Personal Student Narratives are Key to Demonstrating the Value of a Humanities Education

A while back I posted a piece on this blog about the importance of talking to our students when attempting to assess or demonstrate the importance and value of a humanities education. This was to be the beginning of a larger project—initiated by Professor Roisin Cossar and her University of Manitoba history students—intended to open … Continue reading Personal Student Narratives are Key to Demonstrating the Value of a Humanities Education

Reconciliation and the Future of the Humanities

This piece takes its inspiration from a recent “Arts of Conversation” talk by Cary Miller.  Dr Miller is Anishinaabe, descending from St Croix and Leech Lake communities, and the new Head of the Department of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba. She came to us from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she was a … Continue reading Reconciliation and the Future of the Humanities

Want to Assess the Importance and Value of a Humanities Education? Ask your Students

The humanities, it is constantly said, are in free fall and notable only for their dramatic decline and the unremitting “crisis” confronting them. This crisis may be more apparent than real however, as the UMHumanities blog and others have discussed; or if it is real it is because references to this “crisis” have been so common … Continue reading Want to Assess the Importance and Value of a Humanities Education? Ask your Students

PhDs That Work—Beyond the Professoriate

In late October the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities, in partnership with the Faculty of Graduate Studies, brought Maren Wood and Jennifer Polk of Beyond the Professoriate to campus to deliver a series of workshops entitled “PhDs That Work: Finding Success in an Uncertain Job Market.” They were fantastic. Drs Wood and Polk brought the … Continue reading PhDs That Work—Beyond the Professoriate

Rethinking Grad School Culture and Preparing Students for Careers Outside Academia

This week Maren Wood and Jennifer Polk of Beyond the Professoriate will be on campus, leading a series of workshops under the title “PhDs That Work: Finding Success in an Uncertain Job Market.”  This is an issue we at the UMIH take very seriously.  The following is a revised version of an earlier hUManities blog … Continue reading Rethinking Grad School Culture and Preparing Students for Careers Outside Academia

Star Trek: Discovery is a Darker Star Trek for our Times, but is That a Good Thing?

Friends of the UMIH will know that our TV, film and culture critic is a hopeless Star Trek nerd.  We love him for it.  He has been buzzing about the office for the past week in anticipation of the new series, Star Trek: Discovery.  It is set 10 years before the original 1966 series, and it … Continue reading Star Trek: Discovery is a Darker Star Trek for our Times, but is That a Good Thing?

Thinking Like Stone Mountain, and About the Importance of Conversation and Thoreau’s Three Chairs

Last Thursday was a good day at the Institute for the Humanities, one filled with the sort of excited intellectual energy that tends to accompany the beginning of a new academic year. The day was full of conversation. In the morning the UMIH Director and I discussed a variety of practical matters, as we normally … Continue reading Thinking Like Stone Mountain, and About the Importance of Conversation and Thoreau’s Three Chairs

Trump vs. Native Americans: Exploring a Vendetta

Trump’s decision to directly intervene on behalf of oil companies to allow the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines to move ahead with construction showed a blatant disregard for the rights of Indigenous people. It also wasn’t a surprise. In fact, Trump’s long history of hostility towards Native Americans has been well documented since the … Continue reading Trump vs. Native Americans: Exploring a Vendetta

Witch-hunting: A Growing 21st-century Human Rights Problem

Ever since the antics in the 1950s of the junior Senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, the Euro-American world has come to use the term “witch-hunt” as a synonym for pointless persecution. This dismissive view is deeply entrenched, and has unfortunately led many in the developed West to see witch-hunting as little more than a historical … Continue reading Witch-hunting: A Growing 21st-century Human Rights Problem