Lockout at St. Thomas U.

This old debate has become at once both superficial and narrow. Instead, the humanities (and the arts) are being pulled in opposite directions by new, stronger pressures from shifting markets and advancing technology. For example, the demise of gatekeeper intermediaries such as book/record stores, libraries, and publishers along with the instant popularity ebook readers and Google scanning library projects has opened up closed, proprietary markets to broad access by writers, literary researchers, and readers. The same forces have transformed the music publication, recording, and listening industry, as well as the visual arts (especially photography and film making).

The result is universal opportunity to get creative literary and artistic work out to the global population, unbridled by any of the past barriers of publishing and distribution costs, small-minded reviewers cliques, publishers, distributors, or retailer prejudices and conventions, even cultural and political restrictions! Readers and viewers now have access without the censorship of markets, despots, and arts elite to filter and reject. Art, film, and literary criticism is also open to all to voice their analysis and help popularize or launch healthy discussion beyond the confines of narrow literary groups, film schools, and censored letters to the editor.

On the other hand, all this freedom and access comes at a cost. Newpapers, magazines, and publishing houses are disappearing as employment for photographers, short story writers, and critics as the web publishes unpaid writers and unlicensed reproductions go out into the ether. The entire music industry has come crashing down, so that new artists had to return to traveling the concert circuit (often at campuses) to survive by t-shirt merchandize sales.

What does that do the humanties debate? it used to be arts/humanities vs. social/life/physical sciences. Today, the latter group is dying (except for bio, supported by big pharma money) while creative writing, arts, and music employment at big corporations and dot com startup is bigger than ever! — Half the movie hits are CGI, and demand is great for music for the huge video gaming industry and ad themes. As we’ve moved from brick and mortar to web retailing and virtual business, new hires have to write these websites and facebook pages.

So, the humanities/arts debate belies the continuing resource allocation issues of campus power politics. Contempt for modern or commercial by protected academics. Lit profs forced to teach composition classes. Adjuncts dominating the meat market of teaching these areas. Music departments draining the resources of colleges, and cross-subsidized by the lucrative and crowded business classes.

Or maybe she didn’t parse it using the rhythm we experienced speakers would expect. Maybe she was shouting: “Meee! …. chasing, Meee!! … chasing … ?

Thank you for sharing this cool information with us. Eskort

My son, who is two and a half, likes to play catch. He will often bring me things to throw saying “catch me! catch me!”, meaning we should play catch. I don’t know why he does it but it’s interesting none the same. In itself. On its own. Without all the jargon and sandbox games. :)