Manifesto for the Humanities: Transforming Doctoral Education in Good Enough Times (Digital Humanities)

After A Remarkable Career In Higher Education, Sidonie Smith Offers Manifesto For The Humanities As A Reflective Contribution To The Current Academic Conversation Over The Place Of The Humanities In The 21st Century. Her Focus Is On Doctoral Education And Opportunities She Sees For Its Reform. Grounding This Manifesto In Background Factors Contributing To Current “crises” In The Humanities, Smith Advocates For A 21st Century Doctoral Education Responsive To The Changing Ecology Of Humanistic Scholarship And Teaching. She Elaborates A More Expansive Conceptualization Of Coursework And Dissertation, A More Robust, Engaged Public Humanities, And A More Diverse, Collaborative, And Networked Sociality--back Cover. The Times Are Good Enough -- The Everyday Life Of The Humanities Now -- Toward A 21st-century Doctoral Education. Sidonie Smith. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 175-213) And Index. After a remarkable career in higher education, Sidonie Smith offers Manifesto for the Humanities as a reflective contribution to the current academic conversation over the place of the Humanities in the 21st century. Her focus is on doctoral education and opportunities she sees for its reform. Grounding this manifesto in background factors contributing to current crises in the humanities, Smith advocates for a 21st century doctoral education responsive to the changing ecology of humanistic scholarship and teaching. She elaborates a more expansive conceptualization of coursework and dissertation, a more robust, engaged public humanities, and a more diverse, collaborative, and networked sociality. Smiths analysis of the future of doctoral education in the humanities is essential reading for students, faculty, and administrators alike. It provides a comprehensive assessment of the economic challenges the humanities face while surveying new and exciting opportunities offered by the networking of scholarly exchange. A deeply engaging handbook for negotiating the future it maps out. Paul Jay, Loyola University, Chicago Manifesto for the Humanities is an inspiring book, bracing, at times exhilarating, imparting not only the bedrock conviction that the way our universities now undertake doctoral education in the humanities must be changed for many reasonseducational justice being one of the most importantbut also that doctoral education actually can be changed. This book offers ways to do sosome of the suggestions are preeminently practicaland gives us the energy to make it happen. Smith engenders an exciting sense of possibility: the times, they are good enough. I believe her. Kathleen Woodward, University of Washington After a remarkable career in higher education that has seen her serve as the Chair of the University of Michigan English Department, the Director of the Michigan Institute for the Humanities, and the President of the Modern Language Association, Sidonie Smith offers Manifesto for the Humanities as a reflective contribution to the current academic conversation over the place of the humanities in the 21st century. Her focus, as the subtitle indicates, is on doctoral education and opportunities she sees for its reform. "The 'Grand Challenge' confronting academic humanists," Smith avers, "is the imperative of sustaining passionate conviction about the value of studying the humanities in a climate of funding scarcity, corporatization, and neoliberal market economics. Responsibility for that sustainability--in the academy, in the nation, and around the globe--lies in part with humanities doctoral students, now or soon-to-be entering careers, who are driven by the desire to continue conversations, journeys, and discoveries, whether they take place in archives, in lines of poetry, in the logic of the assertion, or in the dirt of the dig. These doctoral students are preparing to play their role as agents of change for a sustainable future."Grounding this manifesto in background factors contributing to current "crises" in the humanities, Smith advocates for a 21st century doctoral education responsive to the changing ecology of humanistic scholarship and teaching. She elaborates a more expansive conceptualization of coursework and dissertation, a more robust, engaged public humanities, and a more diverse, collaborative, and networked sociality Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 2 Title - Series......Page 3 Title - Full......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 8 Contents......Page 12 Introduction......Page 14 Part I: The Times Are Good Enough......Page 18 Realities on the Ground......Page 20 What Is to Be Done?......Page 29 Part II: The Everyday Life of the Humanities Now......Page 46 The Distributed University......Page 48 Knowledge Environments......Page 56 The New Media and Modes of Scholarly Communication......Page 68 Going Open......Page 80 Learning, Pedagogy, and Curricular Environments; or, How We Teach Now......Page 98 The Possibly Posthuman Humanities Scholar......Page 116 Manifesto for a Sustainable Humanities......Page 121 Part III: Toward a 21st-Century Doctoral Education......Page 124 A Time of Troubles, a Time of Opportunity......Page 126 Breathing Life into the Dissertation......Page 142 Responding to Counterarguments......Page 157 A 21st-Century Doctoral Education......Page 168 The Upside of Change......Page 178 Coda......Page 186 Notes......Page 188 Bibliography......Page 214 Index......Page 228