This Week in History: Debating the role of interdisciplinary humanities in a Princeton education

Yi (Chris) Xin February 25, 2026 1 min read

This Week in History: Debating the role of interdisciplinary humanities in a Princeton education

Yi (Chris) Xin
Daily Princetonian

89 years ago, the pages of the ‘Prince’ featured a series of lively debates in the “To the Editor” section about the future of the humanities curriculum at Princeton. One of the central issues of the debate, as Wallace Irwin Jr. ’40 wrote in his letter to the editor on Feb. 22, 1937, was striking a balance between the breadth of humanistic disciplines and the realistic limit of students’ time.

Irwin’s letter was a direct response to Temple Fielding ’39, who, just a few days prior, wrote a proposal for a drastic curricular change and published it in the ‘Prince.’ Fielding suggested a course combining content from different academic departments, offering undergraduates an interdisciplinary exploration of various cultural fields. 

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