This purpose of this Humanities Commons group is to gather viewpoints and research on enrollments in language-centered courses (in “Foreign Languages” ; in composition and literature in the national and/or main language of education in a given country, e.g. English in the U.S.; in linguistics and applied linguistics; in social sciences courses on language, notably “Communication” / etc.).
Interests and issues include
A. Quantitative indices:
(i) historical trends for foreign language teaching (FLT) in U.S. higher ed (tertiary level), or other countries’ higher ed, or U.S. elementary or secondary ed.,
(ii) historical trends for English lit enrollments in the US
(iii) etc.
B. Qualitative trends:
(i) course content focus in language-centered courses – e.g. focus on literary texts versus other expressive discursive forms; OR, if literature-centric, then predominance of canonical vs. non-trad genres (popular / transgressive / , etc.)
(ii) methodological data: e.g., patterns of change of popularity of specific FLT teaching methods
(iii) etc.
C. Interdisciplinary reconfigurations of programs of study with focus on relations between the “Divisions” of Humanities, Social Sciences and material sciences.
(i) interdivisional productive interfaces (“interdivisional” here means intermural rather than intramural, between Humanities, Social Sciences and material sciences)
(ii) interdivisional competition (for example, where interdisciplinary innovation is seen as colonization of the traditional terrain of one division by another
(iii) etc.