By James Turner. Listen to the dire talk around colleges and universities, read op-eds and magazines, and you might think the humanities were in greater danger than the earth’s climate. In fact, despite the overheated rhetoric, the humanities are not at death’s door. Contemporary pressures will more likely push them into a new shape, even ultimately a healthier one. That claim might seem bizarre. The proportion of college students majoring in the humanities has sunk to an all-time low. Students have turned their backs on art history and literature in favor of studies, like accounting and nursing, that lead directly to jobs. More...

Sur le blog "Histoires d'universités" de Pierre Dubois. Séminaire à l’INHA, 31 mai 2014 : le docteur en histoire de l’art, acteur de son projet professionnel vers l’entreprise. Combien de contrats doctoraux en SHS, en Histoire, en Histoire de l’Art ?
Un exemple. Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, École doctorale ED 441, Histoire de l’art. Contrats doctoraux 2014 – 2015 : cinq postes ouverts au concours. Suite...

By Vimal Patel. Humanities doctoral programs are under intense scrutiny. Policy makers, scholars, and the public have questioned whether universities should be producing so many Ph.D.’s in those fields, especially when the job market for tenure-track positions is tight. The Modern Language Association on Wednesday proposed a path forward for doctoral programs in literature and languages that calls for change but not contraction. In a document, titled "Report of the Task Force on Doctoral Study in Modern Language and Literature," the association agreed with critics on one point at least. Read more...

By Antonia Molloy. The Education Secretary has reportedly insisted students must study British works. 
Classics of American literature, including Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, have been dropped from the English literature GCSE syllabus following demands reportedly made by Michael Gove. 
The Education Secretary said students ought to focus on works by British writers such as Jane Austen and Shakespeare, The Sunday Times reported. More...

By Colleen Flaherty. Criticizing humanities doctoral programs is easy. They take too long, they continue to emphasize training for tenure-track faculty positions in an era when such positions are scarce, they encourage the book-model of dissertation at a time when books are hard to publish, even full funding isn’t always “full” – the list goes on. Read more...

By Michel Hockx. Two large Chinese funding bodies for scientific research are promoting so-called “open access” to research outcomes, according to an article in Nature. The Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China announced that researchers they fund should make their papers available in open-access repositories within a year. More...