Bulletin No. 1, 2010
Humanities · Humanity · Humankind The quarrel between utility and value is an old one. John Stuart Mill was the greatest of the Utilitarians, but also a man of deep humanity. He wanted above all to reform institutions and opinions: he served utility. But then one day he asked himself: what if every social and political reform you have ever worked for was suddenly achieved, as if by magic? Would you be full of happiness? And the answer was: No! Utility is not enough. It is about means; what makes us happy has to do with ends. Mill turned to poetry for that deeper sense of fulfilment. In the humanities we, or the books we read, ask: why are we doing all these useful things? What sort of people, what sort of companions, do we want to be? What are the true ends of life? Prof. Simon Haines, associate director of RCHV and chair of English Department The centre will hold it s inaugural conference to help give humanities its ‘rightful place’ in academia. Directors of humanities centres and academies from around the world will join key scholars from Hong Kong to examine questions, such as what kinds of value do the humanities have in a city largely focused ‘ ’ on wealth generation? How can the profile of the humanities be raised? Other activities in the pipeline include the seminar ‘Shakespeare and Value’, where scholars will speak on questions that arise from explorations of value in the Bard’s plays, how the works themselves help us to think about value, and our valuing of Shakespeare’s art.
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