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NOT FOR PROFIT
Historically, the humanities have been central to
education
because they have rightly been seen as essential
for creating competent democratic citizens, says philosopher
Martha Nussbaum. But recently, she argues, thinking about
the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry.
“Anxiously focused on national economic growth, we
increasingly treat education as though its primary goal
were to teach students to be economically productive
rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable
and empathetic citizens,” says Dr. Nussbaum, a professor
of law and ethics at the University of Chicago.
She argues that society must resist efforts to reduce
education to a tool of the gross national product in
her manifesto,
Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the
Humanities
, published in 2011 by Princeton University Press.
“This short-sighted focus on profitable skills has eroded
our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with
the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence
to deal with complex global problems,” Nussbaum says.
Her free public lecture on the topic will kick off the
2011/12 Humanities Research Group Distinguished
Speakers Series. The group’s director, Antonio Rossini,
praises Nussbaum’s ability to make her disciplines relevant
to public discourse.
“She is excellent at explaining the value of philosophy
and ethics to issues of current concern,” he says. “This is
the key to her success as an educator who has cultivated a
wide audience.”
The Humanities Research Group generates and
disseminates scholarship in the arts, human sciences, and
related disciplines. Its programs include lecture series and
colloquia as well as fellowships which bring scholars to
campus and assist UWindsor faculty in their scholarly and
creative inquiry.
A new endowment to support its work will bear
the name of UWindsor English professor emerita Lois
Smedick. The endowment will ensure thought-provoking
dialogue between the academy and the community, she
says: “The humanities are the disciplines that engage in
questioning interpretations of the world we experience.”
University Advancement invites tax-deductible
donations to the Lois Smedick Humanities Research
Endowment online at
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v
Making space for the humanities
2011-12 HUMANITIES
RESEARCH GROUP
FREE LECTURE SERIES
•
Martha Nussbaum,
University of Chicago,
“Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the
Humanities,” September 20, 2011
•
Jason Brown,
Dalhousie University, “A Hard Day’s
Math: The Connections Between Mathematics and
Music,” November 10, 2011
•
Domenico Pietropaolo
, University of Toronto,
“Performance text and the Impromptu tradition,”
February 9, 2012
•
Tracy Davis,
Northwestern University, “How
Historical is Spectatorship?: Knowledge, Expertise,
Insight, and Taste among Racialized and Gendered
Audiences in Mid-Victorian Britain,” March 15, 2012
•
Fr. James K. McConica,
C.S.B., Pontifical Institute
for Mediaeval Studies, “What are Universities for?”
March 22, 2012
All lectures begin at 7 p.m. and are held in Assumption
University’s Freed Orman Conference Centre. Learn
more about the Humanities Research Group by
visiting
Martha Nussbaum
BY KEVIN JOHNSON
