The Medieval, the Multidisciplinary, and the Modern University Emily Osborne

Studying The Middle Ages Today Is there a need to “justify” certain disciplines in the humanities as academic subjects? Common questions I am asked as a scholar of the Middle Ages include: Weren’t the Middle Ages the “Dark Ages”? What do you actually study? What is the use-value to society of the knowledge that you have acquired and will pass on to another generation of scholars? I have read parts of Beowulf in translation. How can you make literature or history difficult enough to justify getting a PhD in them?

Are We Guided by a “Cult of the Amateur”? The “cult of the amateur”: proliferation of knowledge through easy-access resources such as Wikipedia lead people to have a false sense of expertise after reading a summary of a topic (Keen, 2007) “The price we pay for the growth in egalitarianism offered by the Internet is the decentralized access to unedited stories. In this medium, contributions by intellectuals lose their power to create a focus.” (Jürgen Habermas, 2006) There are of course positive aspects to the “democratization” of information through technology and Web 2.0. Individuals who cannot afford higher education now have access to more information and may possess greater control over their education and the ability to choose a course of study (Kamenetz, 2010)

Three Concepts of “value” in Discourse on Higher Education Presentism “uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts” Consumerist approaches to education Is the value of education now seen as its ability to meet the workforce’s need, and as a form of job training? What intellectual skills will be valuable in the near future? Do we need to move beyond a narrow concept of “thinking analytically”?

Presentism An increasing point of dialogue for literary and historical analysis, as more courses analyze cultural products of today against those of the past (Gutenberg’s printing press and social media memes). Learners respond positively to material positioned in a manner relevant to their own position. Since we learn by and can never totally escape from our own perspective, how important is it to attempt to analyze the past on its own terms? What do we learn from a research question such as: “Was King Louis XIV a sexist for not including women amongst his government officials?”

Presentism “History is what hurts” (Frederic Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1981) What kinds of intellectual or empathetic skills are required to evaluate a question, phenomenon or problem from another individual’s or culture’s perspective? Such skills are necessary to cross not only temporal boundaries, but also cultural and disciplinary boundaries. In our increasingly globalized world, more employers desire employees who are able to analyze situations from multidisciplinary and multicultural perspectives.

Consumer approach to education? Recent critiques of higher education in the United States have questioned whether the university has become a “corporate service station.” Is the point of education now to meet the workforce’s need? Are universities now operating as “neoliberal economies,” where everything possesses a market value? (Seybold, 2008; Deresiewicz, 2015) Are such concerns relevant to higher education in Canada? In our changing economic climate, are students being forced to consider their education as a commodity? Are students given the freedom to see their education as: “creating creative and independent thought and inquiry, challenging perceived beliefs, exploring new horizons and forgetting external constraints.” (Chomsky, 2011)

What intellectual skills will be valuable in the near future? How can we move beyond a narrow concept of “thinking critically” or “thinking analytically”? Some of the most ground-breaking technologies (for example, Artificial Intelligence and Thought identification software) have the potential to affect every aspect of society (medicine, music, advertising, ethics, policy-making) How important is it now to seek discussion across disciplinary boundaries, and to promote the value of subjects that are multidisciplinary and transcultural?

Works Cited Chomsky, Noam. "Public Education Under Massive Corporate Assault—What's Next?” AlterNet (August 5, 2011). Deresiewicz, William. “The Neoliberal Arts: How College Sold Its Soul to the Market.” Harper’s (September 2015), pp.25-32. Fish, Stanley. “Neoliberalism and Higher Education,” The New York Times (March, 2009). Jameson, Frederic. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as Socially Symbolic Act (1981). Kamenetz, Anya. DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education (2010) Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture (2007). Seybold, Peter. “The Struggle Against the Corporate Takeover of the University," Socialism and Democracy 22:1 (March, 2008).