Abstract
This paper explores how unduly narrow definitions of expertise have undermined efforts to revitalize humanities education, and likewise offers a remedy–one that comes from an unexpected quarter. Traditional views define expertise as mastery of domain content. Knowledge lies, as it were, in an archive. However, new interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) education, engaging the arts and writing, can point us to recovering a complementary understanding of expertise, one that has forgotten roots in our own humanistic traditions. If we assume that adding the arts implies but one more dimension to the traditional Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, we have thoroughly underestimated the transformative potential of STEAM. STEAM’s transformative power lies in helping us reframe the very notion of expertise. STEAM education can point the way to a revitalized humanities education. It gives voice to a tacit rhetorical education that underlies and makes possible disciplinary mastery in ways that highlight design thinking and the rhetorical arts of invention. Were we to embrace a complimentary form of expertise—knowledge in the making—we could also recoup an often forgotten, rhetorically-inspired dimension of humanities education itself: the generative role of craft (techne) and practical wisdom (phronesis) in knowledge making. The archive can also become a maker space, inviting design thinking. An enriched notion of expertise as “knowledge in the making” has implications for how the humanities see themselves and their place in the university and society, and likewise presents opportunities to rethink curricular design and pedagogy.
Presenters
Rolf NorgaardTeaching Professor of Distinction, Associate Director Program for Writing and Rhetoric, University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Expertise, Techne, Design Thinking, STEM education, New Humanities
