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Shareby Gerald Early
Daedalus (Winter 2009)
“The humanities today seem caught in an irresolvable contradiction. At any given moment, they see themselves either as cultural gatecrashers and agents of radical social change or cultural gatekeepers and champions of tradition, often unsure of which act they are performing. It is hard to say whether the tension posed by this disjunction propels the humanities as potent forces in American culture or disables them as insecure, incoherent areas of study. The social, economic, and political changes of the postwar era have served only to exacerbate this sense of disjunction and sharpen opposing impulses, not resolve them.”
