"A small conservative revolution has swept the humanities at some US colleges and universities. Its vanguard are new programs, called centers or institutes, that have begun cropping up at schools in recent years. Often funded by outside donors or earmarks from state governments, the programs tend to bear names featuring words such as civic, freedom or classical. These centers do credible teaching and research, and are usually not explicitly political. But their goal, to counter what conservatives see as hegemonically leftwing teaching, arguably is."
"Their rise has created a peculiar irony: just as the economic utility of the humanities is being questioned, and academic departments are gutted on budgetary or ideological grounds, some schools have found money for heady, old-fashioned curricula emphasizing the great books of western civilization and the literature of what used to be called the western canon. While students arriving at some universities this fall may have thought Ancient Greek to be dead and French lit struggling for survival,"
A conservative movement has produced new humanities centers and institutes at several US colleges and universities. These programs often receive outside donor funding or state earmarks and commonly use names invoking civic, freedom, or classical themes. The centers provide credible teaching and research and generally avoid explicit partisan labeling. Their purpose is to challenge perceived left-wing dominance in higher education and to restore attention to foundational national values. Funding for these centers arrives even as many humanities departments face budget cuts and questions about economic utility, enabling renewed focus on ancient philosophy, Christian thought, the Enlightenment and canonical literature.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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