that studying the humanities cultivates essential skills and attributes that have practical applications in real-world settings.

Scholarship, then, suggests that the humanities teach us to be human, whether through the ability to form nuanced questions or to feel empathy. I experienced this firsthand while reading Simone de Beauvoir’s A Very Easy Death. Her detailed account of her mother’s final days helped me navigate my own grief. It also gave me a deeper understanding of the emotional complexities involved in facing mortality as a concept. These characteristics—developed through engagement with the humanities—can improve interpersonal relationships and foster a more empathetic and accepting society.

The impact of the humanities extends beyond personal growth; it influences professional practices and societal outcomes. The empathy and wisdom nurtured by humanities education can enhance the quality of patient care in the medical field, as evidenced by the medical students’ testimonies. Similarly, professionals in law, education, and public policy benefit from the critical thinking and ethical reasoning stimulated by humanities education. By emphasizing these real-world applications, we can better advocate for the continued support and integration of the humanities in various sectors of society.

Challenges affecting the humanities: Economic pressures and academic isolation

Even in light of their demonstrated value, the humanities face significant challenges that threaten their vitality and relevance. In “ The Decline of the Humanities and the Decline of Society,” Ibanga B. Ikpe describes how today’s labor market increasingly demands qualifications for specific sectors. Courses in the humanities that are not tailored to particular career paths put them at a disadvantage in universities. 

Ikpe also attributes the decline in humanities education to the fact that “economic rather than academic motivations have become the primary basis for decision making in universities.” He raises the notion that the humanities and similar disciplines cannot be elucidated into digestible pieces of information, which makes them more difficult to sell. The more defined the subject, the more profitable. Thus, funding for humanities programs at educational institutions has reduced significantly. This has both limited resources for teaching and research and signaled a devaluation of the humanities as a whole. 

Finally, Ikpe presents the argument that humanities scholars are partially to blame for the current state of the humanities. He raises the accusation that humanities scholars have become withdrawn from greater society, sequestering themselves in academia. The niche views and dialogues they produce in this environment may sever their connection with a broader audience. 

Sustaining the humanities today

The future implied by the above rings grim, but there are still significant opportunities to advocate for the humanities by highlighting their interdisciplinary relevance to contemporary issues. For example, the study of ethics in philosophy can provide crucial insights into debates on artificial intelligence and biotechnology. Similarly, understanding historical contexts can help policymakers make informed decisions about current social and political challenges.

Organizations like JSTOR play a crucial role in preserving and promoting the humanities. JSTOR’s vast digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources ensures that humanities scholarship remains accessible to students, researchers, and the public, advancing knowledge, strengthening critical thinking, and supporting interdisciplinary studies.

ITHAKA, the parent organization of JSTOR, is also increasing the utility of this knowledge. More than a mere repository, ITHAKA uses technology to analyze and contextualize vast amounts of information, making it more accessible and meaningful. By doing so, they help transform scholarly resources into practical tools that can drive real change in society. Their initiatives facilitate connections between research and practice, allowing the humanities to inform solutions to contemporary challenges.

By leveraging the support of organizations like JSTOR and embracing technological advancements, we can turn the tide in favor of the humanities. Advocating for their interdisciplinary relevance and addressing contemporary social issues will ensure that these vital disciplines thrive. The humanities are not relics of the past—they are essential to navigating the complexities of the present and shaping the future.

Hilbert College Global Online Blog

Why are the humanities important, written by: hilbert college   •  feb 8, 2023.

Why Are the Humanities Important? ¶

Do you love art, literature, poetry and philosophy? Do you crave deep discussions about societal issues, the media we create and consume, and how humans make meaning?

The humanities are the academic disciplines of human culture, art, language and history. Unlike the sciences, which apply scientific methods to answer questions about the natural world and behavior, the humanities have no single method or tools of inquiry.

Students in the humanities study texts of all kinds—from ancient books and artworks to tweets and TV shows. They study the works of great thinkers throughout history, including the Buddha, Homer, Aristotle, Dante, Descartes, Nietzsche, Austen, Thoreau, Darwin, Marx, Du Bois and King.

Humanities careers can be deeply rewarding. For students having trouble choosing between the disciplines that the humanities have to offer, a degree in liberal studies may be the perfect path. A liberal studies program prepares students for various exciting careers and teaches lifelong learning skills that can aid graduates in any career path they take.

Why We Need the Humanities ¶

The humanities play a central role in shaping daily life. People sometimes think that to understand our society they must study facts: budget allocations, environmental patterns, available resources and so on. However, facts alone don’t motivate people. We care about facts only when they mean something to us. No one cares how many blades of grass grow on the White House lawn, for example.

Facts gain meaning in a larger context of human values. The humanities are important because they offer students opportunities to discover, understand and evaluate society’s values at various points in history and across every culture.

The fields of study in the humanities include the following:

• Literature —the study of the written word, including fiction, poetry and drama
• History —the study of documented human activity
• Philosophy —(literally translated from Greek as “the love of wisdom”) the study of ideas; comprising many subfields, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics
• Visual arts —the study of artworks, such as painting, drawing, ceramics and sculpture
• Performing arts —the study of art created with the human body as the medium, such as theater, dance and music

Benefits of Studying the Humanities ¶

There are many reasons why the humanities are important, from personal development and intellectual curiosity to preparation for successful humanities careers—as well as careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and the social sciences.

1. Learn How to Think and Communicate Well ¶

A liberal arts degree prepares students to think critically. Because the study of the humanities involves analyzing and understanding diverse and sometimes dense texts—such as ancient Greek plays, 16th century Dutch paintings, American jazz music and contemporary LGBTQ+ poetry—students become skilled at noticing and appreciating details that students educated in other fields might miss.

Humanities courses often ask students to engage with complex texts, ideas and artistic expressions; this can help them develop the critical thinking skills they need to understand and appreciate art, language and culture.

Humanities courses also give students the tools they need to communicate complex ideas in writing and speaking to a wide range of academic and nonacademic audiences. Students learn how to organize their ideas in a clear, organized way and write compelling arguments that can persuade their audiences.

2. Ask the Big Questions ¶

Students who earn a liberal arts degree gain a deeper understanding of human culture and history. Their classes present opportunities to learn about humans who lived long ago yet faced similar questions to us today:

• How can I live a meaningful life?
• What does it mean to be a good person?
• What’s it like to be myself?
• How can we live well with others, especially those who are different from us?
• What’s really important or worth doing?

3. Gain a Deeper Appreciation for Art, Language and Culture ¶

Humanities courses often explore art, language and culture from different parts of the world and in different languages. Through the study of art, music, literature and other forms of expression, students are exposed to a wide range of perspectives. In this way, the humanities help students understand and appreciate the diversity of human expression and, in turn, can deepen their enjoyment of the richness and complexity of human culture.

Additionally, the study of the humanities encourages students to put themselves in other people’s shoes, to grapple with their different experiences. Through liberal arts studies, students in the humanities can develop empathy that makes them better friends, citizens and members of diverse communities.

4. Understand Historical Context ¶

Humanities courses place artistic and cultural expressions within their historical context. This can help students understand how and why certain works were created and how they reflect the values and concerns of the time when they were produced.

5. Explore What Interests You ¶

Ultimately, the humanities attract students who have an interest in ideas, art, language and culture. Studying the humanities has the benefit of enabling students with these interests to explore their passions.

The bottom line? Studying the humanities can have several benefits. Students in the humanities develop:

• Critical thinking skills, such as the ability to analyze dense texts and understand arguments
• A richer understanding of human culture and history
• Keen communication and writing skills
• Enhanced capacity for creative expression
• Deeper empathy for people from different cultures

6. Prepare for Diverse Careers ¶

Humanities graduates are able to pursue various career paths. A broad liberal arts education prepares students for careers in fields such as education, journalism, law and business. A humanities degree can prepare graduates for:

• Research and analysis , such as market research, policy analysis and political consulting
• Nonprofit work , social work and advocacy
• Arts and media industries , such as museum and gallery support and media production
• Law, lobbying or government relations
• Business and management , such as in marketing, advertising or public relations
• Library and information science , or information technology
• Education , including teachers, curriculum designers and school administrators
• Content creation , including writing, editing and publishing

Employers value the strong critical thinking, communication and problem-solving skills that humanities degree holders possess.

5 Humanities Careers ¶

Humanities graduates gain the skills and experience to thrive in many different fields. Consider these five humanities careers and related fields for graduates with a liberal studies degree.

1. Public Relations Specialist ¶

Public relations (PR) specialists are professionals who help individuals, organizations and companies communicate with public audiences. First and foremost, their job is to manage their organizations’ or clients’ reputation. PR specialists use various tactics, such as social media, events like fundraisers and other media relations activities to shape and maintain their clients’ public image.

PR specialists have many different roles and responsibilities as part of their daily activities:

• Creating and distributing press releases
• Monitoring and analyzing media coverage (such as tracking their clients’ names in the news)
• Organizing events
• Responding to media inquiries
• Evaluating the effectiveness of PR campaigns

How a Liberal Studies Degree Prepares Graduates for PR ¶

Liberal studies majors are required to participate in class discussions and presentations, which can help them develop strong speaking skills. PR specialists often give presentations and speak to the media, so strong speaking skills are a must.

PR specialists must also be experts in their audience. The empathy and critical thinking skills that graduates develop while they earn their degree enables them to craft tailored, effective messages to diverse audiences as PR specialists.

Public Relations Specialist Salary ¶

The median annual salary for PR specialists was $62,800 in May 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS expects the demand for PR specialists to grow by 8% between 2021 and 2031, faster than the average for all occupations.

The earning potential for PR specialists can vary. The size of the employer can affect the salary, as can the PR specialist’s level of experience and education and the specific duties and responsibilities of the job.

In general, PR specialists working for big companies in dense urban areas tend to earn more than those working for smaller businesses or in rural areas. Also, PR specialists working in science, health care and technology tend to earn more than those working in other industries.

BLS data is a national average, and the salary can also vary by location; for example, since the cost of living is higher in California and New York, the average salaries in those states tend to be higher compared with those in other states.

2. Human Resources Specialist ¶

Human resources (HR) specialists are professionals who are responsible for recruiting, interviewing and hiring employees for an organization. They also handle employee relations, benefits and training. They play a critical role in maintaining a positive and productive work environment for all employees.

How a Liberal Studies Degree Prepares Graduates for HR ¶

Liberal studies majors hone their communication skills through coursework that requires them to write essays, discussion posts, talks and research papers. These skills are critical for HR specialists, who must communicate effectively with company stakeholders, such as employees, managers and corporate leaders.

Additionally, because students who major in liberal studies get to understand the human experience, their classes can provide deeper insight into human behavior, motivation and communication. This understanding can be beneficial in handling employee relations, conflict resolution and other HR-related issues.

Human Resources Specialist Salary ¶

The median annual salary for HR in the U.S. was $122,510 in May 2021, according to the BLS. The demand for HR specialists is expected to grow by 8% between 2021 and 2031, per the BLS, faster than the average for all occupations.

3. Political Scientist ¶

A liberal studies degree not only helps prepare students for media and HR jobs—careers that may be more commonly associated with humanities—but also prepares graduates for successful careers as political scientists.

Political scientists are professionals who study the theory and practice of politics, government and political systems. They use various research methods, such as statistical analysis and historical analysis, to study political phenomena: elections, public opinions, the effects of policy changes. They also predict political trends.

How the Humanities Help With Political Science Jobs ¶

Political scientists need to have a deep understanding of political institutions. They have the skills to analyze complex policy initiatives, evaluate campaign strategies and understand political changes over time.

A liberal studies program provides a solid foundation of critical thinking skills that can sustain a career in political science. First, liberal studies degrees can teach students about the histories and theories of politics. Knowing the history and context of political ideas can be useful when understanding and evaluating current political trends.

