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.
- ISBN10 0292784341
- ISBN13 9780292784345
- Publish Date 15 September 2009 (first published 1 June 2008)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Texas Press
- Format eBook
- Pages 391
- Language English