Humanities at Stanford
Inside the humanities at Stanford University
Humanities at Stanford
Getting to the 'Heart' of the Matter
Haiyan Lee, an associate professor in Stanford's Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, has been studying Chinese literature and culture from the pivotal period between 1900 and 1950 with the aim of documenting what she calls the "sentimental revolution" of China.
Professor Lee states, globalization has entailed the embracing of "basic western-derived, sentiment-based assumptions about personhood and sociality," which she said, "has paved the path for melodramatic love stores like Titanic to conquer China and much of the rest of the world."
Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and expressing the world—equal to but distinct from scientific and conceptual methods. Art addresses us in the fullness of our being — simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition, imagination, memory, and physical senses. There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories, or songs, or images.
The role of culture, however, must go beyond economics. It is not focused on the price of things, but on their value. And, above all, culture should tell us what is beyond price.
Many left-brain workers in this country face career extinction. Future leaders in left-brain realms will need to master right-brain creativity. The American-born Internet is today’s exemplar; tomorrow’s exemplar may be nano-science or quantum computing. Science and technology are means toward an end.
But art is our true end as fully mature human beings living in society. This has the additional benefit of producing better science and more beneficial technology. That, then, is true global leadership. And it begins with imagination.
The arts help us discern what it is to be fully human, and to live in the society of other humans. They ask us to determine how to comport ourselves individually and as communities - here and now, in conversation with our forbears, and in anticipation of our posterity.
An unexamined life is not worth living.
The need for ‘global literacy,’ which the humanities naturally have a stake in, has become commonplace as economics and markets become more interdependent and immigration patterns shift. We must know how to incorporate the genius of cultures into our larger human understanding.
Whose comprehension of society is not more incisive after reading Proust? Who does not know more about language once James Joyce is encountered? Who says that compassion has not been deepened by living in Tolstoy’s novels?
Remember your humanity and forget the rest.
The physical and natural sciences try to find out how the world is put together. The humanities and social sciences try to find out how the human world is put together.
Socrates is supposed to have said that the unexamined life is not worth living; I would add that the uncultivated is not worth living. Humanities and the arts deepen our human experience.
No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive.
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.
There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music—the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
While thought exists, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.
Literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty.
History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life, and brings us tidings of antiquity.
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
I try to vary my reading diet and ensure that I read more fiction than nonfiction. … I rarely read business books, except for Andy Grove's 'Swimming Across,' which has nothing to do with business but describes the emotional foundation of a remarkable man.
I re-read from time to time T. E. Lawrence's 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom,' an exquisite lyric of derring-do, the navigation of strange places and the imaginative ruses of a peculiar character. It has to be the best book ever written about leading people from atop a camel.
I used to tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers. … Poets are our original systems thinkers. They look at our most complex environments and they reduce the complexity to something they begin to understand.
Almost everything I have read has been useful to me -- science, poetry, politics, novels. I have a lifelong interest in epistemology and learning. My books have helped me develop a way of thinking critically in business and in golf -- a fabulous metaphor for the most interesting stuff in life. My library is full of things I might go back to.
Once I've read a book I keep it. It becomes a part of me.
As head of a global company, everything attracts me as a reader, books about different cultures, countries, problems. I read for pleasure and to find other perspectives on how to think or solve a problem, like Jerome Groopman's 'How Doctors Think'; John Cornwall's autobiography, 'Seminary Boy'; 'The Wife,' a novel by Meg Wolitzer; and before that, 'Team of Rivals.'
Research that tracks the path of human imagination throughout history -- in literature, language, art, music and culture -- can enable us to make a difference today.
I firmly believe that the humanities - the knowledge of history and ideas, critical thinking and the life of the mind - are fundamental to a strong democracy.
An advanced civilization must not limit its efforts to science and technology alone, but must give full value and support to the other great branches of scholarly and cultural activity in order to achieve a better understanding of the past, a better analysis of the present, and a better view of the future.
The world leadership which has come to the United States cannot rest solely upon superior power, wealth, and technology, but must be solidly founded upon worldwide respect and admiration for the Nation's high qualities as a leader in the realm of ideas and of the spirit.
Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens. It must therefore foster and support a form of education, and access to the arts and the humanities, designed to make people of all backgrounds and wherever located masters of their technology and not its unthinking servants.
The imagination needs to be cultivated and developed to assure success in life. A man will not construct anything he cannot conceive.
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his or her own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Libraries keep the records on behalf of all humanity. The unique and the absurd, the wise and the fragments of stupidity.
The book is here to stay. What we're doing is symbolic of the peaceful coexistence of the book and the computer.
Science is very important to me, but I also like to stress that you have to be well-rounded. One's love for science doesn't get rid of all the other areas. I truly feel someone interested in science is interested in understanding what's going on in the world. That means you have to find out about social science, art, and politics.
Of course, one of the problems is that digital humanities research on campuses has not been encouraged as much as it could be. How do online publications factor in tenure decisions and the like? Providing some support for that, getting the Endowment's imprimatur on that, I think, would be important.
Imagination, originality, and risk taking should not be byproducts of a university education. They should be its core.
Why are the humanities important?
Insights Into Everything
Through exploration of the humanities we learn how to think creatively and critically, to reason, and to ask questions. Because these skills allow us to gain new insights into everything from poetry and paintings to business models and politics, humanistic subjects have been at the heart of a liberal arts education since the ancient Greeks first used to them to educate their citizens.
Understanding Our World
Research into the human experience adds to our knowledge about our world. Through the work of humanities scholars, we learn about the values of different cultures, about what goes into making a work of art, about how history is made. Their efforts preserve the great accomplishments of the past, help us understand the world we live in, and give us tools to imagine the future.
Bringing Clarity to the Future
Today, humanistic knowledge continues to provide the ideal foundation for exploring and understanding the human experience. Investigating a branch of philosophy might get you thinking about ethical questions. Learning another language might help you gain an appreciation for the similarities in different cultures. Contemplating a sculpture might make you think about how artist's life affected her creative decisions. Reading a book from another region of the world, might help you think about the meaning of democracy. Listening to history course might help you to have a better understanding of the past, while at the same time giving you a clearer picture of what the future holds.