Farewell to the Humanities Xiaoying Wang

This paper discusses the use and ‘‘uselessness’’ of the Humanities in the context of
the marketization of higher education. The misapplication of economic rationality to
and within the Humanities has, I argue, emptied intellectual autonomy of its
erstwhile political and social significance and turned academic labor in the
Humanities into sheer abstract labor, measurable only in terms of quantity. The
cause of this transformation should not, however, be attributed to the development
of the capitalist order alone. The postmodernist rejection of ‘‘truth’’ and related
concepts has helped to level the distinction between knowledge in the Humanities as
an end in itself and knowledge for utilitarian purposes, and has thereby hastened the
collapse of the raison d’eˆtre of the Humanities.
Key Words: University, Humanities, Capitalism

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