Humanities at the Periphery. The Return to Philology and the Importance of Literary Studies
Humanities at the Periphery. The Return to Philology and the Importance of Literary Studies

Author(s): Tvrtko Vuković
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: humanities; philology; study of literature; politics of literature
Summary/Abstract: The first chapter of the paper summarizes the devaluation process of the humanistic values that has begun in the West a few decades ago. The question is why and how the so-called knowledge societies marginalize humanistic knowledge. The second, third, and fourth chapters are the proposal of the mission of the humanities today: pushed out to society’s periphery, the humanities have the task of preserving skills, experiences, and knowledge that so-called knowledge society considers needless. Thereby, the paper advocates the importance of returning to philology, as Paul de Man puts it in his article Return to Philology, and tries to show the extent to which philology, ceasing to be national, becomes a communal, political and ethical force.

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