SoTL and the Humanities

In this article, we share themes and tensions experienced by humanities faculty undertaking a scholarship of teaching & learning (SoTL) project as part of a multi-campus, grant-funded initiative. Faculty participants in the project iteratively transformed a course to improve one or more aspects of their students’ learning over a three-year period and documented the process and results in a course portfolio. To support their individual and collaborative work, each of the four campuses had a local leader, and participants met regularly with campus teams, convening with the full group annually for cross-campus knowledge exchange and peer review. At the project conclusion campus leaders gathered participant reflections and discovered a pattern of tensions that included: disciplinary ways of knowing, ways to represent knowing, and ways of writing and sharing. These tensions are similar to those identified elsewhere and can be potential impediments to this work for some in the humanities. Explicitly addressing those potential tensions while helping faculty see how their own disciplinary approaches can help them investigate their course practices is a useful first step toward more contributions from humanities scholars.

Manufacturing dissent: The racialization of opposition to animal advocacy in South Africa

In 2015, some members of the Humanities Faculty at the University of Cape Town proposed that animal products be taken off the menu at official Faculty functions. The proposal was rejected. Cordeiro-Rodrigues, in his paper “The racialization of animal advocacy in South Africa”, this journal, blames the proposers for this rejection, claiming that “the proposal’s approach neglects the racialized history of animal advocacy in South Africa, while also being carried out at an inopportune time and context.” We dispute Cordeiro-Rodrigues’ claims on a number of grounds, and argue that not only does he fail to substantiate his claims against the proposers, he also mischaracterizes the history of animal advocacy in South Africa, and, most worryingly, ignores the immense suffering perpetrated on animals in animal agribusiness.

Academic Research Student Handbook for the Students of Academic Master Study Programme “Digital Humanities”

The Academic Research Student Handbook has been designed as the manual providing guidance on curricular and extracurricular academic research activities, focusing particularly on the development of the Master Thesis. The book is intended for students, academic staff, scientific advisers and reviewers of graduate papers and the members of the final examination commission of the Academic Master Study Programme “Digital Humanities”, Faculty of E-Learning Technologies and Humanities, Riga Technical University.

An interview with Dr. Mohammad Ismath Ramzy Mohammad Ismail

Our guest is Dr.Mohammad Ismath Ramzy Mohammad Ismail, Senior Lecturer, Department of Educational Foundations and Humanities, Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, W.Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He teaches courses in sociology of education and actively involved in Peace Education and religious dialogue, mainly Muslim-Buddhist. His interest includes Intercultural Education, multiculturalism, sociology of education, diversity and social cohesion. He is a recipient of Vienna KAICIID fellowship and currently, and involves in researches like “Social Cohesion through tertiary education”, “Effective Teaching & Learning in Malaysian Primary Schools” and “Towards Progressive Society, Capacity for Peace” and Interfaith Dialogue between Muslims and Buddhists. He has published research articles in International Review Journals including ISI and Scopus. Also has written several book chapters including 07 entries to the Encyclopedia of Indian Religions published by Springer.

Construction of a database for the correct and incorrect use of considerate expressions, for the formation of a Japanese considerate expression dictionary

Professor Masaki Yamaoka, based at the Department of Humanities, Faculty of Letters, Soka University in Japan is leading a highly collaborative and multidisciplinary team that features researchers from academic institutions around the world, with a view to clarifying the actual situation of considerate expressions. It is hoped that this will make real contributions to anthropological fields that provide a more complete picture of what it means to be human.<br/> Some considerate expressions are common to all languages, while others are unique to a specific language. One that is common to many languages is the use of 'maybe' and 'may' which have the effect of making what is said less forceful or certain. By being less emphatic, it is thought that a consideration for the other person's feelings is sometimes part of the language process. It is a usage called 'hedge' in linguistics. For example, in English, 'it might be better to' is a kind of hedge. We can use this phrase as a considerate expression like that 'it might be better to leave here' instead of 'Leave here.'<br/> It is worth bearing in mind that, until now, research into considerate expressions has almost exclusively been conducted with researchers rather than the general public. Laboratory conditions can have the effect of providing an incomplete picture, so Yamaoka wants to make the research more reliable by collecting data on the actual usage of considerate expressions by members of the general public. A large-scale corpus of written and spoken language has already been developed in Japanese, Professor Yamaoka in the process of collecting as many examples of considerate expressions as possible and storing them in the database. The Japanese considerate expression dictionary can be composed by selecting information which is beneficial to Japanese learners from the database. In addition, Professor Yamaoka would also like to publish this database among researchers for the convenience of those who are engaged in research on considerate expressions in the future.

The Effect of Self-Efficacy and Learning Achievement of Students in the Class of 2016/2017 at Borobudur University, Jakarta

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a significant correlation between self-efficacy and student achievement. This study uses a quantitative approach. The subjects of this study were 135 active undergraduate students of the Borobudur University class of 2016/2017 in the faculties of science and humanities. This study used proportionate stratified random sampling so that 73 students from the faculty of science were obtained and 57 students in the humanities field were obtained. The data analysis method in this research is linear regression. The results of this study indicate that there is an effect of self-efficacy on student achievement in class 2016/2017 at Borobudur University. The regression model test shows (Sig 0.00 <0.05), with a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.272 and 0.293 in the exact sciences and humanities faculty, this shows that there is a mutual relationship between the self-efficacy variables and learning achievement in the low category. The coefficient of determination (R Square) in the faculty of science and humanities students is 0.074 and 0.086. It means that only 7.4% and 8.6% of the variation in learning achievement can be explained by the self-efficacy variable, and the rest is influenced by other factors. Keywords: self-efficacy, students’ achievement, students

