An award-winning author and broadcaster hopes to show the “essential” worth of the humanities after taking on a new role that aims to increase public understanding of the subjects.
Islam Issa, who won the Runciman Award last year for his book??will take up the new role of professor of public humanities at Birmingham City University (BCU) next month.
Thought to be the first position of its kind in the UK, it?mirrors similar posts for the public understanding of history, mathematics and sciences at several UK universities, although these are mainly based at the Russell Group of research-intensive institutions.
Speaking to?Times Higher Education,?Issa, who is currently professor of literature and history, explained his new role made sense given BCU’s long history of public engagement in the humanities which goes back to the mid-19th?century when his institution was originally founded as the Birmingham College of Art.
“At BCU we have such a long history of delivering high-quality education in the arts and humanities. We’re also the biggest provider of creative arts degrees in the region so it’s always been something that we’ve done,” he explained.
His new role, in which he will champion the humanities in the media, curate exhibitions and give public lectures, was also in line with BCU’s growing research profile, with the institution recently named one of 50 recipients of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s?doctoral landscape awards.
“We’ve sometimes gone about the humanities in a different way at BCU, with our STEAMhouse collaborative centre bringing together the arts, humanities and STEM subjects but I’d argue we’re up there with the biggest universities on research quality too: in English we were top 20 in the last Research Excellence Framework and number one for impact.
“Mix that with social mobility indexes where we are consistently top of the table and there’s an important story to tell about our humanities courses,” said Issa, an Egyptian-British scholar whose research has focused on early modern English literature, the Renaissance and, more recently, on Hellenic studies.
Issa, who presented the 2019 BBC Four series?Cleopatra?and was named among BBC Radio 3’s list of “new generation thinkers” in 2017, said he hoped to communicate the huge importance of the humanities to the wider public in a time of economic and technological change?that had seen many universities?trim humanities courses.
“I want to make the humanities accessible and inclusive to a wider audience – this role gives me the opportunity to lead the narrative on their future at a pivotal time,” said Issa, who has featured on numerous documentaries produced by the BBC, Netflix and the History Channel.
He also won?Times Higher Education’s “?for the Stories of Sacrifice exhibition, which used new evidence to highlight the involvement of 400,000 Muslim soldiers during the First World War – a project praised by King Charles III as having “huge importance”.
“At BCU we’ve proven ourselves on this front and, on a personal level, I’ve proven myself which is why this strategic role has been created – it’s now my job to show why the humanities are not just practical and useful – and that humanities degrees are useful and worthwhile – but essential because they help us define what it means to be human,” he said.
“It’s also different to similar roles as I’m someone who gained a university position, taught in the classroom and moved into public communication whereas it’s often the other way round,”?he said, noting the path into academia from the media taken by other high-profile professors concerned with public understanding of knowledge.
“Now is?the time to remember what makes us human as we face AI advancement and other challenges – humanities are key to this and I want to explain their importance to hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people”, Issa said.
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