Second, graduates with a liberal studies degree become accustomed to communicating with diverse audiences. This is a must to communicate with the public about complex policies and political processes.

Political Scientist Specialist Salary ¶

According to the BLS, the median annual wage for political scientists was $122,510 in May 2021. The BLS projects that employment prospects for political scientists will grow by 6% between 2021 and 2031, about as fast as the average for all occupations.

4. Community Service Manager ¶

Community service managers are professionals who are responsible for overseeing and coordinating programs and services that benefit the local community. They may work for a government agency, nonprofit organization or community-based organization in community health, mental health or community social services.

Community service management includes the following:

• Training and overseeing community service staff and volunteers
• Securing and allocating resources to provide services such as housing assistance, food programs, job training and other forms of social support
• Developing and implementing efficient and effective community policies
• Fundraising and applying for grants grant to secure funding for their programs

In these and many other ways, community service managers play an important role in addressing social issues and improving the quality of life for people in their community.

Community Service Management and Liberal Studies ¶

Liberal studies prepares graduates for careers in community service management by providing the tools for analyzing and evaluating complex issues. These include tools to work through common dilemmas that community service managers may face. Such challenges include the following:

• What’s the best way to allocate scarce community mental health resources, such as limited numbers of counselors and social workers to support people experiencing housing instability?
• What’s the best way to monitor and measure the success of a community service initiative, such as a Meals on Wheels program to support food security for older adults?
• What’s the best way to recruit and train volunteers for community service programs, such as afterschool programs?

Because the humanities teach students how to think critically, graduates with a degree in liberal studies have the skills to think through these complex problems.

Community Service Manager Salary ¶

According to the BLS, the median annual wage for social and community managers was $74,000 in May 2021. The BLS projects that employment prospects for social and community managers will grow by 12% from 2021 to 2031, much faster than the average for all occupations.

5. High School Teacher ¶

High school teachers educate future generations, and graduates with a liberal studies degree have the foundation of critical thinking and communication skills to succeed in this important role.

We need great high school teachers more than ever. The U.S. had a shortage of 300,000 teachers in 2022, according to NPR and the National Education Association The teacher shortage particularly affected rural school districts, where the need for special education teachers is especially high.

How the Humanities Prepare Graduates to Teach ¶

Having a solid understanding of the humanities is important for individuals who want to become a great high school teacher. First, a degree that focuses on the humanities provides graduates with a deep understanding of the subjects that they’ll teach. Liberal studies degrees often include coursework in literature, history, visual arts and other subjects taught in high school, all of which can give graduates a strong foundation in the material.

Second, liberal studies courses often require students to read, analyze and interpret texts, helping future teachers develop the skills they need to effectively teach reading, writing and critical thinking to high school students.

Third, liberal studies courses often include coursework in research methods, which can help graduates develop the skills necessary to design and implement engaging and effective lesson plans.

Finally, liberal studies degrees often include classes on ethics, philosophy and cultural studies, which can give graduates the ability to understand and appreciate different perspectives, cultures and life experiences. This can help future teachers create inclusive and respectful learning environments and help students develop a sense of empathy and understanding toward others.

Overall, a humanities degree can provide graduates with the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to be effective high school teachers and make a positive impact on the lives of their students.

High School Teacher Salary ¶

According to the BLS, the median annual wage for high school teachers was $61,820 in May 2021. The BLS projects that the number of high school teacher jobs will grow by 5% between 2021 and 2031.

Take the Next Step in Your Humanities Career ¶

A bachelor’s degree in liberal studies is a key step toward a successful humanities career. Whether as a political scientist, a high school teacher or a public relations specialist, a range of careers awaits you. Hilbert College Global’s online Bachelor of Science in Liberal Studies offers students the unique opportunity to explore courses across the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences and craft a degree experience around the topics they’re most interested in. Through the liberal studies degree, you’ll gain a strong foundation of knowledge while developing critical thinking and communication skills to promote lifelong learning. Find out how Hilbert College Global can put you on the path to a rewarding career.

Indeed, “13 Jobs for Humanities Majors”

NPR, The Teacher Shortage Is Testing America’s Schools

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, High School Teachers

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Human Resources Specialists

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Political Scientists

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Public Relations Specialists

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Social and Community Service Managers

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Why the humanities?

What are the humanities and why do they matter.

The humanities include disciplines such as history, literature, philosophy, and religious studies; they feature prominently in interdisciplinary departments such as African and African American Studies, Indigenous Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; they also have much in common with the arts and social sciences.

These disciplines help us to understand who we are, what it means to be human, how we relate to others, and the pathways that have led us to this point in time. We cannot navigate our way through the present into the future without a balanced understanding of our diverse, complicated, and often problematic pasts. Appreciating what it means to be human, how relationships work, and how perspectives on these questions vary from culture to culture – these are crucial to our present and future. The humanities take us there.

In a rapidly transforming world and workplace, we need more than ever to nurture critical thinking and the capacity for problem-solving. As a growing number of employers are pointing out, specific skills become increasingly ephemeral in an ever-changing workplace; what they need are employees who can analyze carefully, think creatively, and express themselves clearly, skills fostered by the humanities. Those skills are and will be crucial ingredients for professional success in the bracing twenty-first century workplace. The humanities take us there.

Literacy and critical thinking also play a crucial role in the democratic process, which depends on a citizenry prepared to engage actively and thoughtfully with current events, committed to creative and innovative solutions instead of blind deference to tradition and authority, and watchful of our hard-won freedoms. The humanities take us there.

Every day we witness the many ways in which the world around us becomes ever more interconnected and yet remains deeply divided. The humanities help nurture connections within and between diverse societies, offering pathways for constructive engagement. Learning about and respecting outlooks different from our own is crucial to our survival in the twenty-first century, moving us away from tensions created by ignorance and fear toward informed, sympathetic conversation between cultures. That does not mean forsaking our own identities and loyalties, but it does involve developing the capacity to see beyond them. The humanities take us there.

The expansion of humanistic inquiry in recent decades to recover the voices and past lives of people who have been either ignored or systematically removed from historical narratives and literary canons fits closely with broader trends in our culture toward greater inclusion and a recognition of diverse voices and histories. We are an indispensable part of that process as we seek to understand the many constituent parts that together make up the complex world we inhabit. The humanities take us there.

The humanities are not an optional and unaffordable luxury, as some critics would have us believe. What we do as humanities scholars and in our classrooms could not be more relevant to the world we live in; nor could they be more practical in terms of the skills we need as twenty-first-century citizens. The humanities are a necessity – and not only from a utilitarian perspective. We cannot surrender to a vision of the future that fixates on a narrow economic conception of what is productive and useful. What about our responsibility to nurture our individual capacity for creativity and artistic expression? These are also crucial measurements of our worth, success, and wealth as human beings. We should never undervalue the personal fulfillment and happiness that we can draw from literature, art, music, theater, philosophy, religious studies, and history. An appreciation of our diverse cultural legacies enriches our lives, individually and collectively, and the same is true of becoming actively involved as participants in the creation of new cultural forms. As a growing body of research demonstrates, cultural vitality and personal happiness ultimately lead to economic growth. The humanities take us there.

Please join the quest to support, create, and disseminate new ideas that open our minds, reveal new ways of understanding who we are, and uncover the histories that brought us to the moment we now live in!

(By Richard Godbeer, former director of the Hall Center for the Humanities)

The Hall Center, one of 11 designated research centers that fall under the auspices of the University of Kansas Office of Research, provides an intellectual hub for scholars in the humanities and fosters interdisciplinary conversation across the University of Kansas. Through its public programming, the Hall Center makes visible the significance and relevance of humanities research, engaging broad, diverse communities across the state in dialogue about compelling local, national, and global issues that humanities research addresses. The Hall Center acts on the conviction that the humanities must play a critical role in constructing a humane future for our world. 

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Critical & Creative Thinking

Key Concepts

This chapter will prepare you to:

• Explain the concepts of critical thinking.
• Evaluate the merits of the questions, not just the answers.
• Evaluate the origins of our values.
• Discuss the implications of perceptions and stereotypes as they relate to an individual.
• Identify historical, geographical, and cultural contexts.

In the Introduction , we presented the idea of metacognition, which is the first step in applying critical and creative thinking to our study of the humanities. We all view the world through a lens; one shaped by our personal experiences. So, to objectively analyze a news story, cartoon, painting, photograph, essay, song, or any number of ways we express our human experience, we begin by being aware of how our brain works.

You may hear the phrase “critical thinking” used many times in a humanities course. In the context of humanities, critical thinking is the process of reflection about our personal values, paradigms, and experiences. Creative thinking is another important tool for studying the humanities. By “creative thinking,” we mean challenging what you think you know and asking you to think outside the box. Creative thinking also acknowledges and explores how other people may see or experience the world differently from us.

Throughout this book are Questions for Critical & Creative Thinking . These questions may present novel situations or be tough to answer. They are designed to help you reflect on why you perceive the world the way you do and perhaps why someone else might see things differently. Some questions may prompt you to expand your personal perspective.

The Looking Exercises and Listening Exercises included at the end of this chapter will help you practice these approaches to critical and creative thinking.

Creative Approaches to Critical Thinking

What is critical thinking.

A key component of critical thinking is analyzing a person or event from multiple perspectives . The opposite of critical thinking would be characterizing a group of people based on a singular experience with one individual. Not only does this limited perspective interfere with critical and creative thinking, but it may also lead us to treat people or situations with unrealistic expectations.

Credit: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. “ The Danger of a Single Story .” TEDGlobal 2009. July 2009. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International. https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses the damage caused by people’s limited perceptions. She starts by sharing her perceptions of people from her childhood in Nigeria. She then moves on to other people’s perceptions of her and Nigerian culture when she was a student in the United States.

Questions for Critical & Creative Thinking

• Have you ever been subjected to a stereotype?
• Where do you think the basis of this assumption came from? Is there any truth to the idea?
• Do you feel like these stereotypes limit you or encourage you?

What Do We Know?

Our reaction to information—whether it comes via images, sound, or words—is informed by our value systems. Our value systems, in turn, are shaped by personal experience and learned knowledge.

Consider something as fundamental as clothing. The sight of a man wearing a skirt in Salt Lake City would be unusual enough that he would probably elicit some stares. However, maybe not from people living in Scotland or the Pacific islands. This is an example of a response informed by cultural context. In this case, about what is regarded as normal or acceptable attire for men to wear in public. There are also historical imperatives. In present-day society, men and women frequently wear jeans or pants. However, 100 years ago, a woman wearing pants was neither a common nor acceptable fashion statement.

Can you choose which of the following historical factors were at play to allow women in the United States the freedom to wear “men’s” clothing?

• The suffrage movement for women’s right to vote
• World War I and World War II (Hint: military conscription of men necessitated a female workforce.)
• The birth control pill

Think about what people considered normal in earlier historical settings and reflect on your own reaction.

• Do you think they are silly? Funny?
• Or were their standards acceptable because they were based on the information available at the time?

Let us look at another example, this time a symbol most likely associated with negative reactions. The swastika symbol was adopted by the Nazi party during World War II. Because of this, most people perceive the swastika as a symbol of murder and destruction.

The origins of this symbol reach back much further than 20 th -century Germany. The oldest known swastika is estimated to be about 15,000 years old , which puts it in the Paleolithic Period (Stone Age). Throughout history, the swastika was used in regions all over the world, including China, Japan, India, and southern Europe. It has been used to represent good luck, prosperity, and the sun. If not equipped with this knowledge before traveling abroad, it would be easy to assume that Nazi sympathizers had lived in these countries.

Questions to Critical & Creative Thinking

• Prior to reading about the history of the swastika, what conclusions might you have reached if you visited a building displaying a swastika on the wall?
• A swastika symbol on Japanese maps indicates the location of a Buddhist temple. In preparation for the 2020 Olympics, Japan’s national mapmaking department is considering changing the map symbol to something else. Do you think they should or should not change the symbol? Why or why not? Can you think of another way to resolve this issue?

