Humanities World Report 2015

225 Pages·2015·1.156 MB·English

by  Poul Holm, Arne Jarrick, Dominic Scott (auth.)

Humanities World Report 2015
Also by Dominic Scott
RECOLLECTION AND EXPERIENCE
PLATO’S MENO
MAIEUSIS: Studies in Ancient Philosophy in Honour of Myles Burnyeat (ed.)
Also by Arne Jarrick
ONLY HUMAN
Studies in the History of Conceptions of Man
THE NEED TO BE NEEDED
An Essay on Humankind, Culture, and World History
Humanities World
Report 2015
Poul Holm
Arne Jarrick
and
Dominic Scott
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a
copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
© Poul Holm, Arne Jarrick and Dominic Scott 2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-50026-7
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Open access:
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this
license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
First published 2015 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndsmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire,RG21 6XS
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries
ISBN 978-1-137-50027-4 ISBN 978-1-137-50028-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137500281
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Contents
List of Tables viii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction 1
The purpose and scope of this report 1
Some qualifications 2
Our sources 4
Outline of the report 7
Prospects for the future 10
2 The Value of the Humanities 12
Introduction 12
Intrinsic value 16
Social value 18
Heritage, culture, memory 22
The economic value of the humanities 25
Contribution to other disciplines 27
Innovation 30
Critical thinking 32
Personal and spiritual development 34
Aesthetic appreciation 35
A distributional survey of the interview responses 36
Strategies for justification 38
Conclusions 40
3 The Nature of the Humanities 42
Part I 42
Thematic orientations 43
Part II 51
Reactions to the term ‘findings’ 54
Knowledge 57
Breakthroughs 58
Perception of the humanities 61
Conclusion 63
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vi Contents
4 The Digital Humanities 64
The world of professional digital humanists 64
Research trends 68
Resistance to digital humanities 72
Interview responses 74
Conclusion 82
5 Translating the Humanities 84
Translational research practices 84
Translational medicine 86
Evidence from interviews 88
Evidence from national reports 103
Conclusion 108
6 The Culture of Humanities Research 111
Introduction 111
Internationalisation 113
Interdisciplinary research 122
The value of interdisciplinary research 125
Institutional tensions 128
Conclusion 133
7 Funding and Infrastructure 136
Core funding for research 136
Non-governmental funding in developing countries 140
Competitive funding streams in developed countries 141
Research institutes 146
Infrastructure 148
Conclusion 157
8 Humanities and Public Policy 160
The United States 160
China 163
South Africa and Australia 164
India, Japan and Latin America 166
The European Union 167
Conclusion: the politics of the humanities 175
9 Conclusion 179
Overview 179
Recommendations 186
Appendix: The Interview Questionnaire 193
Contents vii
Notes 199
References 207
Index 209
List of Tables
3.1 Respondents who mentioned socially relevant themes 48
3.2 Respondents pointing to the value of cross-fertilisation 50
3.3 Reactions to the term ‘findings’ 55
3.4 Answers to the question ‘Do the humanities advance
knowledge?’ 57
3.5 Answers to the question ‘Do the humanities produce
breakthroughs?’ 59
4.1 Digital humanities centres and individuals by
region, July 2013 66
5.1 Translational practices among respondents 89
5.2 Respondent views on universities and translational practices 90
8.1 European humanities-relevant national research priorities 168
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our funders: the Swedish Research Council, the
Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and the Netherlands Organisation
for Scientific Research (NWO Humanities). Without their support, this
project would not have been possible.
We are also grateful to SHM Productions Ltd for their constant support
in running the logistics of the project and conducting desk research,
in particular Maurice Biriotti and Chris Paouros, as well as Maroussia
Bednarkiewicz, Eliott Champault, Zuzana Figerova, Gabrielle Guillaume,
Damian Low, Sofya Pattenden, Kate Peden, Steve Potts and Jon Turner.
We are indebted to several other individuals and organisations for
their input and support: Alexander Etkind and the Department of
Slavonic Studies, University of Cambridge; Jonathan Harle and the
Association of Commonwealth Universities; Dele Layiwola, University
of Ibadan, Nigeria; Michael Levenson and Keicy Tolbert, Institute for
the Humanities and Global Cultures, University of Virginia; Chun-
chieh Huang and Kirill Ole Thompson, Institute for Advanced Studies
in the Humanities and Social Sciences, National Taiwan University; the
Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study; the Olsson Center for Applied
Ethics, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia; Gwen Nally,
University of Virginia; and Charles Travis, Trinity College Dublin.
In June 2014, the Volkswagen Foundation and the Riksbankens
Jubileumsfond organised the Herrenhausen Symposium on the Global
Humanities. We are grateful to the organisers, particularly Wilhelm Krull
and Göran Blomqvist, for inviting us to discuss some of our findings at
this event.
In the run-up to publication, we have benefited greatly from the
professionalism and expertise of Paula Kennedy and Paul Cary at
Palgrave Macmillan.
Finally, we would like to thank all our interview respondents, who
have been the backbone of this project.
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