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ISSN: 1447-9508

The International Journal of the Humanities provides a space for dialogue and publication of new knowledge which builds on the past traditions of the humanities whilst setting a renewed agenda for their future. The humanities is a domain of learning, reflection and action which is a place of dialogue between and across epistemologies, perspectives and content areas. It is in these unsettling places that the humanities might be able to unburden modern knowledge systems of their restrictive narrowness.

Discussions in the International Journal of the Humanities range from the broad and speculative to the microcosmic and empirical. Its over-riding concern, however, is to redefine the human and mount a case for the humanities. At a time when the dominant rationalisms are running a course that often seems to be drawing humanity towards ends that seem often less than satisfactory, this journal reopens the question of the human—for highly pragmatic as well as redemptory reasons.

The journal is relevant for academics across the whole range of humanities disciplines, research students, educators—school, university and further education—anyone with an interest in, and concern for the humanities.

The International Journal of the Humanities is fully peer-reviewed with a rigorous refereeing process to ensure a high standard of quality. The editors and advisory board comprise leading scholars in the humanities field.

Scope and Concerns

New Directions for the Humanities

We live in an era which seems to be dominated by the rationalisms of science-technology and economics-commerce. These appear daily as enormously powerful forces, driving us alternately to doom or salvation. They make their domineering presence felt ever more heavily in places of learning and research, and often at the expense of the humanities.

There is no science-technology, however, without the human. There is no commerce-economics without the human. Not only are the humanities a third major area of inquiry; the object of study of the humanities is integral to the other two. The humanities interrogate the nature of the human and build a normative agenda for the human, developing programs of action for the humane, the humanistic, human rights, global humanity, the locally humanised ...

Humanities-Science-Technology

The western roots of science-technology are the Greek concept of ‘techne’, and its Latin equivalent ‘ars’. These roots tell of a narrowing of definition in modern times, and of a particular kind—it is a narrowing which dehumanises science-technology. ‘Techne’ and ‘ars’ meant art, craft and science, a kind of practical wisdom involving both doing (application of technique, using tools) and reasoning (understanding the principles underlying the material and natural world). These ‘Arts’ were the stuff of human artifice, and the result was always an aesthetic (those ‘arts’) as well as instrumental artfulness that can only be human. Now is the time to broaden the agenda of science-technology once again, and how better than to redefine them as ‘Arts’?

Indeed, our times may well demand such a redefinition. The new technologies and sciences of informatics, for instance, are infused to a remarkable degree with the human of the humanities: the human-centred designs which aim at ‘useability’; the visual aesthetics of screen designs; the language plays of computer interfaces and mobile communications devices; the ontological schemas of the semantic web; the information architectures of data archives; the logics of machines which assist human intelligence; and the literariness of the code that drives them. So too, the new technologies and sciences of biotics uniquely inveigle the human—when considering, for instance, the ethics of bioscience and biotechnology, or the sustainability of the human presence in natural environments.

Humanities-Economy-Commerce

Returning to roots again, the Greek ‘oikonomi’ or the Latin ‘oeconomia’ integrate the human in ways now all-too-easily lost to the more narrowly understood contemporary definitions of ‘economy’ and ‘commerce’. In the modern world, these words have come to refer to reflection and action pertaining to the domains of paid work, the production of goods and services, and their distribution and market exchange. At their etymological source, however, we find a broader realm of action—the realm of material sustenance, of domesticity (the Greek ‘oikos’/household and ‘nemein’/manage), of work as the collaborative project of meeting human needs, and of thrift (economising), not just as a way of watching bottom lines, but of conserving human effort and natural resources.

Today more than ever, questions of the human arise in the domain of the economy-commerce, and these are profoundly ones of human interests, needs and purposes. Drawing on the insights of the humanities and a renewed sense of the human, we might for instance be able to address today’s burning questions of economic globalisation and the possible meanings and consequences of the ‘knowledge economy.’

The Humanities Themselves

And what of the humanities in themselves and for themselves? To the world outside of education and academe, the humanities are all too often regarded as at best ephemeral or at worst esoteric. They appear to be of less significance and practical ‘value’ than the domains of science-technology and economy-commerce.