What Is a Creative Approach to Critical Thinking?

As you might imagine from the swastika example, challenging long-held values or beliefs can cause conflict among people, and perhaps discomfort for an individual person. However, it is important to remember that critical and creative thinking does not require you to change your mind but rather, evaluate how you got there. One way to look at it is to imagine that critical thinking is like taking something apart, while creative thinking is like recycling or repurposing something. In the end, you may still end up with the same beliefs. Or you may discover you have acquired some new values.

Again, the goal is to get you thinking about how you think. In an early scene from the movie, The Matrix (1999) , the character Orpheus offers the protagonist Neo a blue pill and a red pill.

“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

Likewise, by encouraging you to think critically and creatively, this course offers you a similar choice. You can superficially engage with the various artifacts presented throughout this book, skip the critical and creative thinking questions, and finish the book with your points of view pretty much unchanged. Or you can accept occasionally feeling uncomfortable as you delve deeper into how people across the centuries and around the world have tried to make sense of the human condition. Blue pill or red pill? You choose!

How to Approach an Artifact

Another critical thinking tool is the use and analysis of artifacts. A humanities artifact could be a piece of writing, music, painting, drawing, sculpture, dance, film, or any number of created works. In her article “ A Method for Reading, Writing, & Thinking Critically ,” Kathleen McCormick explains that we should consider the historical and cultural context when analyzing an artifact of written text. Additional contexts for approaching any type of artifact include economic, political, geographical, social, and religious, to name a few. These contextual pieces offer clues as to what may have motivated a person to compose or create an artifact. Analyzing context can also help us to determine how relevant an artifact is to our contemporary experiences.

In addition to considering context, it is important to ask a series of questions when approaching an artifact of the humanities. Critical and creative thinking encourages us to be actively engaged with a piece of text, music, or art. Some questions you should be asking yourself as you engage with the artifacts presented in this chapter, as well as the rest of the book include:

• Who is the author or creator of the artifact?
• What do we know about the artifact’s historical context, i.e., what was happening when the artifact was created?
• What was the inspiration or motivation for creating this artifact? For example, was it a commissioned piece or spontaneous creation?
• For written text, is there a narrative voice? If so, is it first person or third?
• Does who is speaking make a difference for a narrative?
• What is the main message the author or creator is trying to convey?
• Who, if any, is the author or creator’s intended audience?
• Does this artifact present a familiar concept or message? Is it something new for you?
• Does the author or creator’s message align or conflict with your values?

When we engage with humanities artifacts and then apply critical and creative thinking, we are not merely going through a process of decoding. Hopefully, this book helps you understand that analyzing the humanities using this approach is a sincere thoughtful process that helps broaden your understanding of what the humanities are and why understanding them is so important.

Looking Exercises: Architecture and Painting

These exercises will help you practice using critical and creative analysis of a humanities artifact through a couple of visual examples: building architecture and political painting.

The visual arts are a broad umbrella encompassing artifacts that are appreciated by looking at them. These arts include painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, printmaking, crafts, architecture, textiles, and much more. These artifacts are the result of people trying to make sense of their physical and inner worlds, and conveying that understanding to other people.

An important first question to ask when considering a visual arts artifact is, was the work commissioned? Meaning, was the piece created at the request of someone else, such as a government, individual, nonprofit group, political group, or otherwise? Naturally, the sentiment embodied in the artifact and the intended audience will likely align with the values of the group or person who commissioned it rather than the artist who created it.

Other important questions might include, when was the piece created? What political issues were prominent at the time? What historical events were happening? By gathering as much contextual information as possible about the artifact, we are better equipped to interpret the artifact’s message or intention.

Architecture

The built environment reflects the age and cultural context in which it was produced. Architecture gives us easy access to visual arts artifacts for analysis. Some contextual questions we can ask:

• What does the style of architecture in my city tell me about the cultural influences of my society?
• Is there a philosophical influence?
• How old is the city?
• Does it maintain some of the influence of the original settlers? If so, how and where did that influence come from?

Architecture may also reflect a building’s function. Public buildings tend to be open and inviting. Some buildings may be designed to deflect attention. The nondescript architecture of homeless shelters helps conceal the vulnerable people living there. This kind of architecture is known as hostile architecture.

For this exercise, use the contextual questions listed above (as well as ones of your own) to analyze the architectural artifact presented by the White House in Washington DC, which was built in 1792. And compare it with Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall, built in Los Angeles in 2003.

Looking at a piece of art, we can ask whether what we see relates to our contemporary setting. Sometimes, in order to fully understand an artifact, we must be familiar with the historical, political, or social context surrounding its creation.

The painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso was first displayed in Paris on May 1, 1937. He painted it during the midst of the Spanish Civil War (July 1936–April 1939) as an artistic reaction to the Nazi’s bombing of the Basque town on April 26, 1937 . The painting is monochromatic, to show the misery inflicted by the aerial bombardment. The images in the painting present the tragedy and suffering of the war: a dismembered soldier and nurse; an all-seeing eye; and the Spanish symbols of a bull and a horse.

One contextual question to ask is, does Picasso’s painting only hold relevance to the Spanish Civil War? Two examples of contemporary situations demonstrate that this painting can be relevant beyond what Picasso may have originally intended. In fact, this artifact presents timeless relevancy to the perception, interpretation, and expression of our human experiences during a war.

On February 28, 1974 , Tony Shafrazi entered the Museum of Modern Art in New York  City, and red-spray painted the words “Kill Lies All” over the Guernica. Shafrazi said this was “ a protest against the release on bail of the lieutenant later convicted for his role in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.”  The red paint was easily removed, as Guernica was heavily varnished.

On February 5, 2003, Colin Powell delivered a speech at the United Nations (UN) headquarters to make the case for war with Iraq. He was standing in front of a tapestry of Picasso’s Guernica, which hangs in the UN as a reminder of the horror of war and the need for diplomacy first. The tapestry was covered with a blue sheet.

Reports of the UN’s position behind this action vary and the organization did not release an official statement. However, using contextual information, such as the painting’s history, we can deduce some logical reasons. The New York Times reported the UN started covering the tapestry because they were afraid a horse’s screaming head would be visible next to chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix while he spoke.  The article offered an alternative reason , “Mr. Powell can’t very well seduce the world into bombing Iraq surrounded on camera by shrieking and mutilated women, men, children, bulls and horses.”

An article in the Toronto Star ran the quote , “A [un-named] diplomat stated that it would not be an appropriate background if the ambassador of the United States at the U.N. John Negroponte, or Powell, talk about war surrounded with women, children and animals shouting with horror and showing the suffering of the bombings.”

Listening Exercises: Songs and Music

These two exercises apply to how our values shape our listening choices, both in conversations and songs. As described, we prefer listening to speech and music that agree with our values and ideas. In other words, we gravitate to news channels, influential people, and song lyrics that support our world view. This tendency to seek out similar viewpoints ends up reinforcing our world view rather than expanding it.

There are several reasons for this behavior:

• Consensual validation: When we meet people who share similar attitudes, it makes us feel more confident about our world view. For example, if you love jazz music, meeting a fellow jazz lover confirms that your love of jazz is OK and maybe even virtuous.
• Cognitive evaluation: We naturally form positive or negative impressions of other people by generalizing from the information we acquire through experience or absorption. When a person has common interests with us, we assume that we must also share other positive characteristics with that person.
• Certainty of being liked: We assume that someone who shares common interests and viewpoints will probably like us. In turn, we tend to like people if we think they like us.
• Preference for enjoyable interactions: It is just more fun to hang out with someone when you have a lot in common.
• Opportunity for self-expansion: We benefit from new knowledge and experiences as the direct result of spending time with someone else. Oddly, people seeking self-expansion will gravitate toward people who are similar to them, even though a person with dissimilar perspectives would likely provide greater opportunities for self-expansion.

Listen to 15 minutes of news on a network that represents viewpoints contrary to yours.

• How did you feel while listening to a contrary opinion?
• Did you find yourself responding, such as thinking of rebuttals to contradict the information you were hearing?
• Did you learn something new?

The same behaviors influence how we listen to music. Music presents an artifact with many contextual facets. Some people listen to music for entertainment value. Others listen to find meaning in either the music or lyrics, or both. Very often, we attach meanings to music depending on where we were or what was happening when we heard it. Composers will have an inspiration or recall their personal experiences when creating music. Therefore, when analyzing music, it is important to consider the context that includes our personal response, the composer’s motivation, and perhaps outside influences, such as historical events or political movements.

There are fundamental questions we can ask regardless of musical genre:

• When did the artist compose the music?
• How does the genre of music impact its meaning?
• Does the tempo make us feel a certain way, such as sad, energized, relaxed, or irritated? How about the lyrics?
• Who do you think the music was written for? The musician? The listener?
• What do you think is the message is? Is meaning fluid or changeable?
• Does your musical taste change over time? As you get older? Due to events in your life?

Modern Song Lyrics

The two examples in this exercise present music artifacts from very different genres. The first is “ Blurred Lines ,” a song written by Pharell Williams and Robin Thicke. Released on March 26th, 2013, it was immediately involved in a legal dispute. Marvin Gaye’s family sued on the grounds that the song was “ noticeably ripped off ” from Marvin Gaye’s song “ Got To Give It Up .” The plaintiffs won their case and were awarded $5.3 million dollars in damages and 50% of royalties from future sales.

Furthermore, the song was criticized for promoting rape culture . Critics said the “blurred lines” in the title and lyrics were an assault on someone’s right to control sexual consent and the song’s message promoted the objectification of women as sexual objects.

Here are the song lyrics :

I hate these blurred lines I know you want it I hate them lines I know you want it I hate them lines I know you want it But you’re a good girl The way you grab me Must wanna get nasty Go ahead, get at me

• After reading the lyrics, do you think the song is controversial?
• After watching the video clip, does the meaning of the song change for you?

The song faced further controversy when Miley Cyrus joined Robin Thicke on stage at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Cyrus performed twerking dance moves in close contact with Thicke and made sexual gestures using a foam finger. Her dance performance was regarded as an endorsement of the song’s message. (Time marker 04:10)

Credit: Robin Thicke, Miley Cyrus. “Miley Cyrus VMA 2013 with Robin Thicke SHOCKED.” MTV Video Music Awards 2013. Juan Manuel Cruz . YouTube. YouTube. Fair Use of worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to access content. https://youtu.be/LfcvmABhmxs.

Classical Instrumental Music

https://soundcloud.com/chicagosymphony/beethoven-symphony-no-6-2

Credit: Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Neeme Järvi, conductor. “ Beethoven Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 .” SoundCloud. Fair Use of limited, personal, non-exclusive, revocable, non-assignable and non-transferable right and license to use the Platform to view Content. https://soundcloud.com/chicagosymphony/beethoven-symphony-no-6-2.

A very different example of a musical artifact is Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 , written in 1808. (Making it a slightly older piece than “Blurred Lines.”). Historical context is important for analyzing the message in Beethoven’s composition. For example, what made No. 6 different from his other symphonies? A clue resides in the title Beethoven gave to this piece of music, Pastoral Symphony . According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, pastoral means “of, relating to, or composed of shepherds or herdsmen.” This suggests an agricultural theme. This is one of only two symphonies titled by the composer, rather than someone else. Beethoven had a lifelong appreciation of nature and frequently took walks in the countryside. For the premiere, he described this composition as having “ more an expression of feeling than painting .”

Listen to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 and pay attention to how the music makes you feel.

• How does the music affect your mood?
• What images appear in your mind as you listen?
• Can you interpret a message conveyed in the music despite there being no lyrics?

Try practicing your analytical listening skills on other instrumental pieces, such as the movie score to Fantasia , Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus , or The Lord of the Rings .

