Subproject 2: Humanities in Crisis? The Marketisation of Higher Education and Its Consequences in Europe, ca. 1970 to 2000

• Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Andreas Wirsching
• Researcher: Dr. des. Daniela Hettstedt

In recent decades a crisis of the allegedly "useless" humanities was omnipresent. Is this perception justified? What are its causes? This project investigates long-term problems and short-term factors, political decisions, and social constructions that have defined the situation of the humanities since the 1970s. How did these determinants effect the organisation and self-positioning of the humanities and what "resilient" forces did the humanities themselves develop? This approach historicises the key terms "marketisation" and "internationalisation" and examines them as entangled processes. What dynamics of cooperation and competition have resulted from these developments of the humanities from the 1970s to the 1990s?

As internationalization and marketization are understood as border-crossing processes, they are discussed in a transnational perspective and on a European level. Moreover, the project asks for the specific dynamics within individual states of the European Union. Thereby it analyses Great Britain and (West-)Germany as prime examples representatively for different approaches of neo-liberal politics and of self-conceptions within Europe and the world. The focus is on multiple actors: state and non-state institutions, international organizations, academic committees, professional associations, and individuals.