What We Learned About the Humanities from a Study of Thousands of Newspaper Articles

Abstract

How might a computational analysis of the humanities in public discourse inform future efforts in humanities education and research? This question motivates this short essay; here, we reflect on key arguments from our longer article “The Humanities in Public: A Computational Analysis of US National and Campus Newspapers” with an eye toward imagining possible use cases and applications for our findings. After summarizing our main claims, we suggest ways of reframing or revaluing advocacy for the humanities based on this research. These include delineating concrete examples of the relationship between humanistic knowledge and the public interest, shifting institutional and disciplinary priorities toward forms of labor that engage a wider variety of publics, and understanding the connections between, rather than focusing on competition among, the humanities and the sciences.