As you move through this book, you may discover information that is already familiar to you. Those cases are an opportunity to put on your critical and creative thinking cap and use it to reflect on your existing world views and values. Observe, and then, ask yourself lots of questions!

• Does your gender, race, sexuality, socio-economic status inform your interpretation of an artifact?
• What was happening historically when you read, listened to, or observed the artifact?
• Are (or were) there external circumstances, such as laws or events, that may have informed your interpretation of an artifact?
• Do you have acquired knowledge that helps deepen your appreciation or understanding of an artifact?
• Do you agree or disagree with an artist or creator’s message? If you disagree, can you appreciate why they felt compelled to create their message?

Remember, these questions are not intended to force you to shift your ideology. However, they do require you to consider how your personal perspective affects your interpretation of artifacts. And hopefully, these questions will encourage you to look at things from a different perspective than the one you are used to using.

The examples, questions, and descriptions in this book are designed to help teach you to:

• See and interpret patterns in people’s behavior.
• View situations from a variety of different perspectives.
• Realize that there may not be definitive answers to questions that arise from the human experience.

For our last example, use your critical and creative thinking skills to reflect on the following quote by Lawrence Wright :

“We prefer an ordered world, regular patterns, familiar forms, and when flaws or distortions occur, provided they are not too gross, our mind’s eye tidies them up. We see what we want or expect to see.”

• Do you agree with Wright? Do you prefer to categorize contemporary and historical events so they fit in with your world view?
• If you disagree, in what way?
• Is it possible that you could be misinterpreting information? Is it possible you do not have possession of all the facts?
• Do you operate in a clearly defined narrative within a clearly defined paradigm?
• Could you possibly change your mind?

The Human Experience: From Human Being to Human Doing Copyright © 2020, Edition 1 by Claire Peterson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Mythology and Humanities in the Ancient World Delahoyde & Hughes CRITICAL THINKING ABOUT THE HUMANITIES   Washington State University is currently taking an impressive lead in finding and fine-tuning ways to improve critical thinking skills. The WSU Critical Thinking Rubric provides a vocabulary for identifying many of the elusive features that teachers seek in their students' work and classroom contributions. The developers of this rubric emphasize the flexibility of it as a tool and encourage teachers to adapt it freely -- liberally, as it were -- to suit their own courses and/or assignments. We think it logical for humanities teachers to consider carefully the rubric's seven components, or subsets thereof, in terms of sequencing. 1) Identifying and summarizing the problem/question at issue (and/or the source's position). This does seem basic, which is not saying that it's a cinch. Students, even teachers, are apt to approach ancient works as if there are no ongoing debates about living issues embedded in the texts and material. A student's "report" on the Greek gods in the pantheon does not reach even this first rung of critical thinking. Wrangling with the notion of the interventions of particular anthropomorphic gods in the Iliad lends itself better to being cast as a problem or question.

2) Identifying and presenting the student's own perspective and position as it is important to the analysis of the issue.

Teachers in many disciplines who have adapted the entire rubric, as a sequence, to their courses have relocated this step to a place much later in the schematic. In certain assignments, and if one reductively translates "perspective" as "opinion," this component may not even be relevant. But in the humanities, we are often at pains to explain to students that somewhere between the dry, probably pointless reporting of factoids and an editorial spewing of their "opinions" comes what we really seek -- their "perspective" -- that is, a well-articulated indication that they have brought some sophisticated worldview of their own to the subject, or that the subject has contributed somehow to the development of that worldview. We have read, for example, many term papers that are impressively researched, superbly organized, excellently written, and utterly pointless. They fall dead because the conclusion merely concludes and readers are left asking "so what?" Indeed, even within the wording of this component of the rubric, one might take issue with the blurring of the terms "perspective" and "position." Someone with a ferocious "position" on an issue may desperately need some "perspective"! So, consider the terms you want to emphasize and consider relocating this component of the rubric before or after what is listed as #6: context.

3) Identifies and considers OTHER salient perspectives and positions that are important to the analysis of the issue.

If there is no awareness that multiple angles or possibilities are inherent in the subject, then it's likely that the student isn't conceptualizing the subject as a problem or question to begin with. Identifying and considering other perspectives and positions means more than the usual academic procedure; that is, the student reads secondary sources or even engages in primary research and applies this information to the topic / problem / question in meaningful ways, which includes generating an argumentative or expository text with a thesis. However, identifying and considering the perspectives of the "Other" has its own set of difficulties and levels of comprehension and interpretation and may be more of a bottleneck than current research statistics indicate. As a vital component of what we do in the humanities, teachers need to clarify the ways this section of the rubric encourages "critical thinking" beyond the standard procedures of secondary and primary research. Considering other perspective must include the process of consciousness or even soul-making that might rightfully be part of what we call the mental discipline of de-centering. This may sound entirely non-profit liberal, but the application can be worked out in specific pedagogical performances in the classroom. Cultural receptivity: In this context, Critical Thinking begins with fostering a willingness to consider seeing the world from another foreign or otherwise remote perspective, especially difficult at times given the way we depend on our facts and figures, the virtuosi of our knowledge, memory, authority, and arrogance. This area nevertheless necessarily includes an affinity for suspending what we know in order to imagine (with a degree of verisimilitude) what is quite literally and physically beyond our experience, culture, ethnicity, religion, gender, and so on. The pedagogical problem begins with a distinct treatise: we can only know what we have experienced. A racist male is not going to denounce his racism by merely researching the history of oppression in America or by reading Richard Wright's Native Son . Obviously educators hope that this person would indeed become less inclined toward racism by doing the above, but getting students to walk a mile in another person's shoes creates a complexity of puzzles and often requires a teaching miracle. For instance, when considering foreign perspectives are we not almost immediately immersed in a kind of cultural or otherwise voyeurism? Or worse yet hamstrung by our own ideological hierarchies which undermine or counter our attempts to achieve genuine empathy and therefore representation of the other? And in some or most cases, isn't gathering other perspectives (in an academic context) about pointing out where these "other perspectives" are wrong or askew? Certainly we also face the very syntax of the English language itself where the subject of the sentence always does something to the predicate. The tantalizing and stereotypical verbs within the sentence diagram often breed acquisition and assault, sometimes with sudden and surprising violence. We need real salience of interpretation. The central accomplishment is to overcome the tendency to lampoon, vivify, or praise the author's perspective strictly from the canvas of our own dramatic self-portrait. This category of the rubric invites precarious ladder-climbing in the classroom. We can feel the ladder sway and the boughs bend. For instance, some female students will read the Iliad in a different way that some male students. As teachesr, we can try to underscore differences based on gender ( at least in the ancient world) through text selection by asking students to also read The Trojan Women by Euripides, which adds to the Homeric drama and certainly identifies and considers other perspectives. The agenda here however is not to generate feminine / masculine polarities or emphasize a point of view that sees women as the grass that gets trampled when the elephants fight. Or to convey that the narratives of the ancient world characterize women as the trophies or spoils of war, vital to the male heroic code. We desire something more; identifying other perspectives is easy; considering other perspectives is more complex. Remember that we are speaking only of one verse of the rubric here, a part that acts in symbiotic relationship with the rubric as a whole and involves a redemptive vision that shifts the inevitable to the creative. As educators we must ask students to explore the incongruous terrain beyond polarities. Identifying and considering other perspectives requires an unprocessed even exotic medium to give it meaning and stimulate the mind's own processes. And whether we seek or shun foreign perspectives, conceit in all its forms is damn near inescapable. At least this awareness alone should shape our capacity for rearranging the way we teach in the humanities.

4) Identifies and assesses the key assumptions .

This means that the student is perceiving the subject somewhat three-dimensionally, or at least reading between the lines. Questioning the assumption that the Greek audience of the Iliad would in all cases have understood the intervening gods as literal characters is a good sign of the critical thinking process. The notion of ethics is curiously included within the rubric wording about assumptions. Are some disciplines or topics void of ethical assumptions? Are Newton's Laws up for ethical analysis? We begin by identifying methods of inquiry appropriate, in particular, to a specific discipline in order to achieve pedagogical goals. In the humanities, we proceed slowly for we suspect that even gravity and its laws will wax ethical at some point in the history and future of the human endeavor. Our fundamental approach to assumptions involves equality or rather thinking critically about how assumptions may perpetuate inequality. We all participate in what Alexis de Tocqueville called the Equality of Condition, regardless of our discipline. In this case, critical thinking is a social force.

5) Identifies and assesses the quality of supporting data/evidence and provides additional data/evidence related to the issue.

The distinction here is between merely regurgitating others' work or reporting from research and truly incorporating the valuable findings.

6) Identifies and considers the influence of the context on the issue.

An appendix to the Critical Thinking Rubric lists possible contexts (cultural, political, ethical, etc.) for consideration. That we still think in terms of ephemeral forces taking over ("Something told me I should go in there"; "The paper suddenly seemed to write itself!") might serve as a context for the issue of anthropomorphic gods intervening at the right times in the Iliad .

7) Identifies and assesses conclusions, implications and consequences .

The rubric's developers admit that it contains a bias towards teachers of writing. This item is difficult to envision outside of some form of writing, where students ideally have moved beyond concluding with simply a reassertion of the thesis, or a limp summary of the preceding discussion. Here too readers are asking, "So what?" and the best signs of critical thinking are those indications that the student has activated the subject by showing its importance. Not every assignment, nor even every class, needs to demand that students succeed in demonstrating all the above skills. Rather, the Critical Thinking Rubric is designed to lend individual teachers some framework and/or some language with which to formulate their assignments and classes, and to help them pinpoint some ways to evaluate not student writing strictly, but student thinking. Texts and materials in the Humanities exist not to be "appreciated" reverentially, but rather to encourage critical thinking themselves. We think Homer, Thucydides, Socrates, Euripides, Ovid, and the rest of the gang would agree.

--Michael Delahoyde --Collin Hughes

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Center for the Humanities

What are the humanities.

The humanities are the stories, the ideas, and the words that help us understand our lives and our world. They introduce us to people we have never met, places we have never visited, and ideas that may never have crossed our minds. By showing how others have lived and thought about life, the humanities help us decide what is important and what we can do to make our own lives and the lives of others better. By connecting us with other people, the humanities point the way to answers about what is ethical and what is true to our diverse heritage, traditions, and history. They help us address the challenges we face together as families, communities, and nations. As fields of study, the humanities emphasize analysis and exchange of ideas and may be interdisciplinary.

• History and Art History study human, social, political, and cultural developments, as well as aspects of the Social Sciences that use historical or philosophical approaches.
• Literature, Languages, and Linguistics, as well as certain approaches to Journalism and Communication Studies, that explore how we communicate with each other, and how our ideas and thoughts on the human experience are expressed and interpreted.
• Philosophy, Ethics, and Comparative Religion, which consider ideas about the meaning of life and the reasons for our thoughts and actions.
• Jurisprudence, which examines the values and principles which inform our laws.
• Critical and theoretical approaches to and practices of the Arts that explore historical or philosophical questions and reflect upon the creative process.

The humanities should not be confused with “humanism,” a specific philosophical belief, nor with “humanitarianism,” the concern for charitable works and social reform.

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Martha C. Nussbaum Talks About the Humanities, Mythmaking, and International Development

The 2017 jefferson lecturer in conversation with neh chairman william d. adams.

Martha C. Nussbaum, 2017 Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities

—Robert Tolchin Photography

On a cold January day in Chicago, Martha C. Nussbaum, the well-lauded philosopher and 2017 Jefferson Lecturer, spoke with NEH Chairman William Adams about the advantages of a humanities education, her passion for ancient Greek and Roman literature, her work at the University of Chicago law school, and her contributions to the field of international development. Several other topics were broached, and still many others could have been added to the agenda, given the extraordinary range of Nussbaum’s thought, which flows mightily across disciplines to better understand the wellsprings of human flourishing and what obstacles stand in the way.

Philosopher John Rawls, author of  A Theory of Justice , strongly encouraged Martha Nussbaum to write for a broader public.

