WebinAAR: The State of the Humanities

Details

May 29, 2024
3:00 PM ET
Presented on Zoom

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Summary

A not insignificant number of our field's members have argued that these are dire times for the study of religion, citing the disturbingly frequent news of units that have lost their major, been merged, or closed outright. But these experiences are shared across many of the fields usually grouped together as the humanities. As a follow-up to earlier webinars focusing on some of these issues, this webinar features a conversation with Robert Townsend, someone particularly well positioned to have a national view on both the current state of the Humanities as well as efforts to reinvent its work as having wide relevance and application.

This is part of a monthly webinar series of AAR’s Relations Committee (ARC); all of these meetings tackle topics of direct relevance to the success of a department (comprised of a 30-minute interview with the guest and then a 30-minute open Q&A for those attending the session). The interview portion of each webinar is recorded and eventually posted on the ARC page on the AAR site.

Panelist

Robert Townsend | Townsend earned his Ph.D. in history and new media from George Mason University in 2009 and is the director of humanities, arts, and culture programs at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (which is both an honorary society that recognizes the excellence of its members and also an independent research center promoting the arts and sciences).

Host

Russell T. McCutcheon | McCutcheon is a university research professor in the department of religious studies at the University of Alabama, where he was also a longtime department chair. He chairs AAR’s Academic Relations Committee.