The Place of Humanities in University Studies :: essays research papers

The Place of Humanities in University Studies This is non an essay - it is a collection of notes which are the foundation of an 800 word analogy of two articles regarding the place of humanities in university studies, and the characters of stilt communication.Part 1 (800 spoken communication - 30%)You will be given two short readings by the end of Week 3 of the Semester. Identify the approach or approaches use in each, and with reference to the features and examples of the determine approaches as presented in accede materials, beg off your answer.Andrew Riemers article, "Cannon or give?" (The Weekend Australian, 16-17 November 1996) can be identified as having two Idealist and Leavisite approaches within the school text. This is indicated in several passages of the text"My colleagues in the Department of English were irresponsible...They were trivialising the discipline...by allowing undergraduates to sidestep the so-called canonical writers...in prefer of whatever transient phenomenon or writer of small talent happened to be their latest obsession.""They were reprehensible ... in encouraging their students to impose simple sub-Marxist, sub-feminist templates on complex and mysterious works of literature ... Miltons Eve reduced to a mere victim of the patriarchy.""Alluring though it might be, we cannot recover intellectual integrity by turning back the clock.""Cannon or Fodder?" (The Weekend Australian, 16-17 November 1996)When looking at the approaches as they are presented in the Subject Materials, one is able to identify them as clearly being both Idealistic and Leavisite. Our Subject Book indicates that the Idealistic view of culture has been "conceived in the humanities and in journalism and popular social commentary ... a realm of moral, spiritual and aesthetic values which exist largely self-sufficient and above society". Further, this view states Culture was isolated from society - self- governing because it had to be abstracted from one way of life (pre-industrial) and then genetic and extended to another (allegedly inferior) way of life to save that society.The Leavisite concept of culture is subdued common and is firmly bound up in the theory of mass society and mass culture.Mass communications are seen to hold a important and privileged place in mass society, taking over the role of creating and distributing the values and information common to a society.Mass culture, unlike high culture, is unavailing to transcend its time and place and offer any kind of unyielding truth to its audiences and, at worst, positively damages them.