—Frederic REGLAIN / Getty Images

When Martha Nussbaum says “we” and the topic is the human capabilities approach, she is usually referring to Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, with whom she developed this multifaceted standard for measuring national well-being.

—Agence Opale / Alamy Stock Photo

WILLIAM D. ADAMS:  Your book  Not for Profit  made the case for the importance of the humanities in American democratic life. Have things changed substantially since it was published in 2010?

MARTHA C. NUSSBA UM : Data on humanities majors is still a source of concern, but there’s been a big increase in total enrollments in humanities courses in community colleges. And in adult education, too, there’s been a huge upsurge. The preface to the new edition of my book gives data and sources on all this.

We are lucky in the United States to have our liberal arts system. In most countries, if you go to university, you have to decide for all English literature or no literature, all philosophy or no philosophy. But we have a system that is one part general education and one part specialization. If your parents say you’ve got to major in computer science, you can do that. But you can also take general education courses in the humanities, and usually you have to.

ADAMS:  Yet I’ve sensed some weakening of our resolve to support the liberal arts. What should we be doing to reinforce your way of thinking about higher education?

NUSSBAUM:  There are three points you can make. The one I think should be front and center is that the humanities prepare students to be good citizens and help them understand a complicated, interlocking world. The humanities teach us critical thinking, how to analyze arguments, and how to imagine life from the point of view of someone unlike yourself.

Secondly, we need to emphasize their economic value. Business leaders love the humanities because they know that to innovate you need more than rote knowledge. You need a trained imagination.

Singapore and China, which don’t want to encourage democratic citizenship, are expanding their humanities curricula. These reforms are all about developing a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.

But the humanities also teach us the value, even for business, of criticism and dissent. When there’s a culture of going along to get along, where whistleblowers are discouraged, bad things happen and businesses implode.

The third point is about the search for meaning. Life is about more than earning a living, and if you’re not in the habit of thinking about it, you can end up middle-aged or even older and shocked to realize that your life seems empty.

ADAMS:  Some people who care about the humanities worry about various trends, such as obscure methodologies and language that is difficult to read. Where do you come down on this issue?

NUSSBAUM:  I do think there’s a lot of bad writing, and I worry about that in philosophy. I worry about it even more in literary studies, but I wouldn’t blame it on any one methodology.

When a profession is protected by academic freedom and tenure, it tends to turn inward. To a large extent that’s good. The great philosophers of the past who wrote so beautifully—Rousseau, John Stuart Mill—had to write beautifully because they had to sell their work to journals. They had to sell books to the general public because they could not hold positions in universities. Mill was an atheist, and, therefore, could not hold a position in a university.

It’s a good thing that we’re protected by tenure and academic freedom, but we should realize that it creates a risk of getting cut off. Scholars should write, at least sometimes, for the general public. But if I tell my graduate students to write for the general public, where are they going to publish? There are fewer and fewer media outlets for such writing.  Dissent  is one that they could still write for,  The Nation ,  Boston Review  I love. But there are only a few. There are other countries where general media take a much greater interest in philosophy: the Netherlands, Italy, Germany.

ADAMS:  You’re a philosopher, so I want to ask, Should we be doing more work in political philosophy that relates to contemporary democracy?

NUSSBAUM:  There was a time, before I was in graduate school, when political philosophy pretty much ceased to exist. The positivists thought there were only two things you could do: conceptual analysis or empirical investigation. Any kind of political theory or even ethical theory was nonsense. But John Rawls exploded that idea, both by writing great political theory and by arguing that, in fact, it wasn’t nonsense. I was part of that ferment, which included all kinds of arguments between Rawls and Robert Nozick, and Hilary Putnam. And Stanley Cavell.

Today, I think, the state of philosophizing about democracy is very healthy. It bridges political science and philosophy, as it should. I am uniquely positioned in the law school at the University of Chicago, and that’s an exemplary multidisciplinary profession right now, the legal academy.

But we also need debate across political positions. I sought out a junior colleague, who’s our most conservative faculty member in the law school, to teach with me. The topic was public morality and legal conservatism, and we started by reading people like Edmund Burke and then John Stuart Mill, James Fitzjames Stephen, the Hart-Devlin debate, and then we moved up to present-day issues like sex laws, prostitution, pornography, and drug laws.

We have some really excellent students who have very conservative religious views. (I have religious views too, but they are not conservative.) And we had these amazing debates where people would actually say, Well, I think we should reintroduce sodomy laws to strengthen the traditional family. And instead of that person being hurled into outer darkness, there was actually a respectful debate, in which another student said, Well, I’m a gay man from a southern Baptist family, and I want to tell you there’s a lot in what Hart says about the psychic cost of repression. So, they heard each other.

I think that’s what we really need in America, for people to hear each other. And I think philosophy could do a little bit better on that.

ADAMS:  Is there a way in which these broader public differences can be attenuated somehow, so we can have a conversation about the common good?

NUSSBAUM:  Well, I’m an optimist. There has been enormous progress in my lifetime on the two issues that have been most central to my work. When I came to Harvard, there were no tenured women except one, who was in a chair reserved for a woman. It’s still an uphill battle, and I encountered great sexism in parts of my career, but I have to say that things are a lot better than they used to be. There are many women today doing wonderful work all over the academy.

With gay rights, the difference is astonishing. When I first wrote about gay rights, I did it partly because the gays and lesbians that I knew were not out. They didn’t dare to talk about this, to say that this is the struggle that they were having. But all of a sudden there’s been tremendous progress.

The humanities have a tremendous role to play. The first is in teaching civilized argument. In that classroom I described, people knew they couldn’t just hurl epithets at each other. There was an underlying commitment to rational argument.

Notice that all the traditional things philosophers do, looking for validity and soundness, promote civic friendship. That sounds pretty pie in the sky, yes, but I actually believe it.

The second role the humanities has to play is in teaching imagination. I teach lots of courses that use literature. Take August Wilson’s play,  Fences . I just saw the wonderful film. If you didn’t think hard about race before encountering this play, I think you are likely to come away changed.

You start wondering what America was like in the ’40s and ’50s and how those conditions led Troy, the father, to become a garbage man. I mean, What were his opportunities? What were his limits? Why couldn’t he play baseball? And then there’s this wonderful, strong woman, Rose. What’s happened with her? Why does she not have a degree that would prepare her for any kind of employment?

I think the imagination helps us move out of this purely oppositional mentality and see the world in a richer and more variegated way.

ADAMS:  Much of your work is anchored in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and literature. I am thinking of your lovely discussion of the  Oresteia  in  Anger and Forgiveness . Do you have a notion why these texts continue to resonate so powerfully?

NUSSBAUM:  They certainly resonate with me. I wanted to be a professional actress at one point before I went to graduate school, but the experience of acting in Greek tragedies and thinking about these plays made me change my mind. Oh, I thought, I actually want to write about this.

My whole career is about the search for the conditions of human flourishing, and asking, What are the catastrophes that can get in the way? What are the ways in which we’re vulnerable? Of course, as human beings, we ought to be vulnerable. We shouldn’t try to say that we can be self-sufficient or do everything that’s necessary for a good life on our own, because we need other people.

The Greek tragedies and comedies are like a roadmap to all the ways in which trying to live this rich, full life can go wrong. You could get into a war. You could find that you have members of your family on the wrong side of a political crisis. You could be raped. You could find that your child has gone crazy because of some horrible experience she’s had.

These plays are also a roadmap of women’s lives. Next we are doing a conference on war and law in literature. And my faculty troupe of actors is going to put on Euripides’  The Trojan Women , which is absolutely vital today. I don’t think there’s any playwright who’s ever shown the horrible trauma of rape in the way that Euripides does. How did that happen? Well, Euripides is unique here, I think, because he had this keen interest in women, and people would joke that he must’ve sneaked into the women’s festival in drag. Aristophanes represents him doing that.

It’s not as though there aren’t many, many art works and many other cultures, but there was something special about the civic nature of the Greek theater. All the citizens stopped working. They came into these theaters. It wasn’t like a Broadway theater where you sit in the dark and you expect to be passively entertained. You’re in this theater, amphitheater, in bright sunlight looking at your fellow citizens, recognizing their faces, and thinking with them about the future of your city. I think very few cultures have had a theatrical tradition that is quite so civic.

We certainly do not. I do love the musical  Hamilton , and I really think that does a lot of the things that Greek theater did by providing a myth of the city. Miranda takes our founding myth and dramatizes it in ways that invite comparison to the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

But that’s the only example of a truly civic piece of theater that I can think of. If only the price and availability of tickets didn’t stop many more people from seeing it. You have to pay so much to see theater, even in Chicago. In the Greek theater, you didn’t have to pay anything. You actually had to go, and you just sat there all day.

ADAMS:  Maybe  Hamilton  is a model for writers and for audiences about what a different kind of theater could do, one that reaches into our past and into our mythology.

NUSSBAUM:  I think it is a model, artistically, but it’s hard to replicate financially. It takes so much money to put something on Broadway or anything like that. It would have to be a repertory-based model, starting from a much lower financial base.

But I think what Miranda did is a model because he brings in people from the right and the left, and afterward they want to talk about it. How did Hamilton somehow transcend the mere competition for honor and status? Where did his desire to leave something of lasting worth come from? And why is Burr, by contrast, so preoccupied with just being in the room where it happens? Of course, that’s a poisonous desire. You can never satisfy that kind of envy. So, in the end, he has to engage in the duel because there’s no other way of following his ambition for one-upmanship to its logical conclusion.

ADAMS:   Hamilton  has been a breath of fresh air. Why are there so few examples of such a conversation at the national level?

NUSSBAUM:  One problem is there are no general-interest media that all of us can tap into. I’m not a good person to talk to about social media. I just avoid it. I’m suspicious also of the culture of venting. But the bigger question is, How can we in this media world have a genuine civic conversation? I mean, look at Franklin Roosevelt. He had these radio talks that all Americans listened to, and there was a common civic conversation that came out of it.

ADAMS:  The public square, in effect.

NUSSBAUM:  The public square. On radio you could still do it. And radio was, in a way, a very philosophical medium. You could make an argument on the radio, and people listened to it. Television is already harder because people’s attention span becomes shorter with television. Cut to a commercial and all that.

TV has a lot of problems, but I think the Internet and social media have a lot more. Under the cover of anonymity people say the most vicious things.

ADAMS:  This takes us back to your book,  Anger and Forgiveness . Are these modern forms of communication somehow fueling anger and making it less likely for anger to be transformative?

NUSSBAUM:  Yes, I think so. The thing that I find so bad about anger is the desire for payback. Of course, it is very human to wish for revenge. Your mother has died in the hospital, and the first thought a lot of people have is, I’ll sue the doctor. You feel helpless, and you think, I’m less helpless if I’m doing something active that makes someone else pay. And social media make it easy to inflict all kinds of pain on other people. But what good does it do?

Martin Luther King Jr., one of my great heroes and a hero in the anger book, knew that the job was to take people’s anger, which was usually grounded in some real wrong that they had suffered, and make it the basis of something constructive. That way people can face the future with a sense of hope. And that usually involved reconciliation and partnership—because how are you going to build anything if you’re just trying to make the other person pay?

If you study his speeches, you can see that he meets people where they are, in the grip of their legitimate anger. Then, slowly, very cleverly, he calms them down, and gets them to see that the wrongs done to them are like a bad check. The question is not how to hurt the person who wrote that check, but how to make them give you your due at last.So, the question is, How can we get something out of this? It’s not, How we can put the other person in torment? A person in torment is not going to give you anything.

ADAMS:  In your Kyoto Lecture in Japan, you talked about economics and the human capabilities approach to assessing both economies and societies generally. What is the human capabilities approach? And could you describe its importance for us?

