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The Transformative Humanities: A Manifesto
Author(s): Mikhail Epstein (Author), Igor E. Klyukanov
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Publication Date: 13 Sept. 2012
- Edition: First Edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 344 pages
- ISBN-10: 1441100466
- ISBN-13: 9781441100467
Book Description
In his famous classification of the sciences, Francis Bacon not only catalogued those branches of knowledge that already existed in his time, but also anticipated the new disciplines he believed would emerge in the future: the ‘desirable sciences.’ Mikhail Epstein echoes, in part, Bacon’s vision and outlines the ‘desirable’ disciplines and methodologies that may emerge in the humanities in response to the new realities of the twenty-first century. Are the humanities a purely scholarly field, or should they have some active, constructive supplement? We know that technology serves as the practical extension of the natural sciences, and politics as the extension of the social sciences. Both technology and politics are designed to transform what their respective disciplines study objectively.
The Transformative Humanities: A Manifesto addresses the question: Is there any activity in the humanities that would correspond to the transformative status of technology and politics? It argues that we need a practical branch of the humanities which functions similarly to technology and politics, but is specific to the cultural domain.
Editorial Reviews
Review
The Transformative Humanities will be, for many scholars, a jump-start to critical inquiry across literary studies and philosophy alike.
College Literature
College Literature
Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.
CHOICE
About the Author
Igor E. Klyukanov is Professor of Communication Studies at Eastern Washington University. He has authored more than 100 articles, book chapters and books in communication theory, semiotics, translation studies, general linguistics, and intercultural communication. His works have been published in U.S., Russia, England, Spain, Costa Rica, Serbia, Bulgaria, India and Morocco. He served as an associate editor of The American Journal of Semiotics and is the founding editor of the Russian Journal of Communication.
