News
Humanities and their Relevance
An
interactive session with four distinguished Oxford scholars on the
relevance of the humanities was held recently at the British Council in Kolkatta, India.
Eric Clarke, the Heather Professor of Music, was among the team visiting from the Humanities Division, along with Professor Sally Shuttleworth, the Head of the Division, Edmund Herzig, a Soudavar Professor of Persian Studies, and Aditi Lahiri, who holds the Chair in the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics.
Sally Shuttleworth made it clear that the academic delegation had travelled to India to spread the word about the humanities, and to reassert their aesthetic and educational relevance in the lives of people. She spoke of the rapid movement away from the humanities in Europe and America and expressed a wish to counter the trend. With illustrations from the work of the various departments in the Humanities Division, she highlighted the University’s emphasis on studying and exploring the histories and cultures of the world.
Eric Clarke offered an overview of the Faculty of Music, speaking of the consolidated research methods employed in imparting to students the skills of of composing and performing music. Alongside the study of western classical music and its history — from medieval times to the contemporary age — the Faculty had expanded its activities greatly in recent years, for example, in exploring the psychology of performance and listening.
All four scholars spoke of a crucial factor that often led to Indian students opting to study in the USA rather than the UK: funding. The University is planning to build its scholarship endowments in order to encourage bright students from all over the world to opt for the humanities. The 'Oxford Thinking' campaign, the biggest fundraising campaign in the history of any European university, aims to raise a minimum of £1.25 billion for Oxford.
The event was reported in The Telegraph of Calcutta, and a more general report appeared in The Times of India.