NUSSBAUM:  Well, it came out of a problem in international development discourse, as people tried to measure and compare quality of life in different countries. The most common way of doing this was by looking at gross domestic product per capita. Now, that’s easy to do, but it’s inadequate. First of all, it’s an average, and so it could give very high marks to nations that have huge inequalities. South Africa under apartheid used to score very well among developing countries.

The second problem is that the GDP approach doesn’t address many aspects of human life: health, education, political liberty, religious liberty, employment opportunities. And these are not all that well correlated with gross domestic product. We also have to think about equality among groups. And freedom of speech and religion. China always ranks near the top of developing countries these days, but there are lots of things we might see as lacking in China.

So, we wanted an approach that captures the multifacetedness of human life. I’m saying “we” because it’s mostly work that was done by me in connection with Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist.

Now, there is the old notion of utility or satisfaction. It’s a better measure than GDP because people usually have a pretty good idea of how they’re doing. But that’s still too one-note because it’s not recognizing the plural sources of satisfaction as having meaning in themselves. And it also doesn’t recognize the importance of agency. People don’t just want to feel satisfied. They actually want to act.

So the real question became, What is each person actually able to do and be? What are your real opportunities? We want to focus on opportunity because choice matters.

You might have the opportunity to eat a nutritious diet, though you might choose to eat a lousy diet. What matters is the opportunity.

ADAMS:  Indeed.

NUSSBAUM:  It’s kind of like a template for a constitution, which is not surprising since I looked at many constitutions while making it up. Things like longevity come into it; life expectancy; bodily health; bodily integrity, which involved asking how well this country does protecting women from sexual violence.

Do people have the opportunity to form families of their choice, to decide on their own children? And, of course, that’s a big issue of international development policy, freedom to determine your own fertility rather than being limited to one child. In lots of ways, it’s controversial. But then we have other things, like access to a reasonably unpolluted environment and meaningful relationships with nature and other species.

The idea is not to impose this on anyone. It’s just a template for persuasion. But it’s useful because it helps bring these measures to light. So, in India, for example, we had in the election of Narendra Modi a candidate who said, I’m the big development hero because in Gujarat I’ve increased GDP. But if you look at Gujarat’s human capabilities, you see that Modi had not done anything for health, for education, for the status of women, and so on. By our metrics, he was doing pretty badly. The human capabilities approach is a way to get leaders and others to see that people in the international development arena think you should be working on all ten of these measures.

Furthermore, it turns out that these measures are mutually supportive. For example, if you really do want to increase women’s status, you could focus on just that, but you’d probably better focus also on women’s education. Access to artificial contraception, I would say, is also a very important determinant of women’s status.

There has been research in India showing that property rights can improve a woman’s ability to stand up to violence in the home. You might think education and employment are important because they give women exit options, but property is as well. Give women equal property rights to inherited land, then they have an asset they can take out of the marriage. This gives husbands strong incentives to not beat them.

I feel the important part is to keep pushing on the philosophical front because economists get impatient with philosophy. They are often trained as skilled mathematicians. They don’t like going back to ordinary language and first principles.

ADAMS:  Well, as you point out in a couple of different places, economics used to be quite philosophical. When you think about Mill, Bentham, and Marx and that whole eighteenth, nineteenth . . .

NUSSBAUM:  Adam Smith, of course, was the founder of it all.

ADAMS:  And then it all came apart, right?

NUSSBAUM:  Yes, but slowly. John Maynard Keynes was very interested in philosophy. There’s material now from his notebooks that’s just being published showing that he read Aristotle, and he was thinking very seriously about human flourishing. When John Rawls started writing  A Theory of Justice , his aim in that book was really to persuade the economists to think about justice in a different way. And he was having conversations with Kenneth Arrow, with Wassily Leontief, with Robert Solow, that generation of economists, some of whom are still living. Bob Solow is still writing, and Sen, of course, is flourishing and writing a lot of things.

Those people were a golden generation because they did the formal work, but they took philosophy very seriously. I think it was because they were involved in a political project, and they cared about what came out of it.

ADAMS:  The political community has been an abiding concern of yours. Twenty years ago, it seemed possible to believe that the nationalism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was subsiding and being replaced by other kinds of political community. Europe was, of course, a great hope beginning in the 1990s.

Here we are a couple of decades later, and we’re seeing the resurgence of nationalism. We’re seeing the resurgence of nativism. What’s happening, what is its philosophical meaning?

NUSSBAUM:  I am a very big fan of the nation, actually. In Cicero’s time, there was this idea that although we were members of the whole world of human beings, we also needed to connect our imaginations to a smaller unit. The smaller unit was something we knew we could live or die for, as Cicero died for the Roman republic.

Cicero writes about this in his last work. It’s called  On Duties , and what is so moving is that he was writing it while running away from his assassins who, in fact, killed him a few months after he finished it. He says that we must have duties to the whole of humanity. But what is more dear to our heart than our own republic? Somehow, he’s saying, you know, you’ve got to find a way to connect the two.

Much later, after the rise of democracy, people started asking, What can motivate us to care about all humanity? With the rise of capitalism, it became more obvious that people pursue individual self-interest. The great nationalist in Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini, a wonderful philosopher, said that we need the nation. We need something that people can lean on, from which they can then reach out to the whole world. The idea of all humanity is too vague. It can’t motivate human aspiration in a reliable way. That was one set of arguments.

But then there’s a slightly different line you get through Hugo Grotius in the seventeenth century, which is that the nation also has a moral importance because it’s the vehicle for people’s autonomy, a way to give yourself laws of your own choosing. People have a deep need to be legislators, and the idea of autonomy has become very precious.

Now, Grotius thought that the international realm also had international law, and a lot of binding moral norms that should be set through international civil society. But he thought that the nation was a crucial entity because it is how people give themselves laws.

Now, I actually believe that. The entity can be very large, by the way. It can be India, which used to be many separate principalities. They happened to have had a single subcontinent and a single enemy, the British Empire. So they joined together, and gave themselves laws and a constitution. It’s a federal nation, and it definitely is a nation. Psychologically, it’s a nation, and in terms of its political and legal structure, it’s a nation. The United States is also a federal nation.

Now, I think the EU might have gone in that direction. It might have become a large federal nation. But they would have had to do things differently. Number one, they would’ve had to make people feel like participants in a common project of autonomous law-giving. Much more political accountability, much more participation. That didn’t happen, I think, because the movers and shakers were more concerned with economic union than political union.

They also needed to do what Gandhi did so brilliantly for India. That is, to generate a kind of emotional unity, a set of symbols, a set of common texts even, a national anthem, things that bring people together around the symbols of the nation. The Indian flag was debated at great length. What would it be? Some people wanted it to represent courage, and that would be saffron. And then Nehru and Gandhi said, No, we want the rule of law at the center, and that was a Buddhist symbol, the wheel of law. They wanted purity, courage, and fertility, the three colors: the white, the saffron, and the green.

Symbols matter, but, of course, they can be used in bad ways. Nationalistic emotion can be very bad. It all depends how you construct the story of the nation, because, after all, the nation is not just an entity. It’s a story. It’s a story of what’s salient, what brought us together, what we are willing to live and die for.

When Lincoln gave the  Gettysburg Address , it was, at one level, one of the most staggering falsehoods in history. He says this nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. But, of course, the Constitution guaranteed slaveholders property rights in their slaves. So, it’s truer to say that Lincoln was doing a riff on the founding, which was at some literal level quite false, but at a deeper symbolic level true: These ideals were there, in the founding. And if we accentuate those, and put those forward, and say that we are willing to live and die for them—which he said at Gettysburg—then we can go on in that spirit.

You know, Martin Luther King Jr. deliberately wrote the  I Have a Dream  speech as a sequel to the  Gettysburg Address . “Four score and seven years ago,” said Lincoln, and King said, “Five score years ago.” He’s referring to the Emancipation Proclamation, which was exactly five score years before his speech.

King sets himself in that tradition, and he, too, commits a creative misreading of the history. But there’s also deep truth in it, saying that this promise was made, and now the bill has come due. Who’s going to pay it, right?

ADAMS:  You’ve written several books and a number of articles on women and gender equality. What are the fundamental obstacles that we still have to overcome?

NUSSBAUM:  Think, for a moment, about the comparative progress for gay rights. In just twenty years, everything has changed for gays and lesbians. All concerned Americans still have a lot of work to do, but so much progress has been achieved.

I think the obstacle for women is that their lives are intertwined with the lives of men. Change at the very deepest level of one’s daily life and one’s being is required if women are to be really equal.

There’s a gap in perceptions between women and men. Women feel much freer than they did, but still, when alcohol is involved, especially, there’s a lot of sexual assault, and a lot of confusion about that. So, we need to focus a lot more on what consent is and on the importance of affirmative consent.

I think that needs to happen not just in universities, where we’re making progress, but also in the sports world, where the issue is getting more attention than it used to. But we still see that celebrities, actors, and sports stars have not internalized the real meaning of consent. We have to make it so that celebrity and sports stardom does not give you a free pass on sexual violence.

We also have to look at the daily division of labor. The academy is great. There’s a lot of gender equality in the academy in the way that household labor is arranged, in the way that child care is arranged. My male colleagues in the law world now take care of their children, they really do, if they are in the academy.

But in the law firms people work 20-hour days. Women have to postpone having children or settle for that second-rate mommy track, because the men are not helping, and the work world is not helping.

We have to change men’s expectations, as they grow up, regarding their share of domestic work, of child care, but also of elder care, which is less pleasant and which men don’t want to do.

We now have very good laws dealing with sexual harassment under Title VII. Title IX has now been beefed up to include sexual violence, and I think that’s a good development.

We need to make progress with the idea of comparable worth. We’re still working that out. I think the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was a tremendous thing. It was great that former President Obama devoted such attention to that. But there are still problems in the employment area.

Finally, we really have to think about aging because women are living longer than men. More of the people who need care are women. A lot of them are living alone, with no one to care for them, or they’re shunted into institutions. I would like to see a sensible aging policy more like what the Nordic countries have. They’re cutting back those programs, but there you can still have in-home nursing care. You don’t have to rely on your children. I personally don’t want to be a burden on my daughter.

So, I think we need government to play a part in having a health policy that makes nursing care available for the increasing numbers who are going to need it.

ADAMS:  Thank you very much, Martha.

NUSSBAUM:  Thanks.

William D. Adams is the tenth chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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Critical and Creative Thinking

Claire Adams

Key Concepts

We all view the world through a lens; one shaped by our personal experiences. So, to objectively analyze a news story, cartoon, painting, photograph, essay, song, or any number of ways we express our human experience, we begin by being aware of how our brain works.

You may hear the phrase “critical thinking” used many times in a humanities course. In the context of humanities, critical thinking is the process of reflection about our personal values, paradigms, and experiences. Creative thinking is another important tool for studying the humanities. By “creative thinking,” we mean challenging what you think you know and asking you to think outside the box. Creative thinking also acknowledges and explores how other people may see or experience the world differently from us.

Creative Approaches to Critical Thinking

What is critical thinking.

A key component of critical thinking is analyzing a person or event from multiple perspectives . The opposite of critical thinking would be characterizing a group of people based on a singular experience with one individual. Not only does this limited perspective interfere with critical and creative thinking, but it may also lead us to treat people or situations with unrealistic expectations.

Credit: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. “ The Danger of a Single Story .” TEDGlobal 2009. July 2009. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International. https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses the damage caused by people’s limited perceptions. She starts by sharing her perceptions of people from her childhood in Nigeria. She then moves on to other people’s perceptions of her and Nigerian culture when she was a student in the United States.

Questions for Critical & Creative Thinking

• Have you ever been subjected to a stereotype?
• Where do you think the basis of this assumption came from? Is there any truth to the idea?
• Do you feel like these stereotypes limit you or encourage you?

What Do We Know?

Our reaction to information—whether it comes via images, sound, or words—is informed by our value systems. Our value systems, in turn, are shaped by personal experience and learned knowledge.

