Siyan Oyeweso
This paper seeks to explore the possibilities for charting a new
path for the Humanities in Nigeria in an age where non-Science subjects,
especially, the core Humanities, are treated with disdain in tertiary
institutions, the private sector and the government. It argues that the
long-standing policy that privileges science-based courses in admissions, job
placements, societal and governmental recognition as well as lop-sided funding
has contributed to consigning the Humanities to the margins of scholarship in
Nigeria, if not in other African countries. It is against this background of
unwarranted and ill-informed hostility on all fronts even from fellow academics
in non-Humanities disciplines that this lecture tackles the issue of
repositioning the Humanities in Nigeria. Essentially, the lecture considers the
current developments in the humanities globally and makes necessary suggestions
that could chart “new directions” for the Humanities in Nigeria.
It is not uncommon to hear about the imminent collapse of the Humanities. In an
age of globalization where almost everything is measured by utilitarian values
and science is given a pride of place in decision making, the very existence of
the Humanities is threatened. However, I contend in this paper that to deny
the importance of the Humanities in the train of civilization and
globalization, and shift the focus of the global development from man, the
creator, to the tools and skill (sciences) which are his creation, is to deny
what makes us human and venture into self-destruction.
Interestingly,
the artificial schisms between the Humanities and the core Sciences are getting
thinner by the day through the wide application of the interdisciplinary
approach to Humanities scholarship. Parts of the central questions which this
lecture seeks to answer are: What are the Humanities? What are the challenges
facing the Humanities? What possible solutions? What new directions?
The
story below best illustrates the critical state of the humanities in Africa. In
2008 the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) introduced the African Humanities Programme (AHP). This initiative seeks
to revitalize the humanities in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and
Uganda through fellowship competitions and meetings associated with them. The
AHP is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Fellowship awards to
promising African scholars are the centerpiece of the African Humanities
Programme. Approximately 40 such fellowships have been awarded annually since
2008. The African Humanities Programme is inspired by a commitment to the
humanities as a core component of higher education and research in Africa,
essential to progress and development. This
ACLS initiative is a timely intervention, indeed, a rescue mission for
humanities research and scholarship in Africa. The programme also underscores
the need to urgently reposition the humanities in the light of the new
challenges peculiar to the present age. Mankind today is confronted with
challenges that never confronted it in previous ages. But due to advancement in
science and technology, man has to contend with new issues that never arose
before, and resolve old problems that have assumed greater magnitude and
urgency.
The
Humanities are academic fields that study human conditions through analytical,
critical or speculative method. The Humanities are also defined as the group of
academic disciplines which focus on the study of man in society in its
socio-cultural, existential, multi-dimensional realities. The Humanities are
concerned with seeking explanations to the phenomenon of life and living and
understanding socio-cultural and physical environment of man.[i]
According to Perloff (2011) ‘the Humanities are not any one thing. They are all
around us and evident in our daily lives. When you visit an exhibition on
"The Many Realms of King Arthur" at your local library, that is the Humanities.
When you read the diary of a seventeenth-century New England midwife, that is
the Humanities. When you watch an episode of The Civil War, that is the Humanities
too.’[ii]
It seems Perloff’s explanation is too simplistic and inadequate because the
meaning of the word ‘Humanities’ goes beyond that. The Humanities consist:
the study of
history, literature, modern and classical languages; linguistics;
jurisprudence; philosophy; comparative religion; ethics; and the history,
criticism, and theory of the arts. Social sciences that employ qualitative approaches
such as cultural anthropology, archaeology, and political science are
considered part of the Humanities, as are interdisciplinary areas such as
women’s studies, …and the study of folklore and folklife (Humanities Texas,
2010).
