The Humanities

Tracing the shift from liberal to neoliberal education from the nineteenth century to the present day, this open access book provides a rich and previously underdeveloped narrative of value in higher education in England. Value and the Humanities draws upon historical, financial, and critical debates concerning educational and cultural policy. Rather than writing a singular defence of the humanities against economic rationalism, Zoe Hope Bulaitis constructs a nuanced map of the intersections of value in the humanities, encompassing an exploration of policy engagement, scientific discourses, fictional representation, and the humanities in public life. The book articulates a kaleidoscopic range of humanities practices which demonstrate that although recent policy encourages higher education to be entirely motivated by outcomes, fiscal targets, and the acquisition of employability skills, the humanities continue to inspire and aspire beyond these limits. This book is a historically-grounded and theoretically-informed analysis of the value of the humanities within the context of the market.

In this bracing and original book, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that today’s humanities are an invention of the American academy in the years following World War II, when they were first conceived as an expression of American culture and an instrument of American national interests. The humanities portray a “dream of America” in two senses: they represent an aspiration of Americans since the first days of the Republic for a state so secure and prosperous that people could enjoy and appreciate culture for its own sake; and they embody in academic terms an idealized conception of the American national character. Although they are struggling to retain their status in America, the concept of the humanities has spread to other parts of the world and remains one of America's most distinctive and valuable contributions to higher education. The Humanities and the Dream of America explores a number of linked problems that have emerged in recent years: the role, at once inspiring and disturbing, played by philology in the formation of the humanities; the reasons for the humanities’ perpetual state of “crisis”; the shaping role of philanthropy in the humanities; and the new possibilities for literary study offered by the subject of pleasure. Framed by essays that draw on Harpham’s pedagogical experiences abroad and as a lecturer at the U.S. Air Force Academy, as well as his vantage as director of the National Humanities Center, this book provides an essential perspective on the history, ideology, and future of this important topic.

Offers the first overarching history of the humanities from Antiquity to the present.

Publisher description

This is a critique of Nietzsche's theory of culture that proposes an alternative paradigm allowing a defense of the humanities against such Nietzschians as Leo Strauss and Derrida.

Computer-Assisted Research in the Humanities describes various computer-assisted research in the humanities and related social sciences. It is a compendium of data collected between November 1966 and May 1972 and published in Computer and the Humanities. The book begins with an analysis of language teaching texts including the DOVACK system, a program used for remedial reading instruction. It then discusses the objectives, types of computer used, and status of the Bibliographic On-line Display (BOLD), semiotic systems, augmented human intellect program, automatic indexing, and similar research. The remaining chapters present computer-assisted research on language and literature, philosophy, social sciences, and visual arts. Students who seek a single reference work for computer-assisted research in the humanities will find this book useful.

Identifies and describes specific government assistance opportunities such as loans, grants, counseling, and procurement contracts available under many agencies and programs.

The Routledge Handbook of English Language and Digital Humanities serves as a reference point for key developments related to the ways in which the digital turn has shaped the study of the English language and of how the resulting methodological approaches have permeated other disciplines. It draws on modern linguistics and discourse analysis for its analytical methods and applies these approaches to the exploration and theorisation of issues within the humanities. Divided into three sections, this handbook covers: sources and corpora; analytical approaches; English language at the interface with other areas of research in the digital humanities. In covering these areas, more traditional approaches and methodologies in the humanities are recast and research challenges are re-framed through the lens of the digital. The essays in this volume highlight the opportunities for new questions to be asked and long-standing questions to be reconsidered when drawing on the digital in humanities research. This is a ground-breaking collection of essays offering incisive and essential reading for anyone with an interest in the English language and digital humanities.

At a time when faculty roles are under great scrutiny and faculty work itself has an uncertain future, this book offers a new approach to examining academic professionalism. This collection of essays applies a philanthropic lens to contemporary debates and considers academic work completed out of a moral responsibility to the public good. It provides a counterpoint to narrow conceptions of appropriate faculty work as limited to the production of credit hours and research dollars and offers evidence that faculty can have a wider role both within and beyond the “ivory tower.” By examining faculty members’ many contributions, not only to students but to society-at-large, Faculty Work and the Public Good provides an alternate perspective on America’s colleges and universities that will help preserve and expand professorial contributions to the public good. Although not all faculty are philanthropically inclined, highlighting those who are will help preserve valuable aspects of faculty work and encourage more such contributions to society. This volume is an essential read for higher education policymakers, trustees, and administrators; students and scholars of higher education and philanthropy; and individual faculty concerned about their profession. Contributors: Ann E. Austin, J. Herman Blake, Dwight F. Burlingame, Denise Mott DeZolt, Sean Gehrke, Audrey J. Jaeger, Adrianna Kezar, Jia G. Liang, Elizabeth Lynn, Michael Moody, Emily L. Moore, Thomas F. Nelson-Laird, Jason F. Perkins, William M. Plater, Gary Rhoades, R. Eugene Rice, John Saltmarsh, Lorilee R. Sandmann, Paul Shaker, Marty Sulek, William G. Tierney, Richard C. Turner “The contributors to this volume provide unique insights into this under-appreciated but significant dimension of academic work and culture.” —Jack H. Schuster, professor emeritus, education and public policy, senior research fellow, Claremont Graduate University “Provides a powerful rationale for broadening the definition of what are the valued contributions faculty members can make to their institutions, disciplines, and the public at large” —Judith M. Gappa, professor emerita, Purdue University

How might we reinvent the humanities? This is the question at the heart of this provocative volume. It is a difficult mission and definitely one which needs to be addressed with increasing urgency. There is no better cast to confront and problematize this question than the contributors to Conflicting Humanities. They are world-renowned thinkers who can tackle the problem as researchers and teachers but also as prominent public intellectuals. Taking the intellectual and political legacies of Edward Said as a point of departure and frame of reference, the contributors – working in a range of disciplinary settings – consider the current condition of humanism and the humanities. Said's definition of the core task of the Humanities as the pursuit of democratic criticism remains more urgent than ever, though it needs to be supplemented by gender, environmental, and anti-racist perspectives as well as by detailed analysis of the necro-political governmentality of our time. An innovative piece of scholarship, this volume is committed to the refusal of a world riven by new kinds of warcraft, injustice and exploitation.

Information and Knowledge Organisation explores the role of knowledge organisation in the digital humanities. By focusing on how information is described, represented and organised in both research and practice, this work furthers the transdisciplinary nature of digital humanities. Including contributions from Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and the Middle East, the volume explores the potential uses of, and challenges involved in, applying the organisation of information and knowledge in the various areas of Digital Humanities. With a particular focus on the digital worlds of cultural heritage collections, the book also includes chapters that focus on machine learning, knowledge graphs, text analysis, text annotations and network analysis. Other topics covered include: semantic technologies, conceptual schemas and data augmentation, digital scholarly editing, metadata creation, browsing, visualisation and relevance ranking. Most importantly, perhaps, the book provides a starting point for discussions about the impact of information and knowledge organisation and related tools on the methodologies used in the Digital Humanities field. Information and Knowledge Organisation is intended for use by researchers, students and professionals interested in the role information and knowledge organisation plays in the Digital Humanities. It will be essential reading for those working in library and information science, computer science and across the humanities. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.