On May 11, 2011, executive officers and venture capitalists from Silicon Valley and humanities faculty and doctoral students from Stanford University will come together to discuss the ways in which humanities doctoral students can help Silicon Valley businesses and how these businesses can enlist humanities Ph.D.’s. Keynote speakers will include Vivek Ranadivé, Chairman and CEO […]
Voices For the Humanities
Digging Into Data Challenge Open Again
In 2009, JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee), a higher education IT consortium in the UK, launched the Digging Into Data Challenge. The digitization of large archives of books, folios, images, artworks and sound recordings in recent years has posed numerous challenges to scholars in the humanities; the Digging Into Data Challenge offered funding to 90 […]
Further Budget Cuts for Greek Universities
By Eva Kekou, 4Humanities International Correspondent In December 2010, the Greek Ministry of Education announced a 15-20% reduction in funds for adjunct lecturers and professors teaching at public Greek universities. The announcement came four months into the Fall 2010 semester, when, at the time, adjunct faculty had already been teaching without a signed contract and […]
Humanities at Risk in Britain
Post-1992 universities in Britain are more heavily affected by the government’s decision to withdraw the teaching grant from all but STEM subjects, and some fear the creation of vocational institutions for disadvantaged students, Inside Higher Ed reports. London Metropolitan University, which has the highest proportion of working-class students in the country, plans to eliminate history, […]
Modern Language Association Protests Federal Budget Cuts to Language and Humanities Programs
The MLA Executive Council has issued a statement criticizing the final Continuing Resolution for the 2011 federal budget in the United States, which includes dramatic cuts to International Education and Foreign Language programs, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The MLA urges its members in the U.S. […]
n+1: Why Bother? Review of Humanities Manifestos
In the most recent issue of the literary magazine n+1, Nicolas Dames reviews three recent books on the value of the humanities, Terry Castle’s The Professor and Other Writings, Louis Menand’s The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University, and Martha Nussbaum’s Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. The review […]
4Humanities Initiative: Humanities, Plain & Simple
Directed by Christine Henseler, The Humanities, Plain & Simple is a special 4Humanities project. It is a comprehensive and targeted campaign that calls out to individuals and groups inside and outside of academia to write statements in “plain language” as to why the Humanities matter. How has Humanities-based thinking directly or indirectly altered or innovated […]