From "Cultural Understanding" to "Business Valuation": Analyzing the "Industrialization" Turn of the Humanities

Abstract

Contemporary humanities are facing a profound "industrialization" turn, its core characteristic has already quietly slid from "cultural understanding" towards "business valuation." This article argues that this turn is not a scattered reform or a passive compromise, but rather a multi-dimensional systemic project driven by neoliberal "academic capitalism." This article aims to reveal the three major core mechanisms of this turn: First, at the teaching mechanism level, through the reorganization of "Applied Humanities" (such as the University of Arizona model) and "skills discourse" (such as the Georgia Tech "Robin Hood" case), humanistic "content" is instrumentalized into sellable "skills"; Second, at the technical mechanism level, using "Digital Humanities" as an accelerator (such as the "IP-ization" of "Digital Dunhuang"), it provides the technological foundation for industrializing humanistic "raw materials" and realizing "business valuation"; Finally, at the administrative mechanism level, through management tools such as the "impact agenda" (like the UK REF) and "academic portfolio review" (like UNCG hiring rpk Group), the logic of "business valuation" is "liquidated" and "enforced" from the top down. This article's conclusion is that this systemic turn is creating a "Faustian" paradox—the university on one hand sells the "product" of "critical thinking," and on the other hand eliminates its basis for existence in its management—ultimately potentially leading the humanities to slide into a "post-humanities," fragmented, and instrumental existence.