Who now speaks for the humanities in Aotearoa New Zealand? Where are their voices heard?

The decline of the humanities as socially valued knowledge seems irresistible.

Does this matter? The Australian Academy for the Humanities thinks it does. See their 8-Point Plan to Humanise the Future: https://www.humanities.org.au/advice/8pointplan/

Are there New Zealand sites where this decline is being reversed? What strategies are being applied? Why would governments and university leaders pay attention?

This website is designed to ask those who find their way to it what should now be done so that the humanities – as culturally foundational knowledge, modes of enquiry and research, and sources of innovation – can reassert and demonstrate their social and cultural significance

The fundamental question to which all humanities enquiry is addressed is, What does it MEAN to be human? Answers are always provisional, for the reason succinctly stated by Costas Douzinas:”Humanity has no foundation and no ends. Its metaphysical function lies […] in the incessant surprising of the human condition and its exposure to an undecided open future. Humanity exists as an endless process of redefinition and the necessary but impossible attempt to escape external determination.”

This website is also intended to draw attention to my e-book: Brian Opie,  Signs for the Times: the humanities, government and democracy to-come web address. Through it I hope to make contact with those who continue to believe in the social, cultural and economic importance of the humanities.

 It is therefore a placeholder, a reminder of what has been done and a call for new ideas which can open up new possibilities for the humanities.

 It is a reminder in a very specific sense. Sarah Laing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Laing) did a series of remarkable designs for the Humanities Society and then the Council for the Humanities. The images used on this website are striking visual ideas, not finally adopted but a mark of the richness of her invention.