I admire “public humanities” as much as the next person, but it does seem to me that the rise of that ideal has been driven partly by declining confidence that the humanities ~can~ produce knowledge.
That’s not a critique, or a claim about logical entailment. (“Couldn’t you say x AND y?” “Sure. You could.”) I just think in practice confidence about knowledge-creation feels much thinner than it did even 20 years ago, and it would be hard for that not to have an effect.
This reflection was most immediately sparked by this piece (which is good—I’m not dunking on it). But I see other evidence too, e.g. in the priorities of foundations. https://twitter.com/publicbooks/status/1288078752459751424?s=21 https://twitter.com/PublicBooks/status/1288078752459751424
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