Analysis Of The Essay 'Course Corrections' By Thomas Frank

The humanities as Necessities

The concept of humanities has been around and taught in places of learning for centuries. Humanities focuses on the human race as a whole and how they act or respond to different scenarios. While it is still taught throughout the United states in its universities, humanities, according to Thomas Frank, is beginning to wane away ever since the 1980s. He is determined to not let college humanities drop away from view, however does it in a manner that almost washes his core argument away. In this essay, “Course Corrections”, Frank argument is overshadowed by his overuse of pathos with barley any logos used and his ethos mostly containing politicians rather than those with a humanities background.

Frank’s Claim is simple to grasp and is found in the first paragraph. He discusses how college-level humanities are fading away and that it should be defended from the “bulldozers advancing from two different directions” (Frank 740). He then gives evidence to support his claim throughout his essay like how many political figures are pushing college students towards more scientific and engineering degrees, leaving degrees in literature and humanities on the side of

Instead of having most of his authorities come from a humanities background, most of the authorities he uses were political in background, like former-president Barrack Obama or Thomas Friedman. When he does mention authorities in the humanities the author groups most of them together and does not name many of them aside from Bruce Cole. This essentially undermines a lot of his argument due to how Frank gave false authority rather than people with humanities backgrounds. The publication for this essay was The Harper, a well-known literary magazine with a trustworthy background as well. While the essay shows that the author did research the topic at hand this is no indication that the essay had any form of citing or works cited