A History of the Humanities in the Modern University

This book challenges commonplace assertions that the humanities are presently undergoing a severe crisis as a result of a longstanding decline. Rather than hearkening to the widespread, reactive call for a last-ditch defense of the humanities under attack from an ungracious world, this book fundamentally reverses the perspective and makes a plea for a different, affirmative approach. It contends that the humanities have incessantly arrived at critical turning points since they were first constituted in a form that remains recognizable today and assumed a leading role in knowledge organization with the establishment of the modern university around 1800. Assuming a historical perspective, the monograph takes the human sciences back to their rightful place in the family tree of sciences and gives due recognition to their continuously decisive role in the production of new knowledge and the creation of new fields of knowledge. Situating the ongoing gemmation of the humanities in a broader context, this monograph also offers an encompassing introduction to the over-all development of knowledge in the last two hundred years.

“This book is a call to all who believe in the transformative power of the humanities. Raffnsøe challenges the prevailing dichotomy of the human and the non-human, which was established as crucial for the organization of knowledge with the foundation of the modern university. His analysis is not just a defense but also a welcome reinvigoration of the humanities, urging a reconnection with their radical potential to address the challenges of our times. The book stands as a significant and thorough contribution to the ongoing debate about the role of the humanities in higher education and is an essential text for understanding their enduring importance in the institutional development of the contemporary university. Raffnsøe's work is a must-read for educators, students, and anyone invested in the future of the humanities.”

—Rasmus Johnsen, Associate Professor, Vice Dean for Lifelong Learning, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

“In this tour de force, Raffnsøe boldly counters bleak mainstream predictions to claim that, far from inexorably withering, the humanities will remain vibrant and vital. Beyond dialectical inversion of received opinion, Raffnsøe’s History restores this epistemological discipline to its irrevocable centrality. A science in the organic sense, the humanities render knowledge rational while relentlessly challenging truth-values—including that of science itself. As such, as long as the species to which we belong endures, the human sciences must and will ensure that survival. In that sense, Raffnsøe’s History is a history of the future.”

—Robert Harvey, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA

“That the humanities in the university are in crisis is not news, but a sadly familiar complaint. That continuing crisis has been an essential, productive part of its history is an interesting hypothesis that calls for study and could provide both light and hope for today’s predicament. This book explores that history and hypothesis with scholarship, patience, and insight.”

 

—Richard Shusterman, Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities, Florida Atlantic University, USA

“Erudite and brilliant, Raffnsøe’s genealogy of the humanities in the Western academy offers a perspective that is both timely and courageous. Refusing the strategy of justifying the humanities by defending ideas about its noble and ancient inheritances, Raffnsøe recounts how the emergence of new faculties, disciplines, and fields of studies over the last two hundred years have always called the humanities into crisis and challenged it constantly to redefine and reorganize itself in relation—and not simply in opposition—to these emergences. The present ‘crisis’ of the humanities is no exception. This remarkable book is at once an acute diagnosis of our times and a fresh charter of hope and possibilities for humanists.”  

—Dipesh Chakrabarty, Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor of History, South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and the College, University of Chicago, USA

“This is a profoundly generous scholarly work that adds a masterful touch to Raffnsøe’s cutting-edge contributions to key debates in the field of the contemporary humanities and brings the discussion to another dimension. One of the striking aspects of this remarkable volume is the diversity of European languages, as well as philosophical traditions it draws from. This very rigorous and learned, but also accessible, approach sharpens the overall focus of this study, and increases its agenda-setting force and relevance.”

—Rosi Braidotti, Distinguished University Professor Emerita, Utrecht University

“This book’s career will be great fun to follow and possibly contribute to. It slays any number of holy cows, first and foremost the humanities scholars’ inherent claim to the right of wailing about the decline of their disciplines. Also, it performs what it describes—i.e. the epistemological expertise which characterizes the humanities as the foundation of a new understanding of knowledge far beyond disciplinary boundaries. And most importantly, it does not close off its topic as now being investigated and classified once and for all; instead, it opens up many new avenues of investigation. Fabulous stuff!”

—Professor, Dr. Ulrike Landfester and Professor, Dr. Jörg Metelmann, University of St. Gallen

Sverre Raffnsøe is Professor of Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School and Editor-in-Chief of Foucault Studies.