Title
Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age
Description
Video recording of a lecture by Professory Chad Wellmon of the University of Virginia, held on June 23, 2021 as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series.
Professor Wellmon describes his lecture: "The humanities didn't come into their own, didn't become modern, until relatively recently, when scholars began to frame their previously disparate practices and ideals as a unique and unified resource for resolving crises of meaning and value that threatened other cultural or social goods. This new self-understanding of the modern humanities didn’t merely take shape in response to a perceived crisis, it justified itself in terms of crisis. The modern humanities are always in crisis because their defenders and detractors alike have needed them to be.
Permanent Crisis is neither a call to action nor an apology. It is a work of historical scholarship and conceptual inquiry that shows how claims of crisis are not only older than we think, but also have played a crucial role in grounding the idea that the humanities have a special mission. In uncovering this history, Permanent Crisis highlights continuities and transformations that extend from early nineteenth-century Prussia to the twenty-first-century United States. It shows how the very processes that have allowed the modern humanities to flourish and attain social and institutional value—democratization, secularization, institutional rationalization—have also consistently imperiled them. In this talk, Chad Wellmon will offer an overview of Permanent Crisis and suggest why its story offers reasons for hope in what might otherwise seem like the twilight of liberal learning."
Professor Wellmon describes his lecture: "The humanities didn't come into their own, didn't become modern, until relatively recently, when scholars began to frame their previously disparate practices and ideals as a unique and unified resource for resolving crises of meaning and value that threatened other cultural or social goods. This new self-understanding of the modern humanities didn’t merely take shape in response to a perceived crisis, it justified itself in terms of crisis. The modern humanities are always in crisis because their defenders and detractors alike have needed them to be.
Permanent Crisis is neither a call to action nor an apology. It is a work of historical scholarship and conceptual inquiry that shows how claims of crisis are not only older than we think, but also have played a crucial role in grounding the idea that the humanities have a special mission. In uncovering this history, Permanent Crisis highlights continuities and transformations that extend from early nineteenth-century Prussia to the twenty-first-century United States. It shows how the very processes that have allowed the modern humanities to flourish and attain social and institutional value—democratization, secularization, institutional rationalization—have also consistently imperiled them. In this talk, Chad Wellmon will offer an overview of Permanent Crisis and suggest why its story offers reasons for hope in what might otherwise seem like the twilight of liberal learning."
Creator
Publisher
Coverage
Annapolis, MD
Date
2021-06-23
Rights
Signed permissions form have been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to make an audiovisual recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library and to make an audiovisual recording of my lecture available online."
Type
moving image
Format
mp4
Subject
Contributor
Language
English
Identifier
Wellmon_Chad_2021-06-23
Original Format
Zoom video conference
Duration
01:03:34