Rieger views the Humanities as ‘a
branch of knowledge composed of clusters of related disciplines’ such as
history, philosophy, art, literature, language and religion. She further
explains that fields of studies in the Humanities exhibit unifying features and
convergence in their perspectives to understanding the diversity and complexity
of the world by examining historical, cultural, and philosophical dimensions of
human experience.[iii]
A more comprehensive definition of the Humanities is given by the United States
National Foundation on the Arts and the
Humanities Act Of 1965 as includes, but not limited to:
the study and interpretation of the following:
language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archeology;
comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism, and theory of the arts;
those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ
humanistic methods; and the study and application of the Humanities to the
human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage,
traditions, and history and to the relevance of the Humanities to the current
conditions of national life.[iv]
The
Act also defines the term ‘arts’ to include but not limited to:
music
(instrumental and vocal), dance, drama, folk art, creative writing,
architecture and allied fields, painting, sculpture, photography, graphic and
craft arts, industrial design, costume and fashion design, motion pictures,
television, radio, film, video, tape and sound recording, the arts related to
the presentation, performance, execution, and exhibition of such major art
forms, all those traditional arts practiced by the diverse peoples of this
country. [,] and the study and application of the arts to the human
environment.[v]
In
her book, Cultivating Humanity: A
Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education, Nussbaum (1997) argues
that the purpose of liberal education is to cultivate humanity through three
basic capacities. First, humanity can be cultivated through critical self examination
and critical thinking about one’s own culture and traditions. Second, humanity
makes a man a being who is bound to all humans with ties of concerns. Third,
through humanity, individual builds capacity for narrative imagination - the
ability to empathize with others and to put oneself in another’s place.[vi]
Perhaps
the problems confronting the Humanities began to surface in 1859 when Charles
Darwin published his controversial work, the
Origin of Species. There is no doubt that theology was the first victim of
the Darwinian Theory, How? One of the dreadful
and pessimistic tones on the future of the Humanities was made by Byrum
(1978:35) in his essay, Much Ado about
Little? The Crisis in the Humanities ‘The Humanities, if we are to trust
their academic spokesmen, are in trouble’[vii].
The multiple problems facing the Humanities today were caused by myriad of
factors. In the first instance, the elites who have benefitted from different
fields of study in the Humanities and occupied top positions in the society
felt threatened by the roles of the Humanities at liberating common people. The
anti-intellectual tendency of the ruling class has been nakedly displayed in
the budget allocation and education policy. Two subtle strategies were adopted
by this group to mute the voices of scholars in Humanities. First, efforts have
been made to redirect and narrow the range of societal debates to insignificant
and almost irrelevant issues. Second, there were also bureaucratic and
systematic persecutions of the Humanities through financing and administrative
policies.
Another
startling challenge posed to the Humanities came from the society. There seems
to be a rapid degeneration and substitution of societal values for the
utilitarian values. The prevailing laissez faire principle and the widening gap
between the rich and poor encouraged the use of wealth and material things to
measure the standard of societal progress. As far back as 1976, Oloruntimehin
observes: ‘There is little doubt that we are in the age of materialism,
interested primarily in pursuit and results of demonstrable immediate benefit.
It is an age which conceives of progress nearly exclusively in term of
affluence and technological feat.[viii]
Consequently, products of the Humanities became objects of ridicule and
persecution in the hands of avaricious capitalists who dictate and control the
current of the world economy. The tendency now is to link the value of
education directly to the employability of its products. Evidently, the rate of
unemployment and poverty of products and scholars of the Humanities is
shocking. As postgraduate programs in the Humanities proliferate irresponsibly,
turning out more and more graduates who cannot find jobs, the waste of human
talent becomes enormous and intolerable.
More
importantly, scholars in the Humanities have become very passive and
unconcerned about developments in the society. Their withdrawal from public
debate, rather debating among their colleagues, has made many people to
conclude that, scholars from the Humanities are either timid or bored. The low
research outputs by scholars who seek refuge in the four walls of the class
keep the rating of the Humanities constantly low.
In
addition, the gradual erosion of national boundaries (the process of
denationalization) through new technology has also posed serious challenges to
the Humanities. With the advent of sophisticated technology, the place and
relevance of the Humanities in human development became increasingly
threatened. New global communication technology has facilitated the
globalization of information and capital flows. Perhaps, the slow response of
various academic fields in the Humanities to the tide of globalization has
retarded their contributions to the material world in the post-modern period.
