The New Humanities Reader

THE NEW HUMANITIES READER presents 25 challenging and important essays from diverse fields that address current global issues. This cross-disciplinary anthology helps readers attain the analytical skills necessary to become informed citizens. Ideas and research from wide-ranging sources provide opportunities for readers to synthesize materials and formulate their own ideas and solutions. The thought-provoking selections engage and encourage readers to make connections for themselves as they think, read, and write about the events that are likely to shape their lives. The fifth edition includes nearly 50 percent new reading selections, which continue to make this text current, globally oriented, interdisciplinary, and probing.

Richard E. Miller, Executive Director of the Plangere Writing Center, is the author of Writing at the End of the World (Pittsburgh, 2005), As If Learning Mattered: Reforming Higher Education (Cornell, 1998), and co-author, with Kurt Spellmeyer, of The New Humanities Reader (Houghton-Mifflin, Cengage, 3rd edition, 2008), a textbook used in first-year writing courses in high schools, colleges, and universities across the country. Together with Paul D. Hammond, Director of Digital Initiatives in the Rutgers University Writing Program, Professor Miller is developing a revitalized version of the humanities that engages with the sciences and the social sciences to improve the quality of human life by addressing the biggest problems of our time. This multi-faceted, interdisciplinary project includes designing new spaces for learning and performance; developing new curricula which aim to foster creativity and curiosity; and launching collaborative projects that seek to engage the public sphere.

Kurt Spellmeyer is Director of the Writing Program at Rutgers University. He is the author of Buddha at the Apocalypse: Awakening from a Culture of Destruction (2010); Arts of Living: Reinventing the Humanities for the Twenty-first Century (2003); and Common Ground: Dialogue, Understanding, and the Teaching of Composition (1992). He also has written articles on the theory of composition, critical theory of composition, critical theory, and academic institutions.