Humanities News

France: Projects and campuses of excellence chosen

100 projects selected for funding under the French government’s “Labex” (Laboratories of Excellence) have been announced; the program is funded by a EUR35 billion (US$50 billion) growth fund announced by President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009 and is intended to create internationally competitive centers of higher education and research. Among the 100 Labex are 26 projects […]

The Humanities We Are For

David Theo Goldberg and Wendy Brown organized a forum on “The University We Are For” at UC Berkeley in November, 2010. A version was also put on at UC Irvine (see the embedded video above.) James Clifford talked about the Greater Humanities at the Berkeley event concluding, I’m urging that we keep our eye on […]

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 […]

Scotland: Stoppard fights cuts to languages at Glasgow

The University of Glasgow is talking about closing down many of its modern language programs to save money. This has people like Tom Stoppard sending letters to the Education Secretary and students protesting. The Guardian quotes Robin Perkins who is completing a degree in Portuguese as saying, “They are failing to understand how much modern […]

Commission on Humanities and Social Sciences Formed by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

At the request of a bipartisan group of U.S. legislators, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced on February 18, 2011, that it has created a new Commission on Humanities and Social Sciences funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Chaired by Duke University President Richard H. Brodhead and Excelon Corporation Chairman (and CEO) […]

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 […]