Humanities

===In the United States===
{{Main|Humanities in the United States}}

====The Humanities Indicators====
The [[Humanities Indicators]], unveiled in 2009 by the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]], are the first comprehensive compilation of data about the humanities in the United States, providing scholars, policymakers and the public with detailed information on humanities education from primary to higher education, the humanities workforce, humanities funding and research, and public humanities activities.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.amacad.org/ |title=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |publisher=Amacad.org |date=2013-11-14 |access-date=2014-01-04}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.humanitiesindicators.org/ |title=Humanities Indicators |publisher=Humanities Indicators |access-date=2014-01-04}}</ref> Modeled after the National Science Board's Science and Engineering Indicators, the Humanities Indicators are a source of reliable benchmarks to guide analysis of the state of the humanities in the United States.

====''The Humanities in American Life''====
The 1980 United States Rockefeller Commission on the Humanities described the humanities in its report, ''The Humanities in American Life'':
<blockquote>Through the humanities we reflect on the fundamental question: What does it mean to be human? The humanities offer clues but never a complete answer. They reveal how people have tried to make moral, spiritual, and intellectual sense of a world where irrationality, despair, loneliness, and death are as conspicuous as birth, friendship, hope, and reason.</blockquote>

====As a major====

In 1950, 1.2% of Americans aged 22 had earned a degree in the humanities. By 2010, this figure had risen to 2.6%. This represents a doubling of the number of Americans with degrees in the humanities over a 60-year period.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Schmidt|first1=Ben|title=A Crisis in the Humanities? (10 June 2013)|url=http://www.chronicle.com/blognetwork/edgeofthewest/2013/06/10/the-humanities-crisis/|website=The Chronicle|date=10 June 2013 |access-date=4 February 2018}}</ref> The increase in the number of Americans with humanities degrees is in part due to the overall rise in college enrollment in the United States. In 1940, 4.6% of Americans had a four-year degree, but by 2016, this figure had risen to 33.4%. This means that the total number of Americans with college degrees has increased significantly, resulting in a greater number of people with degrees in the humanities as well.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Wilson|first1=Reid|title=Census: More Americans have college degrees than ever before|url=https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/326995-census-more-americans-have-college-degrees-than-ever-before/|access-date=4 February 2018|newspaper=The Hill|date=4 March 2017}}</ref> The proportion of degrees awarded in the humanities has declined in recent decades, even as the overall number of people with humanities degrees has increased. In 1954, 36 percent of Harvard undergraduates majored in the humanities, but in 2012, only 20 percent took that course of study.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Schuessler|first1=Jennifer|title=Humanities Committee Sounds an Alarm|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/arts/humanities-committee-sounds-an-alarm.html |url-access=subscription |access-date=4 February 2018|newspaper=New York Times|date=18 June 2013}}</ref> Professor Benjamin Schmidt of Northeastern University has documented that between 1990 and 2008, degrees in English, history, foreign languages, and philosophy have decreased from 8 percent to just under 5 percent of all U.S. college degrees.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-14/the-great-recession-never-ended-for-college-humanities|title=The Great Recession Never Ended for College Humanities|last=Smith|first=Noah|date=14 August 2018|newspaper=Bloomberg.com |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726044556/https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-08-14/the-great-recession-never-ended-for-college-humanities |archive-date= Jul 26, 2020 }}</ref>

====In liberal arts education====
[[The Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences]] 2013 report, ''The Heart of the Matter, supports'' the notion of a broad "[[Liberal arts colleges|liberal arts education]]", which includes study in disciplines from the natural sciences to the arts as well as the humanities.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/06/18/humanities-social-sciences-column/2436093/ |date=Jun 18, 2013 |first1=Norman |last1=Augustine |first2=David |last2=Skorton |title=Humanities, social sciences critical to our future |website=[[USA Today]] |access-date=2017-11-02 |archive-date=2018-10-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181016114736/https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/06/18/humanities-social-sciences-column/2436093/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/428644/august-15-2013/richard-brodhead |title=The Colbert Report: Richard Brodhead |date= August 15, 2013 |website=Colbert Nation |access-date=2013-09-09 |archive-date=2013-09-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130909041842/http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/428644/august-15-2013/richard-brodhead |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Many [[colleges]] provide such an education; some require it. The [[University of Chicago]] and [[Columbia University]] were among the first schools to require an extensive [[core curriculum]] in philosophy, literature, and the arts for all students.<ref>[[Louis Menand]], "The Problem of General Education", in ''The Marketplace of Ideas'' (W. W. Norton, 2010), especially pp. 32–43.</ref> Other colleges with nationally recognized, mandatory programs in the liberal arts are [[Fordham University]], [[St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe)|St. John's College]], [[Saint Anselm College]] and [[Providence College]]. Prominent proponents of liberal arts in the United States have included [[Mortimer J. Adler]]<ref>Adler, Mortimer J.; "A Guidebook to Learning: For the Lifelong Pursuit of Wisdom"</ref> and [[E. D. Hirsch, Jr.]]

====In the digital age====
Researchers in the humanities have developed numerous large- and small-scale digital corporations, such as digitized collections of historical texts, along with the digital tools and methods to analyze them. Their aim is both to uncover new knowledge about corpora and to visualize research data in new and revealing ways. Much of this activity occurs in a field called the [[digital humanities]].

====STEM====
Politicians in the United States currently espouse a need for increased funding of the [[STEM fields]], science, technology, engineering, mathematics.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/reform |title=Whitehouse.gov |access-date=2014-10-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141021222654/http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/reform |archive-date=2014-10-21 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Federal funding represents a much smaller fraction of funding for humanities than other fields such as STEM or medicine.<ref name="bi_26Jun2013">''America Is Raising A Generation Of Kids Who Can't Think Or Write Clearly'', [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-war-against-humanities-2013-6 Business Insider] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141029054524/http://www.businessinsider.com/the-war-against-humanities-2013-6 |date=2014-10-29 }}</ref> The result was a decline of quality in both college and pre-college education in the humanities field.<ref name="bi_26Jun2013"/>

Three-term Louisiana Governor, [[Edwin Edwards]] acknowledged the importance of the humanities in a 2014 video address<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUY5c9IrAHE |title=YouTube |website=[[YouTube]] |access-date=2014-10-29 |archive-date=2015-05-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150517203300/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUY5c9IrAHE |url-status=live }}</ref> to the academic conference,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20210228013512/http://scedhs2014.uqam.ca/ Scedhs2014.uqam.ca]</ref> ''Revolutions in Eighteenth-Century Sociability''. Edwards said:
:Without the humanities to teach us how history has succeeded or failed in directing the fruits of technology and science to the betterment of our tribe of ''homo sapiens'', without the humanities to teach us how to frame the discussion and to properly debate the uses-and the costs-of technology, without the humanities to teach us how to safely debate how to create a more just society with our fellow man and woman, technology and science would eventually default to the ownership of—and misuse by—the most influential, the most powerful, the most feared among us.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.academia.edu/8919778 |title=Academia.edu |access-date=2014-10-29 |archive-date=2018-10-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181002050619/http://www.academia.edu/8919778/Introductory_remarks_by_former_four-term_Louisiana_Governor_Edwin_W._Edwards_Honorary_Chair_Montreal_Enlightenment_Conference_October_18_2014 |url-status=live |last1=Eaton |first1=Fernin }}</ref>