(Chairperson - English Dept. - Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi)
Humanism has been a powerful ideology especially in western civilization. The term itself is usually ascribed to German educationist F. J. Niethammer who in 1808 used it to denote the study of Greek and Latin classics - "Literae humaniores" or human letters. Through the term is of more recent coinage, humanism actually refers to the rediscovery of the classics, which was a distinguishing feature of the Italian Renaissance. To move from a God-centric, to a man-centric universe was indeed a major shift for the West. Arguably it is this shift which gave rise not only to Humanism as such but also to Humanities or the study of human beings as it is revealed in History, Literature, Art and so on. Humanism, especially secular Humanism of European humanists like Voltaire and Hugh helped to undermine the dogmatism and the power of the Church. This is turn contributed to the secularization of western society. Post-enlightenment academic disciplines tended to divided into pure or natural sciences on the one hand, and human sciences on the other.
