The Humanities, the Social Sciences and the University is an intellectual history of research in the humanities and social sciences. It scrutinizes the priorities, values, objectives and publishing agendas of the modern university in order to assess the institutional pressures on research in major disciplines such as literature, history, sociology and economics. It argues that all these disciplines are currently experiencing a deep malaise – though to different degrees – due to loss of faith in the Enlightenment project, which entailed the pursuit of knowledge through reason. Extreme scepticism, promoted since the 1970s by French Theory, which regards knowledge as an instrument of power, is a major factor in this disorientation. Overall, the book concludes that though universities have grown stronger, wealthier and more powerful in the last century, the quality and seriousness of the research they typically produce are weaker and intellectually less important and the institution is in danger of losing its way.
An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, education and intellectual history with interests in higher education policy and academic life.
Author(s): Harry Redner
Series: Morality, Society and Culture
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 226
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Foreword by David Roberts
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations and acronyms
1. Literature and Criticism: Revitalizing a Dynamic Relationship
Section I – The success and failure of criticism
Section II – The failure of criticism in academia
Section III – Theorybabble
Notes
Bibliography
2. History: The Need for a New Grand Narrative
Section I – Schools of history
Section II – History and literature, history and sociology
Notes
Bibliography
3. Sociology: The Search for a Common Theoretical Core
Section I – Sociology in Europe
Section II – Sociology in America
Notes
Bibliography
4. Economics: Bridging the Divide between Scientific and Socio-Historical Models
Section I – Economics and Ideal Types
Section II – Mirowski and postwar economics
Section III – The professionalization of economics
Notes
Bibliography
5. From the University to the Multiversity – and beyond
Section I – Academic politics
Section II – University ranking
Section III – Metric bias
Section IV – The impact of ranking on academia
Notes
Bibliography
6. Academia and Publishing: A Fraught Relationship
Section I – Publish or perish and what ensues
Section II – The crisis of quality
Notes
Bibliography
Index
