Willson Center Director Nicholas Allen Q&A: The role of the humanities
The online magazine @UGAResearch has published an interview with Willson Center director Nicholas Allen, Baldwin Professor in Humanities in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences’ department of English, about the role of the humanities in higher education and in a happy and successful life.
Here is one brief sampling of Prof. Allen’s observations and insights:
The humanities can help us answer the largest questions because they help us think in the largest ways. They summon us—in all the variety of our imaginations and experiences—to connection and conversation with each other. They give us the powers of reflection to understand the depth of our past. And when we think now of a planet that’s undergoing such stress, with climate and population growth, and the great opportunities that there are in the world now—of being better connected with each other, and sharing cultures and sharing experiences—it seems to me that the humanities are the best way of connecting all those worlds together.