The humanities have been beset with crises for decades. Does their persistence provide insight into current crises of the university and strategies for survival? Drawing upon research in the “World Humanities Report,” particularly on the humanities in China, Russia, and India, this talk focuses on the forms of persistence in the humanities and their usefulness in a time when “universities are the enemy.”

Sara Guyer is the Irving and Jean Stone Dean of Arts and Humanities and Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Her term as dean began in September 2021 following a career devoted to advancing the humanities, with special attention to interdisciplinary research programs, the public humanities, and institutional collaborations across the globe. Guyer is also director of the World Humanities Report, a large-scale project with over a dozen research teams on six continents and former president of the international Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes.

Guyer’s scholarship encompasses the fields of romanticism, Holocaust studies, critical theory, and the humanities itself. She is the author of Romanticism after Auschwitz and Reading with John Clare: Biopoetics, Sovereignty, Romanticism, and coeditor of the book series Lit Z.

There will be a reception following the talk.