Worlding the Social Sciences and Humanities

Abstract

Under the impact of globalization, the study and teaching of the social sciences and humanities is rapidly changing. In many ways, what we see is a growing transfer of research, knowledge, and method from the West to other parts of the world, and in the first instance China. This development is steered by far-reaching changes in the organization of higher education in both the West and in this case China, changes that in themselves have to do with changing economic conditions, and the political decisions following from them, as the result of globalization. In the final part of this article I focus upon how this works out in one particular field or discipline in the humanities: world literature.1

Why Universities Better Invest in the Humanities

“…It is commonplace knowledge, and I have talked and written on this before, that the humanities are in crisis 1 2 In fact, the humanities being in crisis is an almost perennial complaint of the field.…”