This problem has been compounded by the vulnerability of fields of study in the
Humanities through conservative adherence to old curricula. But whether
globalization is a continuous phenomenon or a new slogan, globalization is both
a continuity and a change for the Humanities. It is the link between the past,
the present and the unborn future. The myriad of problems of development facing
the third world today can neither be solved by science nor material things
alone.
The
Humanities are unquantifiable assets every nation possesses. In recognizing the
place of Humanities in national development, the United States Congress in 1965
declared ‘The arts and the Humanities belong to all the people of the United
States.’[ix]
Development is a human question that can be answered by man himself. In the
capitalist and multicultural democracy of the twenty-first century where money
and material objects, rather than knowledge and exposure to the intellectual
dimensions of the human experience, are the parameters of measuring physical and
social developments, the role of the Humanities in fostering human development
cannot be denied. Through exposure to the Humanities, different societies have
passed through the ethical, aesthetic, and intellectual dimensions of the human
experience, past and present, and so are prepared to make thoughtful and
imaginative contributions to the culture of the future.
Despite
the pessimism and lack of support for the Humanities, an advanced civilization
cannot limit its efforts to science and technology alone. Other great branches
of scholarly and cultural activities must contribute in order to achieve a
clearer picture of the past, a better assessment of the present and a better
analysis of the future.[x] The Arts and the Humanities reflect the high
place accorded by the people to the nation’s rich cultural heritage and
fostering of mutual respect for the diverse beliefs and values of all persons
and groups.
Humanities
and preservation of culture
The
Humanities centre on critical thoughts which engage in continuous critical
reflections of the past and the presents with the goal of affecting the future.
Again, the Humanities could be seen as the imaginative studies of human
experiences, critical thinking and analysis of cultural structures which help
in the preservation and exploration of our collective socio-cultural memory.
All the disciplines that are found under the Humanities, from philosophy to
history, music to drama and languages are, without doubt, repository of culture
and centre on how human knowledge have come to being. Beyond the building of
museums, art galleries and monument for culture preservation, the Humanities
preserve human culture in its totality through knowledge. During the early
stage of colonialism when the Europeans were condemning African civilization as
barbaric and attributed every sophistication to the now discredited Hamitic
hypothesis, humanities scholars laboured intellectually to unearth the
contributions of Africa to human civilization and helped the world to appreciate
the knowledge of Africa’s rich heritage. The humanities act as a bridge between
the distant past and posterity. History, which is just a strand of the Humanities,
plays this role since it is the record of human activities in time perspective.[xi]
At
this juncture, I crave your indulgence to speak briefly about the centrality of
History to the Humanities. History is the study of the past and the past that
exclusively concerns human.[xii]
Every other things described by the historians, whether natural phenomenal or
animals, are only relevant in historical discourse as it affects humans. Thus
the entire knowledge we have today of the human world was derived from the Humanities. History and society are inextricably linked,
according to Guy Rocher,
Society
is history. It is constantly engaged in an historical movement, in a
transformation of itself, its members; of its environment as of other societies
with which it maintains relations...
History
has been the instrument for organizing into intelligible knowledge the changes which
have occurred in the past of any society, and interpreting the collective and
individual experiences to provide understanding for the present and a guide for
the future. History is a medium for educating leadership as well as
transmitting the culture and cosmology of the people to successive generation.
The tool that is used however is language which also points to the sinews of
the humanities in the making of any society. A society without the ideals of Humanities
heads toward destruction. It is through the humanities that we come to be aware
of our identity and culture, religion and philosophy. The basis of law,
institutions, and customs are determined by the Humanities. Humanities is lived
and felt in human lives and it is used to establish a political and social
order. The Humanities are built upon the thorough understanding of the heritage
of the society.
Apart from the focus on the study of history, we also use languages to promote cultural studies, Humanities and preservation of African languages
The
language policies of most African countries are very poor. By the beginning of
the twenty first century, African languages have become secondary or adjunct
among the literate native speakers. It has been argued that in about 150 years’
time, the studies of African languages would have ceased in all our higher
institutions of learning.[xiii]
The threat of extinction of African languages can be linked to a few factors.