Consider something as fundamental as clothing. The sight of a man wearing a skirt in Salt Lake City would be unusual enough that he would probably elicit some stares. However, maybe not from people living in Scotland or the Pacific islands. This is an example of a response informed by cultural context. In this case, about what is regarded as normal or acceptable attire for men to wear in public. There are also historical imperatives. In present-day society, men and women frequently wear jeans or pants. However, 100 years ago, a woman wearing pants was neither a common nor acceptable fashion statement.

Can you choose which of the following historical factors were at play to allow women in the United States the freedom to wear “men’s” clothing?

• The suffrage movement for women’s right to vote
• World War I and World War II (Hint: military conscription of men necessitated a female workforce.)
• The birth control pill

Think about what people considered normal in earlier historical settings and reflect on your own reaction.

• Do you think they are silly? Funny?
• Or were their standards acceptable because they were based on the information available at the time?

Let us look at another example, this time a symbol most likely associated with negative reactions. The swastika symbol was adopted by the Nazi party during World War II. Because of this, most people perceive the swastika as a symbol of murder and destruction.

The origins of this symbol reach back much further than 20 th -century Germany. The oldest known swastika is estimated to be about 15,000 years old , which puts it in the Paleolithic Period (Stone Age). Throughout history, the swastika was used in regions all over the world, including China, Japan, India, and southern Europe. It has been used to represent good luck, prosperity, and the sun. If not equipped with this knowledge before traveling abroad, it would be easy to assume that Nazi sympathizers had lived in these countries.

Questions to Critical & Creative Thinking

• Prior to reading about the history of the swastika, what conclusions might you have reached if you visited a building displaying a swastika on the wall?
• A swastika symbol on Japanese maps indicates the location of a Buddhist temple. In preparation for the 2020 Olympics, Japan’s national mapmaking department is considering changing the map symbol to something else. Do you think they should or should not change the symbol? Why or why not? Can you think of another way to resolve this issue?

What Is a Creative Approach to Critical Thinking?

As you might imagine from the swastika example, challenging long-held values or beliefs can cause conflict among people, and perhaps discomfort for an individual person. However, it is important to remember that critical and creative thinking does not require you to change your mind but rather, evaluate how you got there. One way to look at it is to imagine that critical thinking is like taking something apart, while creative thinking is like recycling or repurposing something. In the end, you may still end up with the same beliefs. Or you may discover you have acquired some new values.

Again, the goal is to get you thinking about how you think. In an early scene from the movie, The Matrix (1999) , the character Orpheus offers the protagonist Neo a blue pill and a red pill.

“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

Likewise, by encouraging you to think critically and creatively, this course offers you a similar choice. You can superficially engage with the various artifacts presented throughout this book, skip the critical and creative thinking questions, and finish the book with your points of view pretty much unchanged. Or you can accept occasionally feeling uncomfortable as you delve deeper into how people across the centuries and around the world have tried to make sense of the human condition. Blue pill or red pill? You choose!

How to Approach an Artifact

Another critical thinking tool is the use and analysis of artifacts. A humanities artifact could be a piece of writing, music, painting, drawing, sculpture, dance, film, or any number of created works. In her article “ A Method for Reading, Writing, & Thinking Critically ,” Kathleen McCormick explains that we should consider the historical and cultural context when analyzing an artifact of written text. Additional contexts for approaching any type of artifact include economic, political, geographical, social, and religious, to name a few. These contextual pieces offer clues as to what may have motivated a person to compose or create an artifact. Analyzing context can also help us to determine how relevant an artifact is to our contemporary experiences.

In addition to considering context, it is important to ask a series of questions when approaching an artifact of the humanities. Critical and creative thinking encourages us to be actively engaged with a piece of text, music, or art. Some questions you should be asking yourself as you engage with the artifacts presented in this course include:

• Who is the author or creator of the artifact?
• What do we know about the artifact’s historical context, i.e., what was happening when the artifact was created?
• What was the inspiration or motivation for creating this artifact? For example, was it a commissioned piece or spontaneous creation?
• For written text, is there a narrative voice? If so, is it first person or third?
• Does who is speaking make a difference for a narrative?
• What is the main message the author or creator is trying to convey?
• Who, if any, is the author or creator’s intended audience?
• Does this artifact present a familiar concept or message? Is it something new for you?
• Does the author or creator’s message align or conflict with your values?

When we engage with humanities artifacts and then apply critical and creative thinking, we are not merely going through a process of decoding. Hopefully, this book helps you understand that analyzing the humanities using this approach is a sincere thoughtful process that helps broaden your understanding of what the humanities are and why understanding them is so important.

Looking Exercises: Visual Art

These exercises will help you practice using critical and creative analysis of a humanities artifact through visual art.

The visual arts are a broad umbrella encompassing artifacts that are appreciated by looking at them. These arts include painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, printmaking, crafts, architecture, textiles, and much more. These artifacts are the result of people trying to make sense of their physical and inner worlds, and conveying that understanding to other people.

An important first question to ask when considering a visual arts artifact is, was the work commissioned? Meaning, was the piece created at the request of someone else, such as a government, individual, nonprofit group, political group, or otherwise? Naturally, the sentiment embodied in the artifact and the intended audience will likely align with the values of the group or person who commissioned it rather than the artist who created it.

Other important questions might include, when was the piece created? What political issues were prominent at the time? What historical events were happening? By gathering as much contextual information as possible about the artifact, we are better equipped to interpret the artifact’s message or intention.

Looking at a piece of art, we can ask whether what we see relates to our contemporary setting. Sometimes, in order to fully understand an artifact, we must be familiar with the historical, political, or social context surrounding its creation.

The painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso was first displayed in Paris on May 1, 1937. He painted it during the midst of the Spanish Civil War (July 1936–April 1939) as an artistic reaction to the Nazi’s bombing of the Basque town on April 26, 1937 . The painting is monochromatic, to show the misery inflicted by the aerial bombardment. The images in the painting present the tragedy and suffering of the war: a dismembered soldier and nurse; an all-seeing eye; and the Spanish symbols of a bull and a horse.

One contextual question to ask is, does Picasso’s painting only hold relevance to the Spanish Civil War? Two examples of contemporary situations demonstrate that this painting can be relevant beyond what Picasso may have originally intended. In fact, this artifact presents timeless relevancy to the perception, interpretation, and expression of our human experiences during a war.

On February 28, 1974 , Tony Shafrazi entered the Museum of Modern Art in New York  City, and red-spray painted the words “Kill Lies All” over the Guernica. Shafrazi said this was “ a protest against the release on bail of the lieutenant later convicted for his role in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.”  The red paint was easily removed, as Guernica was heavily varnished.

On February 5, 2003, Colin Powell delivered a speech at the United Nations (UN) headquarters to make the case for war with Iraq. He was standing in front of a tapestry of Picasso’s Guernica, which hangs in the UN as a reminder of the horror of war and the need for diplomacy first. The tapestry was covered with a blue sheet.

Reports of the UN’s position behind this action vary and the organization did not release an official statement. However, using contextual information, such as the painting’s history, we can deduce some logical reasons. The New York Times reported the UN started covering the tapestry because they were afraid a horse’s screaming head would be visible next to chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix while he spoke.  The article offered an alternative reason , “Mr. Powell can’t very well seduce the world into bombing Iraq surrounded on camera by shrieking and mutilated women, men, children, bulls and horses.”

An article in the Toronto Star ran the quote , “A [un-named] diplomat stated that it would not be an appropriate background if the ambassador of the United States at the U.N. John Negroponte, or Powell, talk about war surrounded with women, children and animals shouting with horror and showing the suffering of the bombings.”

Listening Exercises: Songs and Music

Our values shape our listening choices, both in conversations and songs. As described, we prefer listening to speech and music that agree with our values and ideas. In other words, we gravitate to news channels, influential people, and song lyrics that support our world view. This tendency to seek out similar viewpoints ends up reinforcing our world view rather than expanding it.

There are several reasons for this behavior:

• Consensual validation: When we meet people who share similar attitudes, it makes us feel more confident about our world view. For example, if you love jazz music, meeting a fellow jazz lover confirms that your love of jazz is OK and maybe even virtuous.
• Cognitive evaluation: We naturally form positive or negative impressions of other people by generalizing from the information we acquire through experience or absorption. When a person has common interests with us, we assume that we must also share other positive characteristics with that person.
• Certainty of being liked: We assume that someone who shares common interests and viewpoints will probably like us. In turn, we tend to like people if we think they like us.
• Preference for enjoyable interactions: It is just more fun to hang out with someone when you have a lot in common.
• Opportunity for self-expansion: We benefit from new knowledge and experiences as the direct result of spending time with someone else. Oddly, people seeking self-expansion will gravitate toward people who are similar to them, even though a person with dissimilar perspectives would likely provide greater opportunities for self-expansion.

Music presents an artifact with many contextual facets. Some people listen to music for entertainment value. Others listen to find meaning in either the music or lyrics, or both. Very often, we attach meanings to music depending on where we were or what was happening when we heard it. Composers will have an inspiration or recall their personal experiences when creating music. Therefore, when analyzing music, it is important to consider the context that includes our personal response, the composer’s motivation, and perhaps outside influences, such as historical events or political movements.

There are fundamental questions we can ask regardless of musical genre:

• When did the artist compose the music?
• How does the genre of music impact its meaning?
• Does the tempo make us feel a certain way, such as sad, energized, relaxed, or irritated? How about the lyrics?
• Who do you think the music was written for? The musician? The listener?
• What do you think is the message is? Is meaning fluid or changeable?
• Does your musical taste change over time? As you get older? Due to events in your life?

As you move through this course, you may discover information that is already familiar to you. Those cases are an opportunity to put on your critical and creative thinking cap and use it to reflect on your existing world views and values. Observe, and then, ask yourself lots of questions!

• Does your gender, race, sexuality, socio-economic status inform your interpretation of an artifact?
• What was happening historically when you read, listened to, or observed the artifact?
• Are (or were) there external circumstances, such as laws or events, that may have informed your interpretation of an artifact?
• Do you have acquired knowledge that helps deepen your appreciation or understanding of an artifact?
• Do you agree or disagree with an artist or creator’s message? If you disagree, can you appreciate why they felt compelled to create their message?

Remember, these questions are not intended to force you to shift your ideology. However, they do require you to consider how your personal perspective affects your interpretation of artifacts. And hopefully, these questions will encourage you to look at things from a different perspective than the one you are used to using.

The examples, questions, and descriptions in this book are designed to help teach you to:

• See and interpret patterns in people’s behavior.
• View situations from a variety of different perspectives.
• Realize that there may not be definitive answers to questions that arise from the human experience.

For our last example, use your critical and creative thinking skills to reflect on the following quote by Lawrence Wright :

“We prefer an ordered world, regular patterns, familiar forms, and when flaws or distortions occur, provided they are not too gross, our mind’s eye tidies them up. We see what we want or expect to see.”

• Do you agree with Wright? Do you prefer to categorize contemporary and historical events so they fit in with your world view?
• If you disagree, in what way?
• Is it possible that you could be misinterpreting information? Is it possible you do not have possession of all the facts?
• Do you operate in a clearly defined narrative within a clearly defined paradigm?
• Could you possibly change your mind?

Modified from Claire Adams’ open-access pressbook: From Human Being to Human Doing

Critical and Creative Thinking Copyright © by Claire Adams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Humanities and the Importance of Critical Thinking

In the late 1970’s, two psychologists, Dr. Daniel Kahneman and Dr. Amos Tversky , set out to understand why “we” were failing ourselves in the rise (or fall) to Homo economicus – some semblance of a consistently rational, self-interested being capable of pursuing optimal decisions based on individual goals. It seems reasonable, right? Who doesn’t think of themselves as a more or less rational person able to make clear decisions? Or more accurately, who wants to openly admit to never really understanding why they make one decision over another going through life like a leaf in the wind? But the reality of the situation is much more complicated. Kahneman and Tversky’s work would take decades to unravel. Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 2002, six years after Tversky died, and nearly ten years later in 2011 Kahneman published Thinking, Fast and Slow , an almost 500-page manuscript explaining the complex nature of a very simple concept – critical thinking.

