Humanities

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

Clive Bloom enjoys a sociological study of why a group of rich layabouts became crooks – and how society dealt with them

God was a priority for the often unchristian soul who discovered gravity, says Graham Farmelo

By borrowing and recycling ideas, old Tinseltown pioneered cinematic narrative, says Lucy Bolton

Charles Drazin commends a perceptive although somewhat austere study of Hollywood’s power dynamic

While many see hilarity in paying the water bill our feelings about it fluctuate, says Peter J. Smith

James Stevens Curl on a study of symptoms of consumer culture and those who built them

Witty asides permeate a study contemplating money, love, hope and rappers, says Emma Rees

British Academy report marking 500 days until ‘Brexit day’ throws spotlight on the money and academic talent in the subjects that come from the EU

Yeats, Shaw and O’Casey star in a study crammed with reinterpretations, says Marilynn Richtarik

Jeffrey Meyers longs for more of the unfamiliar in a portrait of the author’s final chapter

Ursula King explores an effort to provide an account of faith that will allow believers and non-believers to engage in a dialogue

US scholars' tendency to award extra credit for attending non-core lectures hastens the academy's slide into transactionalism, says Robert Zaretsky 

Book of the week: The reality of the present world has fallen short of science fiction’s predictions, says Jon Turney

Les Gofton enjoys an excellent study of how record sleeve artwork shaped consumerist values

Book of the week: Christopher Hill praises an engaging but limited history of the role of law in achieving peace

Junior researchers being ‘held back’ by the ordering of names on joint papers, study finds

Book of the week: No longer young, not yet old, the middle-aged academic sees the world askew, says Joe Moran

Rich and strange, detective tales of the 1920s and 1930s are worth unearthing, says Leo Mellor

Ulrike Zitzlsperger on an engaging account of the city’s attraction and what it tells us about society and politics

Contrary to the cultural meme, Canadian graduates in all subjects earn far more, on average, than coffee shop workers, say Ross Finnie, Richard Mueller and Arthur Sweetman

Humanities subjects do support economic growth and good citizenship, but their real value lies deeper, says Andrew Moore

Book of the week: Communism around the world was shaped by its opportunistic leaders, finds Yvonne Howell

While proportion of foreign faculty at Japanese universities has increased, study finds no rise in share of leaders

With latest application for teaching licence rejected in long-running battle with authorities, time is running out to start the new academic year

Many immigrants in Renaissance times were not slaves but professionals, learns Lucy Wooding

Robert Eaglestone praises an absorbing account of eminent scientist Michael Danos’ life that straddles biography and history

This study of how ordinary people view human rights is depressingly honest, says Jane O’Grady

Robert A. Segal enjoys a rigorously researched volume on the relationship between religion and the secular state

Jonathan Mirsky applauds the story of an invention that has been vital in preserving Chinese script and culture in the modern information age

Book of the week: Shahidha Bari enjoys a study of how tuberculosis influenced notions of attractiveness and breeding

A look at intercultural dialogue ends up as an irritating guide to manners, says Susan Bassnett

Are humans just a ‘pack of neurons’? Steven Rose is frustrated by a poorly argued challenge to the materialist consensus in neuroscience

Reina Lewis applauds an insightful analysis of women’s ‘pious fashion’ in Muslim cultures

Peking University joins the top 20 of the Times Higher Education subject table for the first time

Times Higher Education will publish expanded league tables for 11 different subject areas

No tax inspector or police officer can claim rights over what they write for their jobs, so why should academics, asks Gabriel Egan

The speech of the lower classes won acceptance only after a make-over, finds Elspeth Jajdelska

Fred Inglis travels the bumpy road from Victorian workhouse to the modern British benefits system

Panikos Panayi follows the struggles and achievements of those who made this country their home amid difficult circumstances

Book of the week: Great writing can enlighten and encourage dialogue between disciplines, says Gary Morson

Do ancient cultural ideas drive the insistence that Greece pay all its bills in full? asks Emma Gee

James Stevens Curl on a tome that emphasises the physician/naturalist’s role in transforming cabinets of curiosities into major institutions of the Enlightenment

Free market ideology has contributed to ‘vaccine hesitancy’, endangering us all, says Harry Collins

A study of one of Europe’s leading thinkers on sexuality contends that brutality is a force behind much queer activism and political thinking

Book of the week: Bryan Cheyette straddles truth and fiction in observer accounts of anti-Semitic persecution

To properly appreciate a work of art we must judge it, not simply adhere to the modern paradigm of explaining it in context, contends Gary Day

Enduring popularity of flesh-eating monsters is a response to real threats, says Marcus Leaning

Language is key to making sense of people, finds Martin Cohen, but beware words’ flexible meanings

Book of the week: Behind a veneer of amiability, Randy Malamud finds discord, cruelty and a ‘cultural charade’

The Italian scholar discusses how Machiavelli might have appraised current politics, the benefits of birdwatching and discovering Stevie Wonder

Staff covering for academics on leave are often given no time to conduct research themselves

Many UK doctoral students view professional development as a ‘distraction’ or a ‘waste of time’, says study

Quislings who joined Nazis to survive were erased from Russian history, observes Jonathan Mirsky

Catherine Clinton enters the beguiling lost world of a complex literary figure and seeker of truth

At 1967’s Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation, radicals preached Black Power, existential psychiatry, free universities and more. Martin Levy reports on an event that was as much a happening as an academic conference

Digital humanities pioneer Gregory Crane argues academics are failing to fully utilise the new tools of scholarship

Major evaluation of country’s research landscape also found that internationalisation was a key area for improvement

Call for rankings to give more weight to societal impact

An actor’s eye and ear brings fresh insight to aspects of the Bard’s works, says Lisa Hopkins