Inside Higher Ed (September 3, 2021)
In this short essay from Inside Higher Ed, Robert D. Newman argues that to “manifest their relevance and preserve their viability” the humanities “…need to make alliances with and contributions to multidisciplinary initiatives focused on the numerous crises in humanity, not humanities. Resolutions to seemingly intractable problems require comprehensive approaches, including a humanities perspective.”
“For many years we have heard alarming news about the crisis in the humanities. The number of humanities majors in colleges and universities has declined steadily and, because of supply-and-demand funding formulas, so has the number of faculty positions. Several institutions have eliminated departments like classics, once the cornerstone of a liberal arts education. And some U.S. state systems and U.K. initiatives have proposed a differential tuition model premised on presumed pathways to employment that would further disadvantage study in the humanities except for those able to afford it, thereby underscoring the right-wing jeremiads branding the humanities as elitist.”