Is the Human Being Cut Out of the Humanities?

On the 8th October 2025, Lancaster University invited Stefan Collini, Emeritus Professor of Literature and History at the University of Cambridge to share his perspective on ‘The Humanities: Past, Present and Future?’ While Collini stated the necessity of conversation surrounding Humanities subjects and their application in the 21st century, the dialogue felt detached from the classroom, inspiring a commentary that seeks to respond directly from a Humanities student’s perspective.

As of the 25th November, Nottingham University’s council is engaged in discussions regarding their planned suspension of 48 courses across 15 subject areas, most notably these include Modern Languages, Education, Music and Theology. Collini offers a ‘realistic’ view on the value of the Humanities – that the Humanities will not be solving immediate worldly problems, but that its focus remains vital to cultural inheritance and is at the core of the ‘spirituality of the country.’ In his lecture, he also stated that in the future, if society and the education system continue to dismiss art and authenticity, the Humanities will revert to their historical positions as subjects reserved for the ‘privileged,’ further extolling ‘the most selective institutions.’ Yes – the Humanities may enclose themselves further into their locked offices of ‘privilege,’ but only if we don’t change the locks and create extra keys to open them. In other words, if we don’t change the conversation.

‘With a decline of enrolments to Humanities and English programmes across the sector, Stefan Collini identifies a real risk. This would be a tragic, anti-democratic outcome for a deeply democratic subject.’ Our subjects used to be ‘platforms for regeneration and aspiration’ states David Amigoni, Professor of Victorian Literature at Keele University. I reached out to my roots and the contacts that helped me grow in the discipline to develop my commentary, and to reflect on the academic experiences I have had as a Humanities student. Through conversations and questionnaires with secondary school students, the attitude reported back regarding their Humanities lessons, specifically English, was that of boredom, repetition, and disinterest. So, not only does the dialogue need to change outside the classroom and outside the university lecture hall, but within the very core of our academic journeys too; especially for Humanities students that are often alienated from a larger society that is gradually turning its back on art, authenticity and the application of Humanities subjects in the field of work.

As undergraduates, postgraduates and scholars, what are we doing to give back to the community? To encourage more young voices to pursue their dream degree at an academic level that they feel confident in, without the biased dialogue of institutions and individuals on pedestals constructed by stereotypes? So, what solutions do us creatives have? Maybe, we follow the Romantics and reject societal restraints, use them to grow our own ideas instead. To cultivate life, real, thoughtful life instead of limiting ourselves to petri dishes of thought.

It is true, that, for example, English lessons across secondary curricula are being standardised, and are ‘failing to engage and instruct’ young people (Collini) but everyone is a Humanities student, even those pursuing a degree in STEM, even if they don’t know it. This is because socially, everyone is a free thinker, philosopher and/or artist. Everyone thinks, but not everyone exercises their right to do so professionally.

This could be due to media which elevates STEM to a ranking higher than Humanities on the academic and professional ladder, making Humanities subjects subordinate to their scientific counterparts. It could also be the process of disabling funding for certain subjects at an academic level, which results in the denial of free thought and expression to those who wish to localise their creativity, and pursue careers which ultimately do positively develop culture and society. Collini explored the notion of science being accessible and pursuable anywhere, while Humanities are limited to their respective countries and communities – galleries, museums, publishing, funding. But if ‘humanities cannot demonstrate value, only ideas of usefulness’ it is no surprise its scholars and academic institutions adopt that same feeling of mediocre usefulness instead of innate value within society.

By pressuring young people into STEM careers without acknowledging the ‘important skills that employers value and should especially prize in these days of AI’ (Amigoni), essentially, they are submitting to the notion that speech and the right to exercise one’s interests doesn’t matter in the scale of career and material growth. ‘English is a superb interdiscipline, so take advantage of opportunities to become skilled in and knowledgeable about STEM subjects, too: literature and science create, between them, important, innovative ways of knowing and researching the world.’ (Amigoni) One can’t grow without the other – because of this dichotomy being pushed at young students from all directions, separating the disciplines instead of encouraging cooperation is cultivating a lost, miserable generation of students that are torn between passion and assumed practicality.

Philosophers are applying for physics, poets are practicing medicine, and English students are evaluating their decisions. While these are all ‘noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life’  in the words of Walt Whitman, we are more than the limitations of a modern education system on a mission to standardise our language and the purpose it serves in communicating the human experience - what we do not realise is that we (as writers, artists, historicists, philosophers and students) accommodate for others - through our writing and our words, we blanket the soil with green grass of poetry, making a soft landing for our readers. A flowerbed of relatable prose. Potential of the Humanities and English is having soil thrown over its coffin, with students digging up the dirt and sleeping on their potential like Heathcliff.

Perhaps the poets are dying out because they’re not reading their own poetry? Start the conversations and don’t stop writing, reading and thinking.

If we submit to discussions of depreciation, it allows others to end our chapters for us instead of building our own libraries of experience.