First, the various colonial administrations in Africa yoked different groups
with distinct ethnic and linguistic identities together for administrative
convenience. The imposition of foreign languages as official languages by
African governments in the post-colonial period set in motion the gradual death
of the indigenous languages. This problem is compounded by the language policy
of most African governments. Except with few countries such as Egypt and Libya
in North Africa where Arabic is adopted as the official language, and Somalia
and Ethiopia where English language is adopted as adjunct language of
instruction at the primary and secondary levels, indigenous languages are
receding as the medium of official and social interaction in the rest of
African countries. In the Anglophone and the Francophone countries of Africa,
both English and French languages are accepted as the language of instruction
from primary school to the University level and for use in the broadcast media.
The worst victims of language policies
in Africa are the minority groups. Two stages have been predicted for the extinction
of minority languages. First, minority languages submit to the predator
(majority) languages. Second, they succumb to the pressure from foreign
languages. In addition to the menace posed to them by the foreign languages,
languages of the majority groups also threaten the very existence of the
minority languages.[xiv]
In Nigeria for instance, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, which belong to the three
major ethnic groups are the most widely spoken among the indigenous people. The
implication of this is not only the threat of disappearance of the minority
languages; there is also the problem of identity for the minority groups.
How
can African countries escape the clutches of language predators? One of the
most loudly advertised solutions to the language problems in Africa is that the
language of the majority groups should be adopted as the lingua franca. While
this is a promising solution, it is to the disadvantage of the minority
languages. Although the use of Swahili in some countries in East Africa has
checked the growth of English language in that region, it has almost led to the
extinction of some weak indigenous languages. In addition, the imposition of
languages of the three major ethnic groups will be an attempt to de-legitimize
languages of the minority groups. This can spark unprecedented language-based
violence in the country. What Nigeria and other African countries need is a
long term language policy that will encourage indigenous languages, first at
the grass root and then at the state level. A good example can be emulated from
the multi-lingua India. The 1951 population census in India reported 845
languages and dialects in the country. The 1961 population census recorded
about 1,642 “mother tongues”. The government of India has adopted it as a
language policy to allow each state to own its official language while central
government business is conducted either in Hindi or in English. Within each
state in India, at least fifteen languages are spoken by an overwhelming
majority. To protect the minority groups within each state, the Indian
constitution guarantees that all children may receive education in their mother
tongue and that the state government may not discriminate against educational
institutions on the basis of language of instruction. The constitution also
provides for the appointment of a Special Officer who will serve as a watchdog
over the socio-cultural right of the minority groups[xv].
A
long term language policy advocated here involves the encouragement of both
written and spoken indigenous languages at the grass root level. The Nigerian
Government should therefore take a cue from the successful Indian example and
not only encourage the use of indigenous languages both at the primary and
secondary, but should go further to enforce compliance. It has been argued that
pupils taught in their mother tongues are likely to do better than children who
began their studies with English language. The Ife Six Year Yoruba-medium
Primary Education Project has testified to this claim.[xvi]
Another advantage of the proposed system is also that, it is easier and faster
to think in one’s language than in a foreign language.
The
adoption of indigenous languages by our legislature at the state level should
be encouraged to prevent the extinction of indigenous languages. The roles of
scholars in the humanities will include not only researches and the publication
of their findings but also their active involvement in various public debates
and publicity. Apart from scholars, it has also been suggested that Local
Governments in Nigeria can play a useful role in the preservation of indigenous
language in the country. The Federal Government has a herculean task to deal
with in the day-to-day administration. It therefore suffices that the
preservation of indigenous language be handled by other levels of government
like the Local Governments. In this regard, the Local Government can help to
facilitate the collection and collation of indigenous languages of their
communities for preservation. It could establish special schools to train local
language teachers who will, in turn, be teachers in primary and secondary
schools. In the same vein, the local authorities should be able to monitor the
progress of the language teachers in the schools.[xvii]
It
is significant to note that the above arguments should not be interpreted as
the obliteration of foreign languages in Nigeria but an exercise to preserve
the identities of the various peoples of Nigeria. The role of English as a
second language in Nigeria cannot be ignored due to its functions as a world
language as well as a common language to the different peoples of our nation.
