Humanities

Students’ union says major report suggests that humanities degrees are ‘not worthwhile’

More heroic hidden figures are saluted in a timely study reflecting on equality today, says June Purvis

People link upright bearing with positive traits and slouch with sloth – and worse, Louisa Yates finds

Helena Goodwyn wishes for more novel arguments in this prescription to remedy people’s literary lacunae

Prisoners rarely get tertiary lessons, let alone have undergraduates study alongside them, but the results can be profound. Helen Lock reports

Elleke Boehmer on a refreshing argument that verse allowed its makers and readers in the empire to adjust to new settings while maintaining ties with Britain

Models and casts helped transmit knowledge of building, design and art, says James Stevens Curl

There is more to this ‘misunderstood’ man than just the romantic poetry for which he is best known, writes Hetta Howes

Candida Moss lauds a volume that charts ‘lived religion’ from the Iron Age to late antiquity

Book of the week: Eliane Glaser on how authoritarians get an opening when party elites play with populist fires

Economist Bryan Caplan considers tangible benefits, inconvenient truths and wonders whether Latin and poetry are worth the effort when ‘Kardashian’ trumps ‘Shakespeare’ in Google search results

Despite initial problems, majority of social science and humanities graduates go on to find rewarding jobs, says study

Lab bench discoveries made during the 1800s were felt in the playhouse, says Matthew Broome

Book of the week: Russia’s power plays with its neighbours may be tied to its lack of civic maturity, says Lara Douds

A study of search parties pursuing minors in the rubble explores every corner, says Dan Stone

The UK and the US have vilified this Islamic group, but both worked with it, says Madawi Al-Rasheed

Book of the week: Biancamaria Fontana on a masterly defence of the values of modernity against ‘progressophobes’

Alexander Clark and Bailey Sousa urge academics to leave their ‘fixed mindsets’ behind if they want their careers to flourish

Getting professional experience puts postgraduates in situations that they are unlikely to have faced in their university life, says Alfredo Cumerma

Texts from China to India and elsewhere portray Christ in a different light, says Robert A. Segal

When Goebbels and Hitler targeted Los Angeles, US officials did nothing. It was left to a Jewish lawyer to spearhead the resistance, says Nathan Abrams

John Shand welcomes a timely survey of the work of a newly fashionable philosopher

This charts with scholarship and originality the final renunciation of a synergy between church and state and a shift to the sovereignty of conscience, John Cornwell writes

Five historians reflect on the disciplinary, institutional, social and political challenges facing their subject

Ignore the politicians’ jibes: history is crucial to develop critical minds, make sense of the present and prepare people for the future

Successful trials of a robot tutor should encourage universities to ask which roles can never be replaced by artificial intelligence, argues Robert MacIntosh

Books offer an experience, evidence trail and egalitarianism that could never be digitised, say Al Martinich and Tom Palaima

A study of divergent defiant forces omits the ‘hot and cold strangeness’ in loyalty, finds Fred Inglis

In composing, Mozart focused not on ideal form but on how a piece would play, hears Nicholas Till

Leo Mellor on a work that explores a group of writers for whom questions about time, selfhood and reality led not to introspection or aesthetic withdrawal but to a desire to change the world

Book of the week: A study marries passion and wit as it takes on the enemies of the canon, says Gary Day

A wide-ranging and thought-provoking account of religion and spirituality in America explores how faith is articulated through the marketplace and celebrity, says Torkel Brekke

John Gilbey on a welcome guide to the thorny legal and ethical issues of a new technological era 

Book of the week: Will we swallow a radical take on a Shakespearean tragedy served with edibles? asks Peter J. Smith

The stressful postgraduate environment often leads not to solidarity but to the impoverishment of research, says Alfredo Cumerma

Scholars in English and other disciplines need to engage with big challenges facing planet, conference hears

A study exploring Natalie Portman’s role in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan and Céline Sciamma’s film Girlhood is a fascinating addition to the discipline’s output, argues Davina Quinlivan

From Hillsborough to rape victims, a study mulls the place of emotive images, says Sharon Wheeler

Book of the week: An intellectual property battle over two dolls puts the focus on market competition, Laura Frost finds

James Stevens Curl on an eloquent plea for an understanding of the past through built fabric

How did mushrooming cities influence verse and vice versa? Shahidha Bari on a bold study

Internment in the colonies served a darker purpose beyond aid efforts, finds Laleh Khalili

Joanna Bourke muses over the motivations of those who leave home to fight in conflicts abroad. Are they terrorists or principled idealists?

Time to cut down on sarcasm, Buzzfeed quizzes, references to neoliberalism and ad hoc usage of Latinate and French phrases, says Emma Rees

Jonathan Mirsky on a shocking study of how the US covered up Japan’s biological experiments

Giulia Miller praises a thought-provoking investigation into how we and future generations will research and remember genocide

The US university system has a complex and often misunderstood past, says Howard P. Segal  

Academic travel is hard work, but destinations that are sunny and picturesque have their consolations, says Emily Michelson

Book of the week: Classical heroes can teach modern society much about anger management, notes Barbara Graziosi

As Brexit nears, Dublin plans to upgrade the country's language skills

There are many hidden costs associated with PhD study, writes Alfredo Cumerma, particularly if you want to land that dream job on graduation

Maryanne Saunders enjoys an original look at how faith is studied and ‘what humans may become’

Sarah Eltantawi admires a well-researched study of the origins and growth of the terrorist organisation

Monographs typically constitute a scholar’s greatest achievement, but REF strategists discourage their production, says Bruce Macfarlane

Book of the week: A secret cartography project is a route to the past – and your house, finds Jerry Brotton

Explore the gladiator of cities before it became a stop on the Eurotrash circuit, says Emily Michelson

Nathan Abrams examines an impressively close scrutiny of the 1950s film

As the first anniversary of the singer-songwriter’s death passes, his childhood friend Kenneth Asch reflects on the place of both the institution and the musician in Quebec’s fractured cultural mosaic

Book of the week: A classicist reveals the poetic artistry of a song and dance man who explores the human heart, writes Tom Palaima

Exclusion from male-dominated society fuelled female authors’ creativity, says Gail Marshall