No matter what the national context, the question of how to understand the impact of government programmes, particularly in terms of value for money, has emerged as a complex problem to be solved by social scientific management. This article engages with these trends in two ways. It focuses on the UK to understand how these tools and technologies…

The severity of the global economic crisis has put the spotlight firmly on measuring academic and research performance and productivity and assessing its contribution, value, impact and benefit. While, traditionally, research output and impact were measured by peer-publications and citations, there is increased emphasis on a "market-driven…

Martha Nussbaum argues that the aims of higher education ought to include the development in pupils of the capacity to contribute to the cultivation of humanity as intelligent, global citizens. For Nussbaum, "training" in this capacity is distinctly "philosophical" and she proposes that, to achieve this, teacher-pupil…

The rationale for retaining the humanities in universities in the 21st century is not self-evident. A case for the humanities can only be fully made against a sense of their loss or their absence. Some say that we are already in a post-human society, but what role might the humanities play in such a society? Presumably, the fate of the humanities…

Critical responses to changes in UK higher education have emerged from various quarters. This article suggests that some of these responses are collusive with neo-liberalism and that a greater attention might be paid to the possibilities of the word "liberal" and to the more democratic implications of certain US initiatives.

"The banality of evil" (Arendt) remains controversial and useful. Ironically, the concept is now itself a banality. To revisit and extend it, we consider the "evil of banality", the profound dangers of cliched thoughtlessness. A distinction is proposed: "intensive" versus "extensive evils". The former takes…

In 2012, Digital Humanities became one of the most talked-about topics in the humanities and was suggested as a movement that could possibly help halt the decline in the traditional humanities. A flurry of books appeared, and "AHHE" produced two special issues, "Digital humanities," "digital futures" and "The…

In an important lecture on the function of the Humanities, "The University without Condition", Jacques Derrida asks what it means to "profess" the truth and advocates a commitment to the "oeuvre"--the work that constitutes an event rather than just a contribution to knowledge. I examine a few phrases from the lecture,…

This article introduces a novel approach to pedagogy within an art school in the UK HE sector, based upon a synthesis of perception theory and communication theory. It is argued that art students' drawing is empowered by strategies of teaching informed by aspects of James J. Gibson's ecological approach to visual perception relevant to…

This paper analyses the effect of Christopher Frayling's categorisation of artistic research "research into art and design, research through art and design and research for art and design" on the debate surrounding the efficacy of studio-based artistic research as being valid within the university. James Elkins describes this as the…

This paper examines the dynamic interplay between practice and theory in practice-led research in the visual arts. Building on recent debate around the issue and following appropriately rigorous models, the importance of locating a suitable methodology to adequately reflect the integrated process of research practice in written as well as visual…

The requirement that candidates in studio-based or practice-led higher degrees by research should formulate a research question has been found to be problematic by some writers. The present article argues that this stance, particularly as it is articulated by proponents of the influential category of "performative research" (Haseman,…

This essay explores three orientations to knowledge: the scholar, the intellectual, and the bricoleur. It argues that although the scholar and the intellectual are tied closely to the Liberal Arts and Humanities and dominate academic public relations discourse, both students and faculty increasingly use the practice of bricolage to gather and…

In their 2011 study "Academically Adrift," Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa present considerable evidence that undergraduates in US colleges and universities make surprisingly little progress in their first two years of college. While acknowledging the force of this argument, the authors ask whether Arum and Roksa's evidence--about students'…

"Using your profanisaurus" derives from a project, "The Production of University English", whose earliest findings were published in "Arts and Humanities in Higher Education" in 2005. By analysing "ordinary" discussions in "ordinary" English Literature classes in diverse universities, the project seeks to uncover what really happens when English…