Embracing the humanities

A couple of weeks ago now, I read this article from The Australian about the humanities. It wasn’t so much “a case for the humanities” which The Other School of Economics so eloquently covered some days later. Rather, it raised some thoughtful points about perceptions of the humanities form different culttural vantage points. Still, in the end, the point which got my synapses zapping about was this fairly benign paragraph:

The concept of the humanities focuses on studying human experience: what can happen to people and what people can do; possible ways of thinking, ways of feeling and ways of speaking; possible motives and possible values. The words can and possible highlight the imaginative character of the research in the humanities. They also highlight the double focus of the humanities: on humanity as a whole and on individual (though culturally embedded) human beings in all their immense diversity.

In schools, the distinction between ‘Social Sciences’ and ‘Humanities’ is often dismissed. The two are often seen as one and the same – this is not necessarily because teachers misunderstand the differences but because they too preoccupied with the teaching of their discipline to let the politics and fashions of faculty nomenclature bother them. Still, as Anna Wierzbicka reminds us, the two are different.

On Thursday, at the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria’s conference, the strength of the humanities was palpable as Elissa McKeand (Essential Media), Anne Chesher (Essential Media) and actor and author William McInnes discussed the new ABC documentary The Making of Modern Australia. The three presenters had the audience captivated with the human stories – neither elaborate nor disingenuously manufactured – of aspects of Australian History since World War 2.

People, thankfully, are fascinated by human stories and the infinite narratives, each with their different cast, mise en scènes. direction and production, that each of them provide. The stories that these speakers shared with the audience helped cement that fascination as stories of grief, tenacity and personal happiness were shown or retold. Most importantly though, the stories deonstrated how the grand narrative of Australia’s history can be told and, part, learned.

The Making of Modern Australia is a four-part documentary and will screen over the next few weeks on the ABC.