the vital relevance of making the humanities irrelevant.
Which again raises the question of why anyone would study the humanities today. Then it occurred to me that this was not quite the right question, that we need to move away from asking how to make the humanities “relevant” to the inhumane world we find ourselves inhabiting, and instead try to imagine what kind of world, outside the Academy, would be hospitable to people who wish to make reflective inquiry a vital part of their lives. — Rochelle Gurstein, “Oh, the Humanities! What liberal arts are good for,” New Republic 26 March 2010