Is there life after postmodernism? Many claim that it sounded the death knell for history, art, ideology, science, possibly all of Western philosophy, and certainly for the concept of reality itself. Responding to essential questions regarding whether the humanities can remain politically and academically relevant amid this twenty-first-century uncertainty, Why the Humanities Matter offers a guided tour of the modern condition, calling upon thinkers in a variety of disciplines to affirm essential concepts such as truth, goodness, and beauty.
Offering a lens of "new humanism," Frederick Aldama also provides a liberating examination of the current cultural repercussions of assertions by such revolutionary theorists as Said, Foucault, Lacan, and Derrida, as well as Latin Americanists such as Sommer and Mignolo. Emphasizing pedagogy and popular culture with equal verve, and writing in colloquial yet multifaceted prose, Aldama presents an enlightening way to explore what "culture" actually does—who generates it and how it shapes our identities—and the role of academia in sustaining it.
A rousing rethinking of current critical theory and the role of culture in realms ranging from art and literature to justice and history.
Frederick Luis Aldama is Arts and Humanities Distinguished Professor of English at the Ohio State University.
Introduction. A New Humanism
Chapter One. Self, Identity, and Ideas
Chapter Two. Revisiting Derrida, Lacan, and Foucault
Chapter Three. Derrida Gets Medieval
Chapter Four. Imaginary Empires, Real Nations
Chapter Five. Edward Said Spaced Out
Chapter Six. Modernity, What?
Chapter Seven. Teachers, Scholars, and the Humanities Today
Chapter Eight. Translation Matters
Chapter Nine. Can Music Resist?
Chapter Ten. The "Cultural Studies Turn" in Brown Studies
Chapter Eleven. Pulling up Stakes in Latin/o American Theoretical ClalC+
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