Duke UniversityHumanities WritLarge

Visiting Faculty Fellow Sharon Raynor on NC Now

News & Observer Spotlight on Peter Burian and the Humanities

"We want to be with it, we want to be modern, we want not to seem tedious and old-fashioned and frumpy,” Burian said in his office, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books. “But really, a lot of what the traditional humanities have been good for is not speeding up and creating all the information that you can, but in slowing down, reflecting, developing the imagination, taking the long view and thinking about how to think. And if we don’t have that role, I’m not sure where it’s going to come from.”  (read more)

Technology Brings History to Life

DukeToday has featured BorderWork(s) student Emma Ross, who said working on original research with history professor Philip Stern and other members of the Humanities Lab was the highlight of her Duke experience, helping her "find my intellectual passion." (read more)

"A Powerful Tool for Living"

Tom Ferraro, Frances Hill Fox professor of English and director of undergraduate studies, was recently interviewed for Towerview: The Chronicle's News & Culture Magazine.

“To Ferraro, a liberal arts education is a powerful tool for living precisely because it involves asking difficult and essential questions. ... Doing the kind of critical engagements with literature that we do produces a form of what an older generation used to call “critical thinking.” English students are among the two highest scorers on LSATs—along with econ majors—and GMATs, and on any of the ones designed to test your ability to think analytically. An astonishing number of the Nobel Prize winners in the sciences have undergraduate liberal arts educations. They can teach you to think better within the box because they can teach you to think outside the box." 

The Big Bad Wolf and Other Viral Tales

DukeToday has featured "Humanities of Demand" - a new humanities course that challenges traditional teaching methods by encouraging students to build the curriculum. (read more)

Humanities Writ Larger

Duke's Chronicle editorial board wrote on April 4, 2012 that "... the humanities possess a powerful and distinct rigor all their own. More importantly, these fields of study have, and will always be, essential to the education of citizens who are able to interrogate the values and structures that make up our crazy world."  (read more)

Professor Peter Burian spoke about the role of the humanities in developing empathy and understanding - attributes that contribute to a successful life. (read more)

General Martin E. Dempsey G'84, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke of the value his Masters Degree in English has brought to his career and his life in a speech in Page Auditorium on January 12, 2012.

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