Information from the University Registrar indicates that the number of degrees awarded in the humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences has plummeted over the last five years. College administrators, though, point out that the number of humanities majors has grown steadily when viewed from decade to decade.

Prominent Shakespeare critic and Harvard Prof. Marjorie Garber, English and visual and environmental studies, said the humanities is often wrongly viewed as an accessory to education during a lecture Wednesday in the A.D. White House.

How can we use literary themes to define what is contemporary?

The Cornell English Department has become a staple in the American literary tradition. Although it isn’t readily apparent walking around the streets of Ithaca, American literature has benefited greatly from the work of notable Cornellians, some within the now 105 year-old Creative Writing program. The program offered to students its Centennial Plus Five reading series this semester in order to celebrate their impressive literary legacy and offer students access to the wide array of literary studies Cornell has to offer.

This April, the famed collaborative work of two Cornell alumni, William Strunk Jr., grad, 1896, and English professor, and E.B. White ’21, The Elements of Style celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Known today as a universal guide in stylistic and grammatical writing for students, The Elements of Style’s history connects two generations of Cornellians.

Originally written in 1918 by Strunk, this “little book,” as White constantly referred to it, laid down the foundation for efficacious writing.

Strunk was able to consolidate the handbook by narrowing down the principles of writing to only eight basic rules of usage, 10 principles of composition and “a few matters of form,” according newsday.com.

For all the havoc that it has inspired, the recent economic crisis has engendered at least one positive development: humanities majors and like-minded literati have been able to make full use of the word schadenfreude. The German term, defined by the OED as “malicious enjoyment of the misfortunes of others,” has been so frequently invoked in recent months that The New York Times’ deputy news editor was forced to advise writers to lay off of it. But overuse is to be expected — these days, intellectuals have few occasions to rejoice.