Four or five pressures

 Higher ed in the humanities are not in good shape, especially in the humanities. I feel we are squeezed on all sides. 

1) Wokeness, defined here as self-parodic performative pseudo-progressive identity politics. This mindset narrows the scope of research and determines ideological positions from the outset. It leaves the humanities without a purpose of it own, and leaves it vulnerable to #2:  

2) The reaction against woke.  Okay, so you want to teach that there are a zillion genders? Then the state legislature will say you can't have gender studies at all. DEI must infuse every action of the university at a granular level? Then the legislature will say you can't have DEI at all. The right-wing reaction against woke is anti-intellectual in its motivations and it effects. I say this as someone who is no friend of wokeness itself (see 1).  

3) Economic pressures. Fewer student major in classics or want to study a less-studied language? Eliminate or gut those programs. Tuition is more expensive, while at the same time administrative costs rise, but not faculty salaries. There are more and more adjuncts. Athletics and big science make humanities budgets seem paltry in comparison. 

4) Cultural factors. There are fewer of those nerdy super-readers who are the bulwark of the humanities students. Maybe there were never that many of us, but students have less capacity to read large amounts of material.  

5) Technology.  The rise of Artificial Intelligence means you can write a mediocre paper on literature very easily. Students will use this to varying degrees even if told not to.  Then you no longer get the core of the humanities: engaging with intellectually challenging material through writing academic prose. The point of this is not the final result (the paper) but what has occurred in the student's brain. I always say it's like sending a robot to the gym to do your bench presses for you.