DECOLONISING KNOWLEDGE: REFLECTIONS ON COLONIAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND A HUMANITIES SEMINAR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE

This paper discusses the Decolonising Knowledge Seminar, a seminar which I initiatedin the Humanities Faculty at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Bloemfontein campus in 2017. The paper’s opening sections present a rationale for the seminar. I maintain that there is considerable scholarship illuminating how colonialpower shaped the knowledge which academic disciplines generated about Africa during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Much of it is focused on anthropology, the discipline centred on Europe’s non-Western ‘others’ and implicated in latecolonial government. Despite the influence of this and related critiques globally, with their focus on power-knowledge relationships, such work has not substantially permeated South Africa’s Afrikaans universities. There, humanities disciplineswere largely isolated from global knowledge flows during the apartheid era and continue to emerge from this insular past. The paper then discusses the seminar itself and what I see as its three main contributions: creating space for an open-endedexchange about colonial knowledge and its legacies, engaging critically with the language of decolonisation, and grounding discussion of decolonisation in scholarship on Africa’s colonial history, including the history of anthropology. Bytracing these dynamics, the paper offers a unique perspective on the unfolding conversation about decolonisation in South Africa, highlighting a specific initiative aimed at contributing to decolonising knowledge at one South African university.Moreover, the paper suggests how historical literature pertaining to anthropology speaks to decolonising knowledge at the UFS and Afrikaans universities generally, where questions of colonial knowledge and power have long been obscured. In this manner, the paper moves the topic of decolonisation from highly abstract and/or politically symbolic claims into a specific context, where engaging certain scholarly texts may make a demonstrable intervention.

Art and Research: A Portrait of a Humanities Faculty as an Inclusive Workspace

At a time when monuments are falling, learning processes and discourses accelerating, it seems apposite to pay attention also to artworks commissioned by established institutions in order to give form to good intentions. This essay focuses on a commissioned portrait of female professors, on art (history) education, Dutch art policy / politics and the former colonial (VOC) site that the University of Amsterdam occupies, in order to aide this institution’s desired process to become more inclusive. It proposes Art(istic) Research as a realm that can contribute a differentiated and thoughtful positioning of research and universities in visual and public domains: a necessary ally. Since the essay was written in Summer 2019 (with later additions), much has happened: the Faculty in question has been found to be the locus of ongoing sexual harassment. The student victims did not feel that the (internal) complaints procedures were safeguarding them sufficiently. They went to the media. The university’s ombudsperson asked to investigate found no systemic deficiencies. Since George Floyd’s death, such a conclusion is no longer possible, and the Board of the university has admitted shameful and systemic failures.[1] We now know better what “systemic” means. This essay’s case study is meant to show that art (history) and philosophy can jointly analyze systems and organizations as a basis for necessary conversations, followed by a broad range of people taking responsibility and acting accordingly. In Covid lock-down times, it became deceptively obvious how unimportant art is. Through an essay such as this (and the Faculty’s “art committee” that I established), it is hopefully also evident how art can be an indicator of institutional culture: e.g. in relation to how embedded the principle to consult specialists is, even if this seems to be unimportant. And that is a matter of life and death. [1] https://www.folia.nl/actueel/138876/fred-weerman-en-geert-ten-dam-dit-is-ongehoord-beschamend

An assessment of e-book collection development practices among Romance language librarians

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the collection development practices regarding e-books among librarians who manage French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish (Romance) materials. The authors aim to describe factors that influence acquisition of e-books for Romance language collections to confirm librarians’ perception that humanities researchers prefer print and library administrators’ attitudes toward e-books. Design/methodology/approach This study collected data using a mixed-method approach of a survey and focus groups. Findings This study confirms that user preference is the primary consideration of Romance librarians in selecting e-books. Contrary to librarians’ perceptions, this study found that humanities faculty and students are not averse to using e-books for specific purposes such as searching, targeted reading and course materials. While restrictions on lending e-books are a concern, Romance librarians are focused primarily on serving the needs of their core constituencies. Research limitations/implications The practice of adding call numbers to individual e-books varies among institutions. Individual e-book titles in large packages do not necessarily get added to the catalog, thus making it very difficult to compare e-book collections between institutions. Originality/value This study endeavors to unify the anecdotal narratives and factors that influence the acquisition of e-books by Romance librarians.

Pustakawan Dalam Perspektif Manajer Informasi: Studi Kasus Pada Mahasiswa Jurusan S1 Ilmu Perpustakaan Fakultas Adab dan Humaniora UIN Ar-Raniry

This study aims to find out Librarian in Perspective of Information Manager (Case Study on Library Science Undergraduate Student of Adab and Humanities Faculty of UIN Ar-Raniry, Banda Aceh). This research uses quality descriptive approach, an approach that emphasizes more on the deductive and inductive deduc- tion process and on the analysis of the dynamics of relationship between observed phenomena, using scientific logic. The students of Library Science were observed to be 54 people for three months. For this research the author will explain in detail about UIN Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh Main Library in the perspective of information managers for llibrary users especially Library Science students class of 2016 intake. The research results are; Librarians are not yet fully able to become information managers at UIN Ar-Raniry Main Library of Banda Aceh, due the small number of librarians for this size of a college library. Lack of librarian contribution to be- come information manager, in order to be able to fulfill requirement of information for their users, in this case undergraduate student of Library Science. Regarding the perspective that a library must be able to provide all forms of information required has not been done well, especially the information needs fot this such of users in this case Library Science students.