Humanities - Humanities Today - Legitimation of The Humanities

Legitimation of The Humanities

The modern "crisis" facing humanities scholars in the university is multifaceted: universities in the United States in particular have adopted corporate guidelines requiring profit both from undergraduate education and from academic scholarship and research, resulting in an increased demand for academic disciplines to justify their existence based on the applicability of their disciplines to the world outside of the university. Increasing corporate emphasis on "life-long learning" has also affected the university’s role as educator and researcher. Responses to those changing institutional norms, and to changing emphasis on what constitutes "useful skills" in an increasingly technological world, have varied greatly both inside and outside of the university system.