The
humanities are under attack. Enrollments are plummeting, tax cutting zombies in
state legislatures are looking for more reasons to cut higher education funding
and, most worrisome, a national panel of distinguished persons has published a
report.
As an
historian and former lesser deanlet in a college with the word “humanities” in
its official title, I find the attacks discouraging. And, as someone who writes
about technology, I can see further dangers. Specifically, is computer
technology in general, and Google in particular, going to destroy the role of
the humanities in studying foreign countries and cultures? Even foreign
languages themselves? Is French writer Fabien Cazenave right to suggest
Google’s Translate software as a solution to the EU’s multiplicity of
languages?[i]
