In many countries and universities across Africa and around the world, the humanities are deemed to be in crisis as they face a barrage of epistemic and ideological assaults from politicians, business people and the general public. According to Prof. Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Vice Chancellor, United States International University – Africa, Nairobi, Kenya, the critics of the humanities often centre on their purported lack of “usefulness” and apparent inability to offer employability skills to graduates. In much of Africa, the dismissal and devaluation of the humanities is exacerbated by the omniscient and omnipresent discourse of developmentalism. The humanities bear the brunt of the purported failures of African higher education to serve as the locomotive of sustainable development.

Addressing participants at the Opening Ceremony of the National Humanities Conference held on 11^th August 2021, Prof. Tiyambe, underscored the relevance of the humanities and social sciences despite the continued attacks.  In his keynote address titled “Rethinking the Place of Humanities and Social Sciences in the Post-COVID-19 Academy”, Prof. Tiyambe emphasized the strong linkage between the humanities and other branches of knowledge.

“The pandemic and digitalization have underscored the necessity of the knowledge, skills, and literacies of the humanities. COVID-19 has not been confined to a crisis of physical health. It has also been a mental health crisis and a complex constellation of economic, social, cultural and political crises. Understanding the multidimensional nature and differentiated impact of the pandemic, devising effective containment strategies, and envisioning a better future requires the insights, imaginations and policies informed by the humanities and social sciences. Similarly, the transformations wrought by the Fourth Industrial Revolution are as much technological as they are social, and the rapidly changing jobs of the digitized economies of the 21^st century require the cultivation of technical skills as much as lifelong learning skills that the humanities and social sciences are renowned for. The liberal arts are priceless repositories of intrinsic, intellectual, and idealistic values, skills, and competences,” Prof. Tiyambe explained.

He called for interdisciplinarity as one of the measures to revitalize the humanities and social sciences, and make them more relevant to the concerns and interests of the contemporary world. “All too often, humanities faculty and disciplines are trapped in antiquarian disciplinary specializations and try to fiercely defend the antiquated Eurocentric disciplinary architecture of the 19^th century. The history of ideas shows that massive transformations have taken place since then in the systems of knowledge production, dissemination, and organization determined by the demands and diversities of historical geography and the configurations of prevailing institutional, intellectual, and ideological dynamics. Interdisciplinarity offers a creative space between disciplines where new questions are asked, new approaches developed, new understanding advanced, and new fields and disciplines emerge. It connects disciplinary insights to address questions that transcend disciplinary boundaries and enhances the problem-solving capacities of scholarship,” he advised.

Held under the theme, “Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences Scholarship for a New Era”, the National Humanities Conference (HumanitiesCon2021), organized by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHUSS), was born out of the “Historicizing the Humanities at Makerere University since 1922 (Humanities@Mak100)” research project supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The three-day virtual conference held on 11^th-13^th August 2021 and attended by humanities and social sciences scholars from across the region,  aimed to centre debates and discussions on how the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences can critically grapple with challenges in the era of globalisation, decolonisation, technological advancement and novel global pandemics. It was part of the activities to mark 100 years of Makerere University.

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