Critical humanities in the Arab region: rethinking knowledge production, interdisciplinarity, and institutional reform

The humanities in Arab higher education face significant structural and institutional challenges, leading to a call for 'critical humanities' as a framework to re-evaluate knowledge production. This perspective, outlined in Frontiers in Education, highlights how the critical humanities represent an epistemic and institutional response to existing conditions, rather than merely a thematic expansion. Key constraints include marginalization within academic systems, linguistic tensions impacting scholarly communication, and insufficient institutional support for interdisciplinary initiatives.

Why it matters

This analysis is critical for understanding evolving frameworks of knowledge production and the systemic challenges impacting academic fields. It informs strategies for institutional reform, particularly in higher education, by identifying specific constraints and proposing a transformative approach to disciplinary development and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Key insights

• Critical humanities in the Arab region are an epistemic and institutional response to challenges in university knowledge production.
• This approach rethinks how higher education institutions organize inquiry, evaluate scholarship, and connect research to public life.
• It is not merely a thematic expansion of existing humanities disciplines.
• The humanities in Arab universities face structural marginalization within academic systems.
• Linguistic tensions significantly impact scholarly communication in the region.
• There is limited institutional support for interdisciplinary approaches.

Source

Frontiers in Education — https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2026.1896455