Global Humanities
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