#Philly Join me for a lecture about turning away, feat. a discussion of Eakins' "The Gross Clinic"

Thursday 4/16 at 3:30PM
University of Pennsylvania - Williams 843

Speaking of bad things, Syracuse University recently announced it’s shuttering several humanities programs: classics, Russian, fine arts, classical civilization, modern Jewish studies, Middle Eastern studies, German, and others. About six months ago, they launched an “academic center for the creator economy”—whatever that is. Teaching people to edit TikToks or whatever. In this assault against the humanities, while the economic outlook for so many worsens, why does the history of a gesture matter? To me, it’s fascinating—a gesture everybody makes every day, a debate people are having constantly on social media. I can see the relevance immediately, but there are people for whom the question means nothing. Why does it matter? they ask.

SALTZMAN: I’ve lived a life as a humanist, so I obviously spend a lot of time thinking about the work we do and its place in society. From the time I started graduate school in 2008, during the Great Recession, there has been a crisis in the humanities. Largely that rhetoric of crisis has been tied to policies and acts of defunding that have affected public and private institutions. But in the last few years, living more with an even greater sense of crisis, I’ve realized there’s a disjuncture between that institutional crisis and the value society places on the work we do as historians, art historians, literary scholars, creative writers, and thinkers across all the other humanistic disciplines. What made me realize that separation—that there’s a myth generated by the crisis that assumes a devaluation of the humanities writ large—was walking through the Uffizi last year. I was doing research for this project, waiting in line with my family in the offseason on a rainy, miserable day with hundreds of other people, each paying forty euros to get into the Uffizi, to walk through crowded hallways and look at great works of art. That’s just one museum among hundreds of thousands around the world that people visit to appreciate art of all kinds. Not to mention other forms of art and culture, theater, dance, film, literature. What clicked for me in that moment was that we don’t actually have a problem with the value of the humanities. On the contrary, I think a lot of people recognize how important they are and how empty our lives would be without the arts and the study of them.

I asked @b-a-saltzman.bsky.social about the crisis of the humanities and he gave quite a beautiful answer.

Humans still love art, it's just the world's oligarchs don't.

A History of Turning Away What does it mean, truly, to turn away from something?

Should we turn away from horror or bear witness?

What if the supposed dichotomy between the two gestures is more muddied than people realize? Our editor interviewed academic @b-a-saltzman.bsky.social about the history of turning away

www.typebarmagazine.com/a-history-of...

Thank you so much Matt for the chance to talk with you about my book. I so greatly enjoyed our conversation--and always love occasions for reflecting on how typewriters really are the best writing tool.

Announcing the Turning Away Tour! Let me know if you can make it out to any of these--even just aspirationally!

More info: bsaltzman.com/events

Huge thanks to @uchicagopress.bsky.social to @uchicagoahd.bsky.social @nehgov.bsky.social @newberrylibrary.bsky.social for funding

Happy 15th Birthday, Mara! You've been the best companion anyone could ask for.

Dr. Ben Saltzman on the moral dilemma of attention Between indifference and reflection in an age of endless images

I joined @gloriamark.bsky.social to discuss the moral dilemma of attention open.substack.com/pub/gloriama...