The National Endowment for the Humanities received a reprieve earlier in the year, when Congress voted to continue funding (in its “skinny budget,” the Trump administration had planned a zero budget for the NEH). Academic job listings in the humanities are at their lowest levels in 30 years, and politicians on both sides of the aisle say that studying the humanities means “unemployablity.”
At the same time, a number of denizens of Silicon Valley have been announcing that the tech world needs more people who are steeped in the humanities. Christian Madsbjerg–himself trained as a humanist–is founder of the management consulting firm ReD Associates, and uses “applied phenomenology” with his global clients. In an era where artificial intelligence is replacing human intelligence in a number of tasks, will humanistic knowledge prevail as something algorithms will never duplicate?
What is the future of the humanities in the United States?
Excellent conversation, led by David Staley, Director of the Ohio State University Humanities Institute.
Columbus Futurists 