The Changing Landscape: A Survey of Key Moments and Documents

Abstract

This book seeks to explore the place of humanities research in a modern university in the context of changes in the landscape for research and research funding, which demand of all sectors of a university that research be seen to be more outward looking and be of greater benefit to the wider economy of the nation (Currie & Newson 1998; Buchbinder 1993). In order to undertake this exploration there is a need to briefly examine these changes against an historical background of social and cultural change, which have also seen new directions in the formation of government policy, an overall expansion of funding for arts and humanities research and the development of a new vocabulary to articulate relationships between research and the wider world (Shrivastra & Mitroff 1984). Such changes have of course not gone unchallenged, or without debate of some fundamental issues. Changes of this order also bring inevitable changes in the lexicon used to describe and debate them (Holden & Kortzfleisch 2004) and the capability of the arts and humanities to adopt what many consider to be new academic practices.