Advocacy Statements & Campaigns

Advocacy statements, examples of the importance of the humanities, and news about the past, present, and future of the humanities: 4Humanities provides a platform for endorsing the importance of research, teaching, innovation, and creative renewal in the history, language, literature, philosophy, the study of cultures, and other areas that help society focus on human values and needs.

See also the other materials gathered in our “Voices For the Humanities” section.

Universities in Crisis: Social Sciences respond

It is useful to see how the social sciences are responding to cuts and changes. The International Sociological Association (ISA) has a blog titled, Universities in Crisis. The blog has reports from different countries so you can see what is happening in a place like Italy. They have videos from sociologists around the world and […]

Cornell President Speaks Out Against Proposed Elimination of National Endowment for the Humanities in U.S.

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 […]

Project Humanities at Arizona State University

While at other universities the humanities are under attack, at Arizona State University they have launched a year-long Project Humanities. For more on the project see the interview with the Dean of Humanties, Live Talk: Neal Lester. To the question about the message behind the year-long celebration he says, Project Humanities raises awareness about the […]

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 […]

Public Research Competition 2011 at the University of Alberta

The University of Alberta is running an innovative graduate student competition for ideas and strategies for communicating Arts (Humanities, Social Sciences and Fine/Performing Arts) research to the public. See Public Research Competition 2011 – Faculty of Arts – University of Alberta. The idea is that graduate students get a limited amount of time to pitch […]