The Humanities, the Social Sciences and the University is an intellectual history of research in the humanities and social sciences. It scrutinizes the priorities, values, objectives and publishing agendas of the modern university in order to assess the institutional pressures on research in major disciplines such as literature, history, sociology and economics. It argues that all these disciplines are currently experiencing a deep malaise – though to different degrees – due to loss of faith in the Enlightenment project, which entailed the pursuit of knowledge through reason. Extreme scepticism, promoted since the 1970s by French Theory, which regards knowledge as an instrument of power, is a major factor in this disorientation. Overall, the book concludes that though universities have grown stronger, wealthier and more powerful in the last century, the quality and seriousness of the research they typically produce are weaker and intellectually less important and the institution is in danger of losing its way.

An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, education and intellectual history with interests in higher education policy and academic life.

The Humanities, the Social Sciences and the University is an intellectual history of research in the humanities and social sciences. It scrutinizes the priorities, values, objectives and publishing agendas of the modern university in order to assess the institutional pressures on research in major disciplines such as literature, history, sociology and economics. It argues that all these disciplines are currently experiencing a deep malaise – though to different degrees – due to loss of faith in the Enlightenment project, which entailed the pursuit of knowledge through reason. Extreme scepticism, promoted since the 1970s by French Theory, which regards knowledge as an instrument of power, is a major factor in this disorientation. Overall, the book concludes that though universities have grown stronger, wealthier and more powerful in the last century, the quality and seriousness of the research they typically produce are weaker and intellectually less important and the institution is in danger of losing its way.

An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, education and intellectual history with interests in higher education policy and academic life.

Ulysses and Faust: Tradition and Modernism from Homer till the Present examines the most important authors of Western literature: Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Marlowe, Goethe, Joyce, Eliot, Mann, Bulgakov and Pasternak, who based their works on one or other of the two key myths of the West, Ulysses and Faust. This volume provides a synoptic view of Western literature, as a foundation text for literary studies at all levels and as a way of encouraging people to once more engage with the major authors of our literary heritage. Ulysses and Faust considers the artistic revolution known as Modernism at the start of the twentieth century and the subsequent events in Europe, such as the World Wars and the totalitarian regimes, which led to a major break in Western civilization reflected in its literature. Consequently, these detailed critical studies illuminate their authors’ Weltanschauung, their view of life as it was lived in their time.

The Humanities, the Social Sciences and the University is an intellectual history of research in the humanities and social sciences. It scrutinizes the priorities, values, objectives and publishing agendas of the modern university in order to assess the institutional pressures on research in major disciplines such as literature, history, sociology and economics. It argues that all these disciplines are currently experiencing a deep malaise – though to different degrees – due to loss of faith in the Enlightenment project, which entailed the pursuit of knowledge through reason. Extreme scepticism, promoted since the 1970s by French Theory, which regards knowledge as an instrument of power, is a major factor in this disorientation. Overall, the book concludes that though universities have grown stronger, wealthier and more powerful in the last century, the quality and seriousness of the research they typically produce are weaker and intellectually less important and the institution is in danger of losing its way.

An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, education and intellectual history with interests in higher education policy and academic life.

The Humanities, the Social Sciences and the University is an intellectual history of research in the humanities and social sciences. It scrutinizes the priorities, values, objectives and publishing agendas of the modern university in order to assess the institutional pressures on research in major disciplines such as literature, history, sociology and economics. It argues that all these disciplines are currently experiencing a deep malaise – though to different degrees – due to loss of faith in the Enlightenment project, which entailed the pursuit of knowledge through reason. Extreme scepticism, promoted since the 1970s by French Theory, which regards knowledge as an instrument of power, is a major factor in this disorientation. Overall, the book concludes that though universities have grown stronger, wealthier and more powerful in the last century, the quality and seriousness of the research they typically produce are weaker and intellectually less important and the institution is in danger of losing its way.

An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, education and intellectual history with interests in higher education policy and academic life.

Ulysses and Faust: Tradition and Modernism from Homer till the Present examines the most important authors of Western literature: Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Marlowe, Goethe, Joyce, Eliot, Mann, Bulgakov and Pasternak, who based their works on one or other of the two key myths of the West, Ulysses and Faust. This volume provides a synoptic view of Western literature, as a foundation text for literary studies at all levels and as a way of encouraging people to once more engage with the major authors of our literary heritage. Ulysses and Faust considers the artistic revolution known as Modernism at the start of the twentieth century and the subsequent events in Europe, such as the World Wars and the totalitarian regimes, which led to a major break in Western civilization reflected in its literature. Consequently, these detailed critical studies illuminate their authors’ Weltanschauung, their view of life as it was lived in their time.