Since English as used in Nigeria has been observed and confirmed by research as
remarkably different from standard forms such as British and American English,
and the trend is towards the development of the world Englishes, Nigerian English
should be codified and a common point of reference for teaching and learning of
the English language be established.
Facilities required for the teaching and learning of the foreign
languages should be provided to achieve optimal proficiency.
Another direction we should focus
on is the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the
preservation of languages. As language remains our window to the world, the ICT
has been found to provide us with an opportunity to tackle the problems of
endangerment and language death pragmatically and cost effectively. As observed
by Francis Egbokhare,[xviii]
Technology provides us with an opportunity to move from
’communication babel’ to ‘linguistic Pentecost’. ICT provides the bridge
between languages, the gateway between cultures and the network between minds.
We must however engage it, adapt and deploy it.
The ICT would help to nativise our technology. One
of its greatest impacts, according to Egbokhare
is
that technology will no longer be seen as belonging to foreign cultures and
peoples. In this sense, it will influence the thinking process and attitude to
technology. Second, it will increase the sense of pride and value in local
languages and cultures and thus help to preserve them. ICT becomes something
that can be owned and appropriated. Third, it will enable Nigerians, especially
over forty million Yoruba people engage in the Global Information
Infrastructure (GII). This innovation has a potential for redefining literacy
since one can be literate only in Yoruba and still have access to the GII.[xix]
INTERDISCIPLINARY AND TRANSDISCIPLINARY
STUDIES
Interdisciplinary studies may be defined as a process of
answering a question, solving a problem, or addressing a topic that is too
broad or complex to be dealt with adequately by a single discipline or
profession.[xx] It is an attempt to
combine methodologies from different discipline to offer analysis and interpret
a situation which may otherwise have defied one singular approach. It is a
process that brings together researchers of different disciplinary background
for a common goal, while the respect and purity of each discipline is
maintained.[xxi] Interdisciplinary or
multidisciplinary studies attempt an integration of diverging perspectives and
harmonization of various branches of knowledge to understanding phenomena. It
is a work that can be traced or located across literature, philosophy, science,
mythology and arts, borrowing ideas and approaches from them and transforming
those into original and synthesized voices.[xxii]
Two levels of interdisciplinarity have been identified by Klein (2005). These
include narrow interdisciplinarity
and broad interdisciplinarity. Narrow interdisciplinarity occurs
between disciplines of comparative methodologies such as history and philosophy
while broad interdisciplinarity occur among areas of disciplines with
contrasting methodologies such as sciences and humanity.[xxiii]
The concept of interdisciplinary studies
is not new in the humanities discourse and it has been used extensively for all
intents and purposes in history, especially when historians attempt a
reconstruction of the past. In this category belongs ancillary studies which draws on many sister disciplines like
Archaeology, Linguistics and Philosophy. Albeit this may appear narrow for
interdisciplinary attempts, yet it shows that it is not unknown to the
humanities. A broader form of interdisciplinary process could be located in
Ogunleye’s example of theatre artists working with psychiatrists at mental
institutions with psychological drama therapies for patients.[xxiv]
The hybridization of disciplines allows for pluralistic knowledge that helps formulate and analyze global cultural
realities.[xxv]
In the recent times, the attempt at interdisciplinarity in the humanities has
led to these two concepts, Medical
Humanities and Digital Humanities. The
critics of interdisciplinary approach in humanity have however warned of the
risk of surface research that lacks substance in depth and breadth and that is
bereaved of scholarly quality. Kamboureli summarizes these concerns that,
unless we foster specialization along with interdisciplinary methodologies, we
run the risk of producing a kind of general knowledge that will lack depth and
substance, a general knowledge whose pedagogical, cultural and political
implications will not serve the needs of our communities.[xxvi]
MEDICAL HUMANITIES
Interdisciplinary fields of humanities
(literature, philosophy, ethics, history and religion), social science
(anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, sociology), and the arts (language,
literature, theater, film, and visual arts) and their application to medical
education and practice are relatively new and largely unexplored especially in
the developing countries of Africa.[xxvii]
Medical Humanities deal with the intersection of human experience, medical
practice, and scientific technology and transcend the disciplinary boundaries
of academe and engage all aspects of human culture - science, history, ethics,
philosophy, literature, religion, art - in a discursive dialogue centered on
what medicine means in relation to the individual and society.[xxviii] Owing to the rich and in-depth knowledge of
the humanities, it is believed that it could offer an invaluable insight into
the human condition, suffering, personhood, our responsibility to each other.[xxix] It is an outgrowth of concern to tackle the
growing dehumanization of medical care. Being an interdisciplinary approach to
understanding the health and medical conditions of patients, it thus offers a
historical perspective on medical practice. Attention to literature and the
arts help to develop and nurture skills of observation, analysis, empathy, and
self-reflection - skills that are essential for human medical care. The medical
practitioners are made more sympathetic towards their patients and improve
their ethics in the course of discharging the duty required of them.
