Humanities

Anglophone scepticism about the value of language study had been rising for many years before anyone had heard of Duolingo or ChatGPT. But while some academics believe technology will kill off universities’ remaining language departments, others dare to hope it will be their saviour. Patrick Jack reports

The humanities- and social sciences-focused institution is the canary in UK higher education’s increasingly explosive coalmine, says Sir Keith Burnett

University says it intends to phase out teaching in areas also including art history and journalism, as UWE becomes latest institution to announce job cuts

Cameroonian historian and philosopher Achille Mbembe says continent’s universities need more funding, and better global partnerships

Our department obliges Jewish studies students to study Islamic civilisation and vice versa. But will extremism put off applicants, asks Jonathan Judaken

University lifts possibility of compulsory redundancies ahead of planned six-day walkout

Attacks by the likes of Donald Trump and Narendra Modi on how the humanities are taught speak to the enduring political power of these subjects despite their precarity within the academy, says Saikat Majumdar

Development of ‘cold spots’ without arts and humanities programmes prompts calls for more strategic approach to university provision

Students sue Chichester over axeing of unique course, alleging discrimination and breach of contract

Scarce funding means only the library-driven Subscribe to Open scheme is viable outside the sciences, says Christina Lembrecht

Union branch votes to take industrial action after university proposes closing single honours degrees, affecting 30 jobs

University considering ‘phasing out’ provision in subjects where ‘we no longer feel we can be competitive’

Oxford Brookes’ confirmation of its decision this week is another blow to the UK’s status as a global music powerhouse, says Daniel Grimley

Professors from different disciplines will join forces to tackle big societal questions

History centre shut during University of Brighton cuts could continue as autonomous organisation

University still looking at closing single honours programmes after declines in recruitment

Thousands sign petition opposing plans to close degree programmes as university court meets to discuss whether to put plans on hold

Aberdeen’s proposal to slash its provision belies positive recent developments, say Wendy Ayres-Bennett, Charles Burdett and Emma Cayley

Long series of demonstrations aims to resurrect troubled lecturer, largely because students value her bigger understandings

Union pledges to fight ‘academic vandalism’ being consulted on by Scottish university

Timothy Snyder and Serhii Plokhii among researchers joining project founded by philanthropist Victor Pinchuk

Linguistic fluency ‘seldom achieved’ and peripheral to ‘the jobs of today and the future’, Australian university claims

Aberdeen’s proposal to close language degree programmes might save money but it will impoverish international understanding, says Charles Burdett

Innovative programmes to revive student interest in the humanities are great, but they must be properly funded and staffed, says an academic

‘The change’ is finally starting to get the attention it deserves, but the issues go far beyond the medical field, say Joanne Ella Parsons and Ruth Heholt

Arts and Humanities Research Council funding ‘has been some sort of oasis, but it too is now quickly drying up’

Some politicians are using the supposed ideological character of research to justify imposing greater control over it, says Martyn Hammersley

As Smolny’s liberal arts programme shutters, Russian scholars attempt to revive the interdisciplinary style of learning outside the country

Scholars lament loss of ‘critical’ resource in Nordics at a time when knowledge of Asia is ‘increasingly important’

The impact agenda has been kind to me, but its obsession with science and growth are huge flaws. Time to get out, says Rupert Read

As a small fish in a very big pond, New Zealand can ill afford to turn its back on its giant neighbours, academics warn

Academics voice concerns over ‘short-sightedness’ of programme envisaging opening of dozens of science departments

Scientists and technologists must participate in a genuinely collective project to regulate technological development, says Nicholas Dirks

Renewed efforts under way to show worth of creative subjects to students and society as some ‘cheer’ their possible demise

STEM subjects are important, too, but the creative economy employs more young people than any other sector, says Stuart Croft

Society issues warning as British Academy expresses concern about future of English degrees

As his new book on pandemics is published, the UK’s best-known historian tells Matthew Reisz that identity politics is inhibiting history, nationalism only intensifies during global crises, and a refusal to communicate history to the public amounts to mere ‘connoisseurship of the dead’

Decline is not inevitable: there is plenty that university leaders can do to shore up students’ interest in these crucial subjects, says Kathryn Shailer

There are few professional roles that would not benefit from a broad and complex humanities foundation, says Harvey Graff

Basing teaching around the fundamental challenges faced by society will benefit both the humanities and humanity itself, says Doug Haynes

ChatGPT must compel humanities scholars to rethink their acceptance of intellectual mediocrity and lax standards, says James Walker

The lost golden age of hiring and wider social appreciation of the disciplines never existed, says Harvey Graff

We need to find mechanisms to plug in relevant humanities and social sciences from the very beginning of projects, says Christina Boswell

Students want to understand the complexities of their own relationships, and the philosophy of love has set its heart on doing so, says Luke Brunning

‘Bit of this and a bit of that’ education more effective training for world of many opportunities, says Kwame Anthony Appiah

Classicist hopes her retirement will allow more of the ‘precariat’ to get a foot on the academic career ladder

Monograph publishing needs partnerships between university presses and scholarly societies, say Helen Beebee, David Teira and Brian Scrivener

Universities should equip students to deal with changing nature of work through broad education, says National Humanities Medal recipient

Median age at degree completion shrinks, although share of field’s graduates with job commitment does too, American Academy of Arts and Sciences finds

Scholars say Russia’s war is to blame for decline in first-year students, with some noting ‘unprecedented’ increases in Polish and Ukrainian languages

The humanities do not have uniquely transformational qualities or a monopoly on critical thinking and empathy. With departments under threat outside the UK’s elite institutions, better to insist on the importance of everyone’s being able to interrogate the stories we tell ourselves, writes Joe Moran

The latest A-level data show concerning long-term trends in the popularity of humanities subjects, says Julia Black

As the Indian and the US examples both show, openness and flexibility is easily limited by parochialism and provincialism, says Saikat Majumdar

The idea that revisionism is something to be ashamed of harks back to a mythical golden age of classics, canons and objective truth, says Harvey Graff

If authors are no longer required to justify their fundamental assumptions, where does that leave referees, asks Martyn Hammersley

Despite holding its own at Peking University, Yuanpei College still encounters resistance to its approach, professor says

The perception of technicians as non-intellectual workers contributes to the undervaluing of technical career paths, says Urszula Pawlicka-Deger

We distract from the debate on the importance of the arts if we don’t review and re-energise our humanities offerings, says Chris Husbands

An internalised, colonial-era emphasis on exam grades is preventing students from deeper learning, forum hears

Humanities benefit individuals, societies and economies. They should be accessible to students from all backgrounds, says Neal Juster