Presented by: Martin Puchner
When: 8:15 – 9:15 am Section 1: Humanities Concepts and Disciplines; Panel 1, 1A
Abstract: In my contribution, I’d like to outline the thinking behind the Introduction to the Humanities project I’m currently working on, essentially a history of culture beginning with the Chauvet Caves. So what I’m hoping to present to you will be extremely schematic, the “theory” behind the book. It goes something like this: Humans are subject to biological evolution, which depends on random gene mutations. In addition to this slow-moving biological evolution, they evolved a second mode: cultural transmission. This second process depends on the ability to store and pass down information—knowledge of any kind—from one generation to the next without having to wait around for random gene mutations. This process of storage and transmission doesn’t change the biological makeup of humans, or only minimally so. But it does enable them to accumulate knowledge over time and to share it with others.
Cultural transmission requires institutions capable of storing knowledge and passing it on to the next generation, institutions that range from caves and temples to libraries, museums, and universities. But these institutions are fragile, always prone to destruction and decay, leading invariably to interruptions in the transmission of cultural knowledge. Such interruptions mean that humans are routinely confronted with remnants of past cultural practices they no longer understand, necessitating processes of interpretation, appropriation, and revival. Out of these processes dictated by loss and restoration, new cultural practices evolve. This basic mechanism of cultural transmission means I should focus my book on institutions and their distinct approaches to storage and transmission.
The basic sequence of storage, transmission, loss, and revival is joined by a second: encounters among cultures. Such encounters, both violent and peaceful, initiate similar processes of interpretation, adaption, and re-use, only this time along a geographic, rather than a temporal axis. Culture, here, is produced not by what gets, or doesn’t get, passed down, but what gets, or doesn’t get, passed across. This second sequence leads me to focus on modes of exchange, from destruction of cultural goods and their outright theft to more complicated forms of cultural grafting and re-use.
These two mechanisms of cultural production concern all human-made knowledge and practices, not just those associated with the humanities. So, how to distinguish the latter? I’m not sure and hope you will help me figure it out. One hunch I have right now is to say that what gets passed down—or across—is not only know-how (i.e. technical knowledge) but also know-why, answers to fundamental questions of existence, symbolic ways of meaning-making.
This distinction between know-how and know-why doesn’t capture everything historically associated with the humanities, and it doesn’t capture the technical knowledge that’s also part of the humanities, but it does, I think, capture what most people associate with the humanities today, and then essentially projects that back into history.
Humans are subject to biological evolution, which depends on random gene mutations. In addition to this slow-moving biological evolution, they evolved a second mode: cultural transmission. This second process depends on the ability to store and pass down information—knowledge of any kind—from one generation to the next without having to wait around for random gene mutations. This process of storage and transmission doesn’t change the biological makeup of humans, or only minimally so. But it does enable them to accumulate knowledge over time and to share it with others.
Cultural transmission requires institutions capable of storing knowledge and passing it on to the next generation, institutions that range from caves and temples to libraries, museums, and universities. But these institutions are fragile, always prone to destruction and decay, leading invariably to interruptions in the transmission of cultural knowledge. Such interruptions mean that humans are routinely confronted with remnants of past cultural practices they no longer understand, necessitating processes of interpretation, appropriation, and revival. Out of these processes dictated by loss and restoration, new cultural practices evolve. This basic mechanism of cultural transmission means I should focus my book on institutions and their distinct approaches to storage and transmission.
The basic sequence of storage, transmission, loss, and revival is joined by a second: encounters among cultures. Such encounters, both violent and peaceful, initiate similar processes of interpretation, adaption, and re-use, only this time along a geographic, rather than a temporal axis. Culture, here, is produced not by what gets, or doesn’t get, passed down, but what gets, or doesn’t get, passed across. This second sequence leads me to focus on modes of exchange, from destruction of cultural goods and their outright theft to more complicated forms of cultural grafting and re-use.
These two mechanisms of cultural production concern all human-made knowledge and practices, not just those associated with the humanities. So, how to distinguish the latter? I’m not sure and hope you will help me figure it out. One hunch I have right now is to say that what gets passed down—or across—is not only know-how (i.e. technical knowledge) but also know-why, answers to fundamental questions of existence, symbolic ways of meaning-making.
This distinction between know-how and know-why doesn’t capture everything historically associated with the humanities, and it doesn’t capture the technical knowledge that’s also part of the humanities, but it does, I think, capture what most people associate with the humanities today, and then essentially projects that back into history.
Martin Puchner is the Byron and Anita Wien Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. His prize-winning books range from philosophy to the arts and include Stage Fright (2002), Poetry of the Revolution (2006), The Drama of Ideas (2010), and The Written World (2017), a Wall Street Journal bestseller that has been translated into some twenty languages. His most recent book, The Language of Thieves (2020), interweaves family memoir with a reflection on Rotwelsch, the underground language of Central Europe, which he learned from his father and uncle. His forthcoming book, Literature for a Changing Planet, offers a world-literature perspective on the climate crisis, and he is currently working on a new introduction to the arts and humanities. He is the general editor of the Norton Anthology of World Literature, a Guggenheim fellow, and a member of the European Academy.