Purpose: Much has been written about the crisis in the Humanities even as student interest in the Humanities continues to decline. In the so-called "post-truth," "post-COVID-19" period," however, the Humanities deserve attention for the important role they must play in preparing students for the world during a period of…

This article questions the use of the term 'siloed' to describe certain degrees or subjects in the Australian university curriculum. Education Minister Dan Tehan used the term as part of a justification of a re-set of funding priorities for university education from 2021 which he announced in June 2020. The Minister partly turned his argument on…

You can acquire knowledge, understanding, and habits of mind by studying James Joyce that are invaluable in a variety of ways and that many employers would like to see in their employees. What multinational organization, for instance, does not want professionals who, blending accepted wisdom with forward thinking, can critically assess business…

At an overarching level this paper attempts to draw attention to emerging trends in the humanities where alternative ways of doing science reconfigure epistemological traditions and research methodologies, the role of intellectuals and their engagement with current conditions of the world, including ways in which scholars gazes are constituted.…

In this interview Craig Calhoun talks about universities, the Humanities and his own research. Universities reinvent themselves in the face of societal and technological change. In the midst of this change, however, universities are charged with maintaining old ideals, with informing the public and creating opportunities for human development. The…

Heidegger argues that modern technology is quantifiably different from all earlier periods because of a shift in ethos from in situ craftwork to globalised production and storage at the behest of consumerism. He argues that this shift in technology has fundamentally shaped our epistemology, and it is almost impossible to comprehend anything…

In a cultural environment that maintains that post-secondary education ought to produce job ready graduates, the importance of the liberal arts and the competencies they teach, along with the questions they engage, often comes up for debate. In such a culture, honors may appear frivolous, elitist, and rear-guard. Angela Marie Salas defends both…

This article is a response to Hugo Letiche's "Bewildering Pedagogy," an extended critique of many of Snaza's published texts. In it, Snaza selected four important points of disagreement and elaborated four tensions between Letiche's claims and his own present thinking--tensions that all turn on ontological and epistemological axioms…

This article features a conversation on the occasion of a May 2018 "Festschrift" in "Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies" to honor the work of William Newell, between Newell and P. Sven Arvidson. William Newell is Emeritus Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Miami University, where he taught interdisciplinary courses full…

Wiljan van den Akker is a university professor, a respected academic administrator, and a published poet and writer. From a base at the Utrecht University, in the Netherlands, his three-decade long career spans three continents and includes one-on-one associations with Berkeley, UCLA and Oxford. Currently, he is the Vice-Rector for Research at…

This article provides a student's viewpoint in response to Larry Andrews' article, "The Humanities Are Dead! Long Live the Humanities!," which addresses and solidifies the notion that, at least from the standpoint of academicians, the humanities are alive and well. The author believes that a broader base of learning, an increased…

On January 3, 2012, the "New York Times" featured an article announcing the emergence of the new interdisciplinary field of animal studies, which is spreading across college campuses in new course offerings, new majors, and new undergraduate and graduate programs. This new field grows out of, on the one hand, a long history of scientific research…

This article supports Bérubé's conclusion regarding the intellectual health of humanities scholarship. However, it argues that the case of "contingent faculty"--or academics with short-term or casual contracts--is in many respects different in Australia to the situation he outlines for the US. Whilst a variety of funding pressures have…

The interview, which took place on the eve of the 2012 American presidential election, coincides with the publication of three major works by or about Hilary Putnam. It begins and ends with the topic of science, drawing attention to science's profound importance but also to its contemporary forms of distortion. It explores Putnam's…

In a world that no longer privileges thinking, Andrew Martino writes here that we might need to consider what we are asking of our students--and why--when we ask them to think. This article presents a declaration of how Martino thinks honors education can serve as a resistant force against the increasing encroachment of a wholly utilitarian…