Milena Stanoeva
Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
This Tuesday, we held our first Big Thinking lecture of the season. University of Ottawa law professor Jeremy de Beer discussed ways of rethinking intellectual property and how we measure innovation. In his talk, de Beer argued for a more holistic approach to innovation, one that values contributions from the social sciences and humanities and relies on a variety of measures that complement economic ones. A recap of de Beer’s talk is available on University Affairs’ Margin Notes blog. iPolitics also covered the event. If you have an account, you can read the article here.
An upcoming Congress Big Thinker, Thomas Homer-Dixon, published an editorial in the Globe and Mail this week, discussing the oil crisis. Homer-Dixon, who is the CIGI Chair of Global Systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, will present a Big Thinking lecture on May 31 on complexity science and its application to the social sciences and humanities.
Paul Jay, Gerald Graff and Greg Jay, co-editors of the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC), are launching The Future of the Humanities: A Think Tank, which will explore ideas about the future of the humanities and how they can remain a relevant and competitive field. Check out their work and submit your own material here.
Inside Higher Ed published an article on the benefits of introducing digital humanities research into undergraduate courses. According to author Steve Kolowich, students who use digital technology for their humanities research need to understand how the underlying design of programs can influence research findings.
The New York Times published an article by Vedika Khemani, a Ph.D. student in theoretical physics, which argues for the value of a humanities education. According to her, complementing a science degree with courses in the humanities helps create well-rounded graduates who can think outside the box.