Description
Book SynopsisThis book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Recession is a time for asking fundamental questions about value. At a time when governments are being forced to make swingeing savings in public expenditure, why should they continue to invest public money funding research into ancient Greek tragedy, literary value, philosophical conundrums or the aesthetics of design? Does such research deliver 'value for money' and 'public benefit'? Such questions have become especially pertinent in the UK in recent years, in the context of the drive by government to instrumentalize research across the disciplines and the prominence of discussions about ‘economic impact' and 'knowledge transfer'. In this book a group of distinguished humanities researchers, all working in Britain, but publishing research of international importance, reflect on the public value of their discipline, using particular research projects as case-studies. Their essays are passionate, sometimes polemical, often witty and consistently thought-provoking, covering a range of humanities disciplines from theology to architecture and from media studies to anthropology.
Trade ReviewThis book provides a top notch tutorial on the current states of humanities research in the UK. * Times Higher Education Supplement (March 24, 2011) *
...a wonderful new edited collection on The Public Value of the Humanities, which presents an informative, thought-provoking and ultimately robust defence of humanities research. The book is essential reading for public, policy-maker, practitioner and academic alike and should contribute to moving discussions beyond the rather clichéd assumptions surrounding much contemporary discourse over public funding for humanities research. * LSE Politics Blog *
Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part One: Learning from the Past: The Long View
Jonathan Bate; Fram, Trackers and Classics: Classical Scholarship and the Staging of Ancient Greek Drama
Mary Beard; The Value of Archaeological Research
Mike Parker Pearson; The Literary Heritage and National Identity
Robert Hampson; Why Religious History Matters
John Wolffe; The Value of Genoicide Studies
Jurgen Zimmerer; 'This is a Local Film': The Cultural and Social Impact of the Mitchell and Kenyon Film Collection
Vanessa Toulmin; Literary Research and the Conduct of Life: Nineteenth Century Debates on the Value of the Humanities
Francis O'Gorman. Part Two: Looking Around Us: Architecture: Why Society Needs Researchers to Think About Building and the Built Environment
Iain Borden; Architectural History: Research into Buildings and their Places
Deborah Howard; Landscape, Environment and Heritage
Stephen Daniels and Ben Cowell; Making a Home: English Culture and English Landscape
Matthew Johnson; Accidental Haiku: The Educational Value of Thinking about Poetry and Landscape Together
Catherine Brace; A Museum Perspective: The Centrality of Research to the Work of Museums and the Creation of Exhibitions
Christopher Breward; 'All this Useless Beauty': The Hidden Value of Research in Art and Design
Mike Press; 'Sorting the Sheep from the Sheep': The Relationship between Academic Research and the Creative Industries
Richard Howells. Part Three: Using Words, Thinking Hard: Why Socio-Linguistics Matters
April McMahon et al; Communication and Community: How Language Research May Contribute to Social Cohesion
John Joseph; The Art of Evaluation: The Value of Literary Criticism
Ronan McDonald; 'And Your Point Is...?' What is Anthropology and Why Does it Matter?
Chris Gosden; Philosophy and the Quest for the Unpredictable: Why Society Benefits from the Sorts of Questions that Philosophy Asks
Nicholas Davey; Bibliography; Index
