This article considers humanities teaching as a vital space where students might develop their capability as ‘practical reasoners’. The importance of this for self-development, but also for society and democratic life, is considered, while the economic purposes which currently dominate higher education are critiqued. An example is taken from the teaching of history to show how lecturers teach and students learn secular intellectual practices under pedagogical arrangements of communicative reasoning and ontological becoming.

Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 198-219, April 2022. This article presents playfulness as an emerging approach to learning in higher education that emphasises the arts and humanities across disciplines. The article is based on a qualitative, hermeneutical literature review in light of educational culture in higher education. The literature review indicates that playful approaches to learning stand in opposition to educational cultures that focus on rapidness and student performance. However, an educational culture of play (...) is about to establish itself, and this culture of play emphasises creativity in learning and human flourishing in education, perspectives that are connected to arts and humanities. The main findings cultures of time, performance and play lead to several questions about societal, institutional, and organisational educational culture, and regarding approaches to teaching, learning, humanity and society. The main contribution of this article is that a focus on playfulness offer the field of arts and humanities new possibilities in future education. (shrink)