A trip to many hospitals today in Nigeria reveals the lack
of coordination not only in the tracking of the medical history of the patient,
but also in the ethical behaviours of many medical practitioners who are
largely insensitive to patients plights
or choose to ignore the plights of patients, at times till death. The
humanities help us to understand how bioscience and medicine take place within
cultural and social contexts and how culture interacts with the individual
experience of illness and the way medicine is practiced. Medical Humanities
explores how humanities disciplines can engage and illuminate the nature, goals
and practice of medicine.[xxx]
Sir Kenneth Calman, Chancellor of the University of Glasgow sums it up:
Perhaps the most important
characteristics of medical humanities is (sic) that it links seemingly
disparate disciplines and stimulates collaborations that benefit patients. In
this tradition, the work which will be presented here comes from medical and
arts communities, and from healthcare as well as academia. It promises to
generate discussion and new ideas, and stimulate further development.[xxxi]
The concept of Medical Humanities
is relatively new in African countries or perhaps yet to be identified within
Africa. If anything, the concept represents attempts by intellectuals to bridge
the lacunae between the field of medicine and the humanities and show that both
are not necessarily diametrically opposed. The disciplines encompassed by medical humanities
cross the borderlands between medical school, hospital and other healthcare
provider programmes, and also traverse the university.[xxxii]
Many of the critics of this concept have argued that medical humanities is a
term which emanate from humanities scholars whose discipline is facing
challenges of relevance in an increasing age of consumerism which lay values on
material reward and is highly technologically oriented. They conclude that it
is derived from the want of relevance. The critic may not be out of context for
the discipline of medical humanities is still facing identity crisis which
extends beyond its name[xxxiii].
However, identity crisis is not peculiar to medical humanities; it is as true
for many disciplines at their tender age of existence. Contrary to the critic arguments however, the
concept was developed by Dr Pellegrino, a foremost medical practitioner whose
concern for the erosion of ethics in medical practices in the US and evasion of
sympathy for economic reward in the profession has earned him ‘the father of
Medical Humanities’.
According to Campo, the
emotions of knowing intuitively that the way medicine is now taught and
practiced is simply wrong,
that the humane is being supplanted by unfeeling science and uncaring economics[xxxiv]. The work of doctoring
in our moment, has been converted from a sacred vocation borne of the desire
and duty to alleviate suffering into a merely financially rewarded, technically
challenging line of work. Thus, many of us find ourselves looking instinctively
to the humanities as a source of renewal, reconnection, and meaning[xxxv].
For Nigerian Universities, the
Medical Humanities will represent a new direction not only in the Humanities
and Medical faculties, but also in the practice of medicine in Nigeria. Through
personal experience and relations with many of the medical students as an
undergraduate in this university many years ago, it was realized that many of
the students studying medicine choose their career path not necessarily because
of the humane nature of the job, but most importantly because it pays the bill.
This factor among others determines their dispositions towards their patients.
Perhaps the incessant regular strike embarked upon by our medical doctors to
demand a pay rise would explain this better.