But what could be more practical, more directly relevant to our very existence than disciplines which interrogate culture, place, time, subjectivity, consciousness, meaning, representation and change? And name themselves anthropology, archaeology, art, communication, arts, cultural studies, geography, government, history, languages, linguistics, literature, media studies, philosophy, politics, religion and sociology? This is an ambitious program even before mention of the social sciences and the professions of community service which can with equal justification be regarded as subjects of the humanities, broadly understood.

Within this highly generalised scope, The International Journal of the Humanities has two particular interests:

  • Interdisciplinarity

    • The humanities is a domain of learning, reflection and action which is a place of dialogue between and across epistemologies, perspectives and content areas.

  • Globalism and Diversity

    • The humanities is to be considered, not as a place which attempts to refine a singular essence for an agenda of humanism, but rather one which recognises the dynamics of differences in human history, thought and experience, and negotiates the contemporary paradoxes of globalisation.

    It is in these unsettling places that the humanities might be able to unburden modern knowledge systems of their restrictive narrowness.

    Editors and Advisory Board

    Editors |Advisory Board

    Editors of the International Journal of the Humanities

    • Tom Nairn, The Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Australia.
    • Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.

    International Advisory Board

    • Patrick Baert, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK.
    • David Christian, San Diego State University, San Diego, USA.
    • Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.
    • Joan Copjec, State University of New York, Buffalo, USA.
    • Alice Craven, American University of Paris, Paris, France.
    • Michel Demyen, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada.
    • Elizabeth DePoy, University of Maine, Orono, USA
    • Mick Dodson, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
    • Oliver Feltham, American University of Paris, Paris, France.
    • Clyde R. Forsberg Jr., Fatih University, Istanbul, Turkey.
    • Stephen French Gilson, University of Maine, Orono, USA.
    • Hafedh Halila, Institut Supérieur des Langues de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia.
    • Souad Halila, University of Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia.
    • Hassan Hanafi Hassanien, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.
    • Ted Honderich, University College, London, UK.
    • Paul James, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
    • Moncef Jazzar, Institut Supérieur des Langues de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia.
    • Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.
    • Eleni Karantzola, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece.
    • Bill Kent, Monash University Prato Centre, Prato, Italy.
    • Krishan Kumar, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA.
    • Ayat Labadi, Institut Supérieur des Langues de Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia.
    • Marion Ledwig, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA.
    • Greg Levine, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
    • Hortensia Beatriz Vera Lopez, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
    • Fethi Mansouri, Institute for Citizenship & Globalization, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.
    • Juliet Mitchell, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK.
    • Nahid Mozaffari, New York, USA.
    • Tom Nairn, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
    • Nikos Papastergiadis, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
    • Robert Pascoe, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.
    • Scott Schaffer, Millersville University, Millersville, USA.
    • Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Stanford University, Stanford, USA.
    • Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University, New York, USA.
    • Bassam Tibi, University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany and Cornell University, Ithaca, USA.
    • Giorgos Tsiakalos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.
    • Siva Vaidhyanathan, New York University, New York, USA.
    • Cheryl A. Wells, University of Wyoming, Laramie, USA.
    • Chris Ziguras, Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

    Associate Editors


    International Journal of the Humanities, Volume 1 (Download PDF)

    International Journal of the Humanities, Volume 2 (Download PDF)

    International Journal of the Humanities, Volume 3 (Download PDF)

    International Journal of the Humanities, Volume 4 (Download PDF)

    International Journal of the Humanities, Volume 5 (Download PDF)


    Journal Profile

    STATISTICS/CITATIONS

    Statistics/citations

    At this stage we are unable to provide citation statistics as the journal is relatively new. However, we envisage a high impact factor insofar as the journal is both part of the conventional world of academic publishing and highly visible in internet search engines.

    Abstracted/Indexed in

    Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory - http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/

    Genamics JournalSeek - http://journalseek.net/

    Sociological Abstracts - http://www.csa.com

    DEST – Australian Department of Education, Science and Training - http://www.dest.gov.au/


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