By JAMES MULHOLLAND [The Chronicle of Higher Education] – I agree that the humanities are in hard times. However, I propose that we stop talking about the “crisis,” even stop using the word. I suggest that we change our vocabulary and attitude, and begin to offer a cogent reassessment of what the humanities do and why they deserve to be maintained and expanded within the university. I want to link how we talk about the crisis with how we respond to it.
Calling it a crisis obscures the fact that we are living through fundamental, long-lasting changes in the nature of higher education. The growth in adjunct labor has been decades in the making, as Marc Bousquet has shown, and a managerial ethic has also been expanding inexorably as well. The continuing structural changes are insidious because they are so mundane.
Despite those trends, I’m afraid that we are handcuffed to crisis narratives that are incomplete and ultimately disabling.
Continued at The Chronicle of Higher Education | More Chronicle & Notices.