Colleges and faculties of
humanities in Nigeria will do well to redefine the curricular so as to
incorporate the elements of medical humanities in their curricula. By so doing
medical students would be encouraged to take courses in the humanities for
better ethical knowledge. The humanities faculties in our universities should
move with the trends in humanities discourse and work relentlessly to encourage
students to write their long essays in the new area. This will further promote
the relevance of the Humanities in the world of scholarly discourse and
contribute significantly to the ongoing debate.
DIGITAL
HUMANITIES
The
concept of digital humanities is not as new as it may seem[xxxvi]
and according to Hockey[xxxvii],
it has a very well known beginning traceable to 1949,
when an Italian Jesuit priest, Father Roberto Busa, began what even to this day
is a monumental task: to make an index verborum of all the words in the
works of St Thomas Aquinas and related authors, totalling some 11 million words
of medieval Latin. Though the concept is plagued by definitional problems owing
to various definitions from scholars and practitioners of Digital Humanities,
for workable definition, it could mean an
interpretation of the cultural and social impact of new media and information
technologies—the fundamental components of the new information age—as well as
creates and applies these technologies to answer cultural, social, historical,
and philological questions, both those traditionally conceived and those only
enabled by new technologies.[xxxviii] Reiger defines ICT within the
context of humanities scholarship as comprising ‘a range of technologies and
associated practices that support creating, sharing, accessing, processing and archiving
information as well as facilitating communication’[xxxix]. She however views digital humanities as ‘a range of ICT applications
that converge at the intersection of technology and humanities scholarship’[xl].
The Digital Humanities henceforth called DH is
the appropriation and adaptation of information technology to storing data,
accessing data, sharing data between and among scholars widely distributed on
the worldwide web otherwise called internet. The
digital age - characterized by web-based
media forms, massive data archiving, social networking, mapping technologies,
visualization of environments, and cloud computing - has brought about a
transformational moment that far exceeds the oft-compared revolution caused by
the invention of the printing press due to the nearly limitless possibilities
for the creation, analysis, and dissemination of knowledge.[xli]
Traditionally,
the humanists depend largely on archival materials, field studies, interviews, library,
journals and documents to conduct research and disseminate knowledge to their
audiences. The revolution in technology and the information age has brought
changes to the conduct of research which allows scholars not only to research electronically,
but also make their results available via the same means. Humanists are exploring differing modes of engagement,
institutional models, technologies and discursive strategies. There is also a
strategy-level push for the digital humanities which, among other things,
affects university research strategies, external funding and recruitment.[xlii]
The Digital Humanity Manifesto 2.0
(2009) states
that Digital Humanities is not
a unified field but an
array of convergent practices that explore a universe in which: a)
print is no longer the exclusive medium in which knowledge is produced and/or
disseminated; instead, print finds itself absorbed into new, multimedia
configurations; and b) digital tools, techniques, and media have altered the
production and dissemination of knowledge in the arts, human and social
sciences.[xliii]
Significantly, embracing digital humanities will foster scholarly
communication that enhances the creation, exchange and dissemination of
knowledge within the context of academic discourse. To be more relevant in this
ICT age, it is very important for scholars in the humanities to appropriate and
customize internet technologies to their field of studies. Through
appropriation and customization of digital infrastructure, scholars in the humanities
will not only adapt and create new platforms for dissemination of research
outputs but will also reach more sources and audiences. Another clarion call to
all Colleges and Faculties of Humanities is to create Digital Humanities
Centres (DHC) equipped with cyber infrastructure that will enable technical and
social configuration to aid the development of digital humanities. Our
libraries should go digital to be able to have a place in the 21st
century humanities scholarship. The role of government in promoting research
into this interdisciplinary approach will go a long way opening up this area of
study. For example in Europe, there is EU-funded
research on cultural heritage, digital libraries and digital preservation
(DigiCult). The Nigerian government will do well
to learn from the EU by funding researches. It is my
hope that humanities scholars in Nigeria universities will avail themselves of
the opportunities to key into these developments in humanities scholarship.
