Exploring the Academic Culture of the Humanities in Taiwan: Observation and Interpretation based on Academic Evaluation
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Hung, I-Mei
Abstract
This study mainly explores the academic culture of the humanities in Taiwan from 1997 to 2014 and to examine the interaction between the social system and the cultural system of academia in Taiwan. Drawing on the ideas developed by critics such as Max Weber and Clifford Geertz, this study regards the academic culture of the humanities as a constructive system shared by all the members in the humanities. This study considers the “academic evaluation of humanities scholars” as the paradigmatic event in academic daily life; grounded on the subjectivity of the humanities, this study diachronically analyses relevant texts and interviews in relation to research environments. This study has discovered that humanities scholars either actively or passively take part in academic evaluation in such a way as to endanger their own identity and the nature of humanities research. The academic field has been reduced to a labor market. Academia in Taiwan has turned into a labor market in which humanities scholars lose their dignity and become tools. Simply put, the environment is hostile to humanities research. Due to this depressing situation, this study seeks to explore the academic culture of the humanities in Taiwan by adopting an interactive approach to investigate the ways in which humanities scholars took part in the academic evaluation in universities between 1997 and 2014. In so doing, the study aims to present the big picture of academic culture of the humanities in Taiwan in terms of academic daily life, ideal-type, subtype, and changes in academic culture. Humanities scholars fight again the hostile environment with their perseverance, cross the boundaries between disciplines with self-reflexivity to create something new, and stick to the values of the humanities with their thirst for autonomy. In addition, this study aims to anatomize the construction of the academic culture of the humanities in Taiwan in terms of external, internal, and interfacial factors. That is, academic evaluation is the external factor that exercises its dominion over the free will of humanities scholars through universities. Universities, I suggest, are most influential in the construction of academic culture because they have the most direct and intimate relationship with academics on a daily basis. Finally, the study concludes that in the academic culture in Taiwan exists a rupture between academic evaluation and humanities scholars: whilst humanities scholars regard their research as a vocation, academic evaluation, as a practice of administrative management, turns research into a profession. To suture such a rupture, this study suggests that the balance be reached between “a vocation” and “a profession”: on the one hand, academic evaluation should respect the values of the humanities; on the other hand, humanities scholars should actively engage themselves in public affairs. Healthy academic administration will be therefore possible.
Subjects
Academic evaluation
academic daily life
academic culture
humanities scholars
subjectivity
SDGs
Type
thesis
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