Humanities and the corona crisis: positive news from Denmark.

There can be no doubt that the forced isolation and the pandemic world we live in today raises questions of such existential nature that they cannot be answered with neither worksheets nor rigorous economic calculations.

The tendency to seek answers to existential questions is also felt at the University of Copenhagen, which has received quota 2 applications this year. Almost 100 percent more people have applied to the humanities degree programs at the University of Copenhagen, according to Magisterbladet. In addition, 61 percent of quota 2 applicants have a humanities subject at the top of their wish list.

This happens after years of bashing the humanities, saving on the humanities education and general criticism of the way in which newly hatched humanists manage knowledge and insight.

“It’s an increase I’ve never seen similarly. And it’s really nice if it holds quota 1,” says Jens Erik Mogensen, vice dean of education at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Copenhagen.

The reason? Among other things, it may be the corona crisis.

“We have no evidence of that yet, but I think coronavirus has some significance. In such a time of crisis, as we are now experiencing, one generally focuses on culture, literature, music and culture – everything that puts humanity at the center. We look more inward, stop and interpret life. It is my hypothesis that it is also this that in the young generation makes young people now search for the humanities.”

The news comes after a turbulent fall for the humanities programs at the University of Copenhagen.

At that time, dissatisfied students initiated a 38-day blockade of the dean’s office at KUA, because the students demanded more influence and, due to subject combinations, were concerned about the quality of the programs. It created an awareness of the humanities, which may also be contributing to the fact that several people are showing interest in the programs at the Faculty of Humanities, it says.

Even the Western European language subjects – French, German, Italian and Spanish – which, according to Mogensen, have been in “a spiral of death,” have grown by between 60 and 97 percent.

“I also see a tendency for many – certainly also as a result of the climate crisis – to start focusing less on prestige, hectic and material values. Instead, many young people place more emphasis on the intellectual and spiritual and humanistic values,” says Jens Erik Mogensen.

The humanities have for a number of years been in bloody reputation and have been criticized on numerous occasions. Can this tendency help to restore the humanities?

“Yes, and I hope this is the first sign that the discourse is reversing. In a time of great crises, the human dimension is becoming more and more important.”

For other posts on universities and humanities, see here.

h/t Philippa Göranson, also for reviewing the English translation.