There is also the need to re-emphasise African
cultural studies in African Humanities curricula. The sources of culture to be
incorporated into the curricula range from the repertoire of African music of
various kinds, to the striking epiphanies of African Films, especially
Nollywood which has recently been rated the second largest in the world, to the
stand-up comedy initiatives, to the making of social, political and economic
cultures of communities and states in order to come to full terms with their
humanistic and artistic merits, which are ultimately exploitable for the
actualization of development.
Furthermore,
the need to re-position the humanities in Nigeria is reinforced by the fact
that the repositioning of the humanities has not only been done in Western
universities, but it is an ongoing process (Khor, 2001:24). In this regard a
scrutiny of the syllabus of the humanities in Europe and America would reveal a
refreshing departure from that of three decades ago. For instance, in the
Department of History, Cleveland State University, Credit courses in African
Religious Influence in America, Contemporary Afro-American Relations as well as
African Arts have been added to the conventional Afro-American History
(Williams, 2010:2). In the U.K., and so many universities in the U.S. the humanities
and the natural sciences have been organically fused to create such disciplines
as Medical Humanities, Humanities Computing, Gender Studies, Media Studies
Ethnicity Studies, etc. (Adesegun, 2007: 452; Wikipedia, 2010: 1). By creating
these hybrid disciplines, the strengths of the humanities are made available to
the sciences and vice versa. This tendency towards interdisciplinarity finds
manifestation in the adoption of integrated teaching approach in many colleges
of Humanities in American universities (Williams, 2010: 9). A noteworthy
example in this regard is The Initiative
for the Study of Religion and Spirituality in the History of Africa and the
Diaspora (RASHAD), by the Department of History, Cleveland State University
(Williams, 2010: 1) It is not surprising that in 2009 the Association of
American Colleges and Universities at the end of its annual convention issued a
communiqué urging the Humanities to de-emphasize the Ivory Tower view of
liberal education and emphasize more its practical and economic value (Cohen,
2009: 2).
At
this juncture, the point is worth noting that the need to reposition the
Humanities has not been totally lost on Nigerian scholars. Indeed, as far back
as 1996, the Department of History, Lagos State University, blazed the trail
when it reviewed its Curriculum and transformed itself into the Department of
History and International Studies (Oyeweso, 2006:4; Olukoju, 2007: 178).
Indeed,
this development is not by any means limited to history alone. Similar trend
can be seen in the transformation of Departments of English Language to
Departments of English and Literary Studies, English and Creative Arts etc.
Similarly, Mass Communication Departments across Nigerian universities have
being resorting to nomenclature change such that in place of Mass Communication
the tendency is to combine Mass Communication with Film Studies, or rechristen
it as Communication and Media Studies, etc.
However,
curriculum review and nomenclature change is not an end in itself. The belief
is that by so doing, graduates of Nigerian humanities colleges can possesses an
education that has both academic content, and vocational content. Thus, such
graduates would have the benefit of the refinement that comes with liberal arts
education, as well as vocational skills that place them in good stead in the
employment market. This is the philosophy behind the curriculum design in the
College of Humanities and Culture, Osun State University, where all the courses
on offer are double honours.
Conclusion
Scholarship
in the Humanities in Nigeria has its peculiar challenges especially in the
contexts of the worsening crises of underdevelopment, nation building and
globalization. Scholars in the humanities possess skills and knowledge that are
valuable in contemporary world. However, deploying these unique skills in the
service of mankind in this ever changing world requires pragmatism and not
dogmatism on the part of Nigerian scholars in the humanities. This is no time
to be cocooned and oblivious of developments in other parts of the world. The
Nigerian humanities scholar of today cannot afford to be provincial in his
scope or methodology. Indeed, this paper asserts that this is the era of
digital humanities. There must be fruitful dialogues between the sciences, the
technologies and the humanities. Newly emerging interdisciplinary fields such
as bio-humanities, medical humanities, forensic linguistics and computational
linguistics must also be explored if the humanistic disciplines are to remain
relevant in the contemporary age. It is the conviction of this paper that the
foregoing is sine qua non for a
better repositioning of the humanities scholarship in Nigeria.
References
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[xxiii] Oya Yiedrim Rieger, Humanities Scholarship in the Digital Age.
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