Thinkers and scholars got their 15 minutes in front of a packed audience at Trinity’s George Ignatieff Theatre on Monday evening. The crowd came out for a panel on “Humanities for Inhumane Times,” discussing key issues facing the study of humanities and what contribution the humanities can make. The speakers were John Ralston Saul, Canadian essayist and novelist; Avi Lewis, host of Faultlines on Al Jazeera English; Chad Gaffield, president of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; and Jill Matus, U of T English professor and vice-provost student life. Each spoke for 15 minutes before holding a roundtable discussion, moderated by philosophy prof Robert Gibbs.
“The roots of humanism have to be re-examined profoundly,” said Saul, tracing North American humanities’ roots primarily to Europe, a civilization, he noted, that managed to kill 150 million of its own people in less than 50 years. He added that Canada isn’t making an effort to save its over 50 Aboriginal languages from extinction. The languages, in offering new ways to think about people and place, contain essentially humanist philosophies that are not taught inside mainstream Canadian philosophical systems. Saul reiterated, both in his speech and during discussion, that the purpose of the university was first and foremost to create citizens.
Matus highlighted the lack of understanding in how the humanities are perceived. Sometimes they are mistakenly equated with the performing arts, she said, or viewed as antiquarian, indulgent, and “obviously not useful in an economy driven by accountability.” She argued that the major roles of the humanities—criticism, analysis, and evaluation—are largely overlooked.
“All the interesting questions on the minds of people today are at the heart of what we do,” said Gaffield, a historian by training. The real value of research, whether in humanities or science, lies in what interests the populace, he said. Gaffield added that the case for the humanities needs to be made more compellingly to the world.
Lewis, a documentary filmmaker, stressed the need to examine the socio-political context of the discussion on humanities. “There has been a fundamental victory for the vision of education as a necessary investment in one’s economic future, rather than as the process of building critical subjects that make a democracy work,” he said.
“An engaged academia is at the heart of every democratic movement in society,” said Lewis, portraying the economic crisis as a new opportunity for the humanities to redirect the conversation to “the impact of policies on people, rather than look to the smart guys with their infallible models who proved [to be] so colossally wrong.”
Lewis echoed Saul’s support for free undergraduate education in Canada, a topic that made for the main highlight of the discussion session. “The question of paying for education is […] a huge responsibility of the only people in society who have been guaranteed jobs for life…you guys with tenure!” he said, pointing to faculty members in front-row reserved seats.
“There are almost no consequences. You can advocate revolution, for chrissake!” he added, as the theatre filled with applause and laughter.
