The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/humanities/)
A $6 million anonymous alum donation will fund an undergraduate program targeting humanities research, Dean Ray Jayawardhana told The Sun on Monday morning.
Prof. Christopher Newfield M.A. ’84 Ph.D. ’88, Literature and American studies from University of California, Santa Barbara discussed the consequences of solely STEM educations. Instead, he urged the incorporation of humanities into all fields of education.
Through the podcast, Levine, who started the podcast in September 2017, seeks to explore the idea that “we’re constantly learning new things about what it means to be human” at a research university like Cornell, she said.
“Yeah, I’m a bioengineering major,” he says, his eyes shifting upwards as he does so. He knows what they’re thinking. The flash of admiration in their eyes and the almost-almost-imperceptible deference in conversation tell all. My friend Rollin is the smartest person I’ve met, and he deserves this treatment. But not for the simple reason that he is a majoring in biological engineering.
Interim President Rawlings lectured about the effects of digitalization on the American democracy and how they seem to echo the radicalized politics of ancient Athens.
Olin Library launched the Digital CoLab on Friday, “introducing new tools to traditional humanities research and allowing people to ask new questions that they hadn’t been able to ask before,” according to Olin’s digital humanities librarian.
“Many students traditionally think of research as something in the hard sciences or engineering, but the truth is that there are research opportunities in just about all majors here at Cornell,” said Ronald Forster ’17, vice president of the Cornell Undergraduate Research Board.
The tension between different disciplines of study has gotten out of hand.
Cornell humanities professors and students discussed the present and future implications of emphasizing sustainability on Thursday as part of the “Big Ideas in Humanities” series. Prof. Karen Pinkus, romance studies, identified inconsistencies in sustainability’s usage and definition. She said the goal of sustainability is to meet “the needs of the present, without compromising the abilities of future generations to meet their own needs.”
She explained that this view of sustainability introduces the future as something that must always be considered in the present, yet operates within its own timeframe. “The time of sustainability is certainly out of joint with geological time,” Pinkus said. “The time of sustainability fails to synchronize with the temporality of carbon based life forms compressed underground.”
Prof. Sara Pritchard, science and technology studies, discussed her research on light pollution and the campaign for dark night skies.
“We are literally drowning in issues that have fundamental philosophical significance and are swirling around us all day, every day,” said William D. Adams, chairman of the National Endowment of the Humanities. “I think we would all be helped if we had recourse to some of those philosophical discussions which could take place.”