Harpham

This year’s M.H. Abrams Distinguished Visiting Professor in English has close ties to Abrams: Geoffrey Harpham has co-edited three editions of “A Glossary of Literary Terms” with Abrams, taking over as sole editor for the most recent edition. Harpham is also president and director of the National Humanities Center (NHC), which Abrams co-founded.

“Students this fall will have a unique opportunity to study with one of the country’s leading literary critics, as well as one of its staunchest and most eloquent advocates for the humanities,” says Roger Gilbert, professor and chair of English. “His seminars are certain to be both provocative and inspiring.”

The M.H. Abrams Undergraduate and Graduate Seminars Harpham will teach during the fall semester are classes he would love to have taken as a student, he says. The graduate seminar, “What Is a Humanistic Criticism?,” is named after one of Abrams’ essays. It will examine the intellectual foundations of modern humanities, including texts from art history, literary studies and history; texts of official pronouncements on the humanities; and challenges to “outliers” of the humanities, to help students understand that there’s a humanistic way of looking at the world.

“A humanist’s criticism takes history, and especially human subjectivity, very seriously," Harpham explains. “Humanistic criticism invariably has an element of interpretation, judgment or evaluation.”

The undergraduate seminar, “Narrative and Moral Crisis,” will examine literature and film, looking at them from a perspective of the moral issues raised – “the ways in which the narrative plunges you into confusion and uncertainty,” says Harpham. He intends to emphasize depth rather than breadth, adding that “students will need to know what we’re studying in great detail.”

Harpham is enthusiastic about teaching at Cornell, especially in the context of his work at the NHC. “Cornell is a land-grant institution with a technical and practical orientation, and yet it has among the greatest humanities departments of any university in the country,” he says, noting that “Mike Abrams is the greatest living literary scholar, and he spent his entire career at Cornell.” (President Obama recently honored Abrams with the National Humanities Medal.)

Harpham was trained as a literary scholar, but his work has encompassed the role of ethics in literary study, the place of language in intellectual history and the work of Joseph Conrad. In recent years, he has become a prominent historian of and advocate for the humanities, as reflected in his most recent book, “The Humanities and the Dream of America.” He has received fellowships from the J.S. Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

As NHC director, Harpham advocates for the humanities. He cites “The Heart of the Matter,” a recent report solicited by Congress, in which CEOs were asked what kind of education they would want their employees to have; 80 percent said they preferred liberal arts backgrounds. For their own children’s education, more than 90 percent of the same group said they would want a liberal arts education with a strong humanities component.

“The difference is between education and training,” says Harpham. “Education equips you for a lifetime of unpredictability. Training equips you to do a specific job.”

Harpham will explore the history and ideological underpinnings of the humanities in the United States and American humanities’ unique place in the world in a public lecture Nov. 13 at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall.

Linda B. Glaser is a staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.