My latest piece on the humanities’ future, from Inside Higher Ed (September 3, 2021).
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.
Read the full essay at Inside Higher Ed ›