The questions we pose in the humanities are very much on people's minds. In an essay-review for the blog Observations on Film Art, WashU's Colin Burnett, program director of Film & Media Studies, discusses how a questioning methodology drove the career of the renowned film scholar David Bordwell. A sample:

 

"Many of us write passionately and intelligently about things that interest us or our fields. But even passionate and intelligent writing can be redundant. It repeats what we already know or even ignores what we’ve discovered through painstaking effort. A questioning methodology is more ambitious and more exciting. It’s driven by truly open-ended inquiry that sets about filling important gaps in understanding. The researcher does not know the answer to the question from the get-go—because no one has yet to chart the terrain."

 

Continue reading here.