Humanities

Humanities are academic disciplines that study human culture. In Middle Ages, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the time. Today, the humanities are more frequently contrasted with natural, physical and sometimes social sciences as well as professional training.

The humanities use methods that are primarily critical, or speculative, and have a significant historical element—as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences. The humanities include ancient and modern languages, literature, philosophy, international relations and musicology. Areas that are sometimes regarded as social sciences and sometimes as humanities include history, archaeology, anthropology, area studies, communication studies, classical studies, law, politics, semiotics and linguistics.

Scholars in the humanities are "humanity scholars" or humanists. The term "humanist" also describes the philosophical position of humanism, which some "antihumanist" scholars in the humanities refuse. The Renaissance scholars and artists were also called humanists. Some secondary schools offer humanities classes [almost across all modern legal systems], usually consisting of English literature, global studies and art.

Ken Swift

Ken Swift (born Kenneth James Gabbert) is a second generation B-boy, or breakdancer, and former Vice President of the Rock Steady Crew of which he was a longtime member and key figure. He is now President of the Breaklife and VII Gems Hip Hop movement in NYC. Ken Swift began B-Boying in 1978 at the age of twelve when he was inspired by dancers on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Widely known in the B-Boy world as "the Epitome of a B-Boy," he is universally considered by B-Boys to be the individual who has had the greatest influence on break dancing. Ken Swift is credited with the creation of many dance moves. His original footwork and "freeze style" became a foundational part of breaking, which was considered new concepts at the time.

Ken Swift has several film credits to his name, including "Style Wars", the first Hip Hop documentary, and the first hip-hop major motion picture, "Wild Style". His most famous movie was 1983's hit "Flashdance", where his two-minute dance with several members of the Rock Steady Crew launched the Hip-Hop scene into national attention. Ken Swift also danced in the motion picture "Beat Street".

Amanda Anderson

Amanda Anderson is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor for the Humanities at Brown University, and director of Brown's Cogut Center for the Humanities. She was director of the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University, a Guggenheim Fellowship awardee in 2009, and an American author. Until the spring of 2012, she was a Caroline Donovan Professor of English Literature and the head of the English department at Johns Hopkins University.

Career

Anderson received her Ph.D. from Cornell University and taught at the University of Illinois before coming to Johns Hopkins in 1999. She specializes in Victorian literature and contemporary literary, cultural, and political theory. Her work on the Victorian period has focused on the relation between forms of modern thought and knowledge (across both literature and the human sciences) and understandings of selfhood, social life, and ethics.

Her most recent book, The Way We Argue Now, analyzes a number of influential theoretical debates over the past decade or so, with special attention to the forms of argument that shape work in pragmatism, feminism, cosmopolitanism, and proceduralism.