We’ve all heard the phrase “slow down and think about it” or some disambiguation thereof, but it’s not always this simple. Kahneman details our fast thinking process, System 1, and slower, more critical process, System 2 , not as consistent adversaries but each serving a distinct purpose. Both have strengths and weaknesses: Our fast system relies on heuristics and bias (note that not all bias in inherently bad), while the other is slower, more compete, but needs more energy. Kahneman received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013, and though the plethora of news stories about the rise of the NY Times Best-Seller List in 2011-12 are available all over the internet, his rise to fame appears to have quieted. So why now, in 2018, do we bring it up?

For starters let’s look at the current investigation into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica . People are outraged – well, they were but they’re not ( it’s hard to tell ) – over the collection of data and use (some call manipulation or abuse) during the last election. But why? What Facebook did, and still does, is nothing new – we visited this topic earlier . We spoke about critically evaluating new stories as well with the all-important caveat that we’re probably the cause of fake news .

Everything you buy or use, more or less, comes with terms and conditions or user agreements but have you ever read one? In 2005, PC Pitstop included a line in their End-User License Agreement (EULA) which would award $1,000 to the first person to read the line and contact the company . That was it: read the contract you are “Agreeing” to, get paid $1,000. After thousands of downloads, it still took four months for anyone to claim the money. In the U.K., a Wi-Fi hotspot provider recently pulled a similar stunt but included wording that anyone using their service would be required to perform 1,000 hours of community service . The company never tried to enforce this clause, but users did agree unknowingly because there is a real problem with people not reading EULAs. So, why does this problem exist? Who wants to read the EULA or terms and conditions on every webpage they visit? Who has time? Next month the General Data Protection Regulation in the E.U. goes into effect to simplify this situation – for the E.U. And this presents an interesting paradox for the U.S. We are disgusted with the use of our data and simultaneously with regulation and laws. The simple solution is more critical thinking. Rather than automatically hopping on the latest app or website to join our friends in some digital mash-up, we need to think about what we are sharing and ask, what does the company do with what I give it? Mark Zuckerberg’s answer to U.S. Sen. Orin Hatch that Facebook sells ads to make money was comical to some as it demonstrated Sen. Hatch’s complete lack of technological savvy, but Zuckerberg’s answer beguiled the truth as well. Facebook does not only “sell ads” to make money, they clearly collect and sell data . But let’s move away from the digital world; we can only beat a dead horse for so long.

This critical thinking skill, the engagement of System 2, forces us to reconsider new or other perspectives, historical events, and new information: the humanities. This manifests in myriad ways that surface daily on our nightly news. Just recently, Nike faced an upheaval of executives at the highest level who were challenged by the women in its employ . After years of a “boy’s club” mentality and a toxic culture, the #metoo movement caught not one or two but numerous male executives at Nike. How do situations like this evolve? Heuristics and bias, our fast-thinking System 1. Critical thinking does not arrive at the conclusion with evidence to support the idea that demeaning anyone is “OK.” “Because it’s always been this way,” “everyone else does it,” or “Joe gets away with it,” is heuristical decision-making at its best.

Two Black men recently settled a case against the city of Philadelphia and Starbucks after they were forcibly removed from the store while waiting for friend – a hueristical decision made with race as a bias (Racism). On the same day, two Native American men were briefly apprehended by Colorado State University Police on campus because a parent was “nervous” . Nervousness, or fear, the unknowing, is a key trigger for our Fast System 1 processes – it is our flight or fight response and initial reaction to any given situation.

We constantly talk about diversity, inclusion, acceptance, and equality, whether it is different cultural backgrounds, gender, race, religious beliefs, gender orientation, etc. but is this superficial? Could we be more critical of our biases and aware of the implications this has on racism to address the truth of situation? From Black Lives Matter to a Day Without Women, a Day Without Immigrants to #Neveragain, we see these protests and rallies come and go but Amy Alexander from NPR argues perhaps we are unwilling to engage in the “ tough work required to address the hard, cold facts of gender and racial inequality ” rather it is all too easy to rely on our immediate reactions and move on.

And how can we truly understand these problems if we are not willing to engage in the hard work of critical thinking? How can a middle-class suburban individual understand the plight a low-income urban family living in subsidized housing? How might a non-Native American person truly feel the pain and anguish of two centuries of demonization as the “savage?” How can a normal American male understand the gender norming and degradation of women in the workplace with ever having experience it? How can we in Wyoming, a relatively safe state all-around understand the fear of violence and missing essentials of life, like clean water in Flint, MI? We may not be able to experience this, but we empathize if we are willing to engage in the hard work of critical thinking about the situation and facts not readily presented in our 30-second news stories.

When we watch The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu, do we see the parallels in our own political and cultural rhetoric about women’s rights, the environment, and civil disobedience or do we only focus on the totalitarian government in place and react with disgust? If we play games like Far Cry 5 , do we understand the very real consequences and appeal of fundamentalist religions misrepresenting a larger body of beliefs or do we react only to the idea of Americans being portrayed as evil ? When we enjoy the movie Black Panther do we consider the powerful implications discussed in Afro-Futurism and the opportunities this success brings to future African-American people, or do we only see yet another Marvel movie ? Moving from our initial reactions to see the deeper implications is tough. Critical thinking can be mentally exhausting when all we want to do is tune in and veg out, but it can be much more rewarding.

We are not yet Homo economicus , we are emotional, fraught with complex decisions and a lack of information, and imperfect in our processes. But there is hope; we have the ability to overcome this if we choose to so. It is our choice to rely on our biases and reactions in decision making, but we elevate our thinking and the outcomes by engaging in critical thinking. Done with intent, this is the purpose of the humanities and our humanity: to reflect without bias (or with a clear understand and admission of it), critically on the matter at hand. To read, watch, engage, and converse in matters of our daily lives and move past our reactions to consideration of information which does not readily present itself.

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The humanities in technology: building both careers and a more human tech-first world

• Career Paths

In today’s highly digitalized world, the importance of literature, philosophy, history and the arts in a professional context may not be that obvious. But the humanities remind us what it is to be human in the tech age, providing a holistic mindset that makes us much better at navigating the modern world’s complexities through critical thinking, empathy and communication skills.

That’s why the humanities form an integral part of our academic offering—they’re actually more important now than ever. And studying the humanities can open up career paths even in tech-first disciplines, empowering you to blend tradition and innovation to drive change and make the world a better place.

The meaning and importance of humanities in technology

If you aspire to understand the human experience, explore novel ideas, embrace cultures or learn robust critical and analytical skills, you’ll find everything you’re looking for in the humanities . Over the centuries, these disciplines have helped us understand the human experience through our thoughts, emotions and social interactions. And it’s these disciplines that still inform our understanding as we innovate and shape emerging technologies.

Not only do the humanities help us develop a better understanding of ourselves, they also enhance our ability to create technology that respects and reflects our human value by leveraging the benefits of critical thinking, cultural awareness, creativity, innovation and civic engagement. And, of course, they help us address tech’s challenges; not introducing our human preconceptions and biases into AI algorithms, for example.

So there are a broad array of opportunities in the tech industry where the skills gained in studying the humanities will be extremely valuable.

Humanities in technology-focused degrees

So-called soft skills, of course, are valuable in any career path. But graduates who can embrace the humanities in technology, both for those challenges and for the opportunities it affords in building our future, are particularly well set up to be the changemakers the world needs.

In a volatile world right now, studies have shown that the resilience and adaptability of humanities graduates helps them navigate challenging labor markets. So what skills do you gain if you study the humanities in a tech-first professional ecosystem?

• Critical Thinking : Analyze and evaluate different arguments or evidence, a skill essential in tech innovation. • Research : Humanities students are proficient in empirical research, a foundation for developing new technologies. • Communication : Successful humanities students possess strong writing and verbal communication skills, crucial for tech teams. • Analytical Skills : Interpret texts, data, and cultural artifacts—skills directly applicable to analyzing tech trends and leveraging data for strategic decision-making. • Cultural Literacy : Understanding and appreciating different cultures is vital for creating inclusive technology and communicating on a global level. • Problem Solving : Tackling complex issues is a common trait among humanities students, making them adept in tech problem-solving.

What subjects do humanities students study?

The humanities are inherently broad due to their interdisciplinary nature. That’s what makes the humanities in technology relevant in every professional sector, and highly versatile. Some of the most common subjects for humanities students include:

• Literature : The study of novels, poetry and plays enhances empathy and understanding of the human experience, important for designing new technology around the humans who will use it. • Sociology : Studying human behavior, institutions and structures helps inform the development of technology that benefits society. • History : Understanding historic events helps predict and shape technological trends. • Languages : Being fluent in more than one language heightens your communication skills and cultural awareness, invaluable for multinational companies in tech and every other sector. • Arts : This type of creative expression helps humanities students understand cultural and historical impact, applicable in fields like gamification and digital imaging.

Modern degrees, of course, also address the importance of humanities in technology by blending these skills with subjects such as ethics in emerging tech, statistics, marketing in the arts and programming fundamentals.

What sort of opportunities are available in humanities and technology.

Wherever your own professional ambitions lie, there are numerous career paths in today’s market for profiles that leverage the humanities in technology.

• Tech Ethics : Analyze the ethical implications of new technologies, ensuring they align with human values. • UX Design : Use your understanding of human behavior and culture to design intuitive and inclusive user experiences. • UX Design : Use your understanding of human behavior and culture to design intuitive and inclusive user experiences. • AI Specialism: Apply critical thinking and cultural literacy to develop AI systems that are ethical and culturally sensitive. • Digital Humanities Research : Study how digital tools can enhance our understanding of humanities disciplines. • Tech Policy Analysis : Research and analyze legislation related to technology, ensuring policies promote societal well-being.

Leveraging the humanities in technology for career success

Positions merging humanities with technology depend on critical thinking, cultural literacy, and technical know-how. Some examples of sought-after jobs that blend humanities and tech skills are:

• Chief Information Officer (CIO) : In this dynamic role, you oversee the tech infrastructure and standards of an organization, making sure everything aligns with business goals and ethical responsibilities. In the United States as of 2024, the average salary for a CIO is around $228,440 per year​. • Digital Marketing Manager : Manages online marketing strategies, utilizing their skills in data analytics and their understanding of human behavior to create their campaigns. Typical salaries for Digital Marketing Managers in the United States are between $108,680 and $142,274. • Data Scientist : Apply big data to uncover patterns and unique insights for clients, leveraging data analysis techniques and humanities-related research. Labeled “ the sexiest job in the 21st century ” by Harvard Business Review, the average Data Scientist salary in the United States is between $108,942 and $133,690. • Digital Archivist : By working with advanced digital tools and databases, this role ensures that digital assets are accessible and properly maintained for future use. Normal salaries for digital archivists range from $69,648 to $99,015. • Content Strategist : Here you can expect to develop and manage digital content strategies, combining your technological expertise with sophisticated communication and analytical skills. Salaries for content strategists in the United States are between $66,942 and $84,061.

Humanities at the heart of our approach

At IE University, a humanistic approach to education is one of our core values—our partnership with UNESCO seeks to build a more human digital economy and provides outstanding opportunities to our students through internships, capstone projects and visits to the institution.

Our Dual Degree in Business Administration and Humanities at IE University , meanwhile, combines strategic thinking, cutting-edge tech skills and entrepreneurship with an interdisciplinary approach to the humanities, preparing students to become the culturally competent and compassionate leaders of a better world.

Are you ready to understand the impact of humanities in technology?

Broaden your horizons at IE School of Humanities and prepare yourself for a successful career in any sector.

Author: Lurdes

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