A Defence of the Humanities in a Utilitarian Age: Imagining What We Know, 1800-1850

by Paul Keen

Overview

This book explores the ways that critics writing in the early nineteenth century developed arguments in favour of the humanities in the face of utilitarian pressures. Its focus reflects the ways that similar pressures today have renewed the question of how to make the case for the public value of the humanities. The good news is that in many ways, this self-reflexive challenge is precisely what the humanities have always done best: highlight the nature and the force of the narratives that have helped to define how we understand our society – its various pasts and its possible futures – and to suggest the larger contexts within which these issues must ultimately be situated. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030326609
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	08/25/2020
Series:	Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Paul Keen is Professor of English at Carleton University, Canada.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Humanities in a Utilitarian Age.- Chapter 1: Interventions.- Chapter 2: Accommodations.- Chapter 3: Institutions.- Chapter 4: The Idea of a University. - Conclusion.