Top 50 Arts and Humanities universities

20 October 2011

Stanford University knocks Harvard University off the top spot in the arts and humanities subject rankings. With Pulitzer prizewinners and MacArthur Fellows leading its liberal-arts programme, the relative newcomer (founded in 1891) has proved more than a match for its illustrious Ivy League rival.

The University of Chicago, with a humanities department that teaches more than 50 languages, takes third position.

While the arts and humanities table, like all the others, is predominantly Anglo-American, it is the only subject area where an institution outside the US and the UK makes the top five.

The Australian National University, based in Canberra and alma mater of Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister, is ranked equal fourth alongside Princeton University.

It leads a list of three Australian institutions in the top 20, with the universities of Sydney and Melbourne taking 18th and 19th place respectively.

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (26th) is the top-ranked institution in continental Europe.

Founded by educational reformer Wilhelm von Humboldt, it has taught some of history's greatest thinkers, such as philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, political theorist Karl Marx, master of realpolitik Otto von Bismarck and physicist Albert Einstein.

Freie Universität Berlin (29th), established in 1948 to promote intellectual freedom in post-war Europe, also performs well in the table and is one of five German institutions featured, the country's best showing in an individual subject table.

The Netherlands has three representatives, including the University of Amsterdam (30th), Leiden University (35th) and Utrecht University (45th).

Asia has only two institutions featured (the University of Hong Kong at 36th place and the National University of Singapore at 38th), although that represents an improvement on last year, when not a single university from the region made the list.