The Maroon
SARA BUTLER Religious Reflections
Although the hallmark of a liberal arts education has traditionally been a strong foundation in the humanities, the humanities as a whole have come under attack. On a global scale, there is England’s “Review of Higher Education Funding,” penned by an ex-BP chief executive officer, cutting 100 percent of public funding to the humanities and causing British academics to scramble to prove their worth. More locally, right-wing hysteria has encouraged students to major instead in business or the sciences: The humanities are described warily as liberal bastions where leftist indoctrination is a perennial threat. Advocates of this attack contend that the humanities are inconsequential in a world that has much greater fish to fry: After all, who needs to know about Aristotle when we still haven’t found the cure for cancer?
The other disciplines can present their own defenses. The goal of my letter today is to explain why history matters, even the history that is seen as most obscure: medieval history, the study of an era that is often synonymous with backwardness and barbarity, encapsulated best in Quentin Tarantino’s infamous “Pulp Fiction” statement: “Let’s get medieval on his