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 […]
Can you fill your sandwich with Dante? Some reflections after the Italian universities’ “reform”
By Domenico Fiormonte, University of Roma Tre, 4Humanities International Correspondent On December 14th, 2010, students from all over Italy filled the streets of major cities protesting – and, in Rome, rioting – against a new University Reform bill, the third in ten years and one that endangers the very existence of one of the largest […]
Con Dante nel panino
Il 14 dicembre 2010 gli studenti italiani hanno riempito le piazze delle maggiori città italiane per protestare contro una riforma universitaria – la terza in dieci anni – che minaccia l’esistenza di uno dei più estesi sistemi di alta istruzione pubblica del mondo occidentale. Gli scontri avvenuti in quella giornata non sono tuttavia la mera […]