Cornell University President David J. Skorton, a physician and scientist whose advocacy of the humanities has previously been featured on 4Humanities (see posts of Dec. 5, 2010 and Dec. 1, 2010) has spoken out against the current proposal by the Republican Study Committee to eliminate all funding for the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities […]
All posts by Alan Liu
National Humanities Alliance Sends Out Action Alert on Threat to NEH
The National Humanities Alliance in the U.S. issued an “action alert” on February 7, 2011, calling on humanities advocates to “send a brief, customizable electronic message from the Alliance’s online action center” to combat legislation introduced by the House Republican Study Committee and Senate Steering Committee to eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities (among […]
“Certificate in Public Scholarship” at U. Washington Humanities Center
The University of Washington’s Simpson Center for the Humanities, whose director Kathleen Woodward has long had an interest in the “public humanities,” has announced a Certificate in Public Scholarship for graduate students at the University of Washington. Might such an institutional structure for humanities training that involves engagement with the public be a model for […]
What Would It Take to Create a Humanities Journal With the Public Impact of a Science Journal Like Nature?
In a recent post on Research Blogs, Christopher Pressler—Director of Senate House Libraries, University of London—reflects on “whether it is possible, or indeed even wise to start a journal in the humanities that has a similar market profile as Nature‚ the critical and popular science journal.” Nature, he observes, has the following characteristics: Highest prestige […]
Blaming Government, But Not Showing Why They Matter: A Critique of the Humanities
In a reflective opinion piece of 7 January 2011 in the BBC News Magazine, Alain de Botton—“philosopher and writer”—takes a sympathetic, but also sternly critical, view of the plight of the humanities under the threat of “cuts” in the United Kingdom. “If asked to apportion blame for what has happened to their departments,” he says, […]
A Humanities University Goes into Exile for the “Autonomy” to “Think Critically”
As Inside Higher Ed recently reported, the European Humanities University (EHU) “may be unique in the world in that it operates today completely as a university in exile.” Formed in Belarus in 1992, the university was forced to close by its home government in 2004. Subsequently, as EHU’s “About” page says, it “re-launched activities in […]
4Humanities Stipends for International Correspondents
4Humanities is seeking up to three bilingual or multilingual graduate students (or early-career researchers) from outside Australia, Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. who would each receive an honorarium of 450 Canadian dollars (total) for contributing at least one online post per month for a term of one year to the 4Humanities site (https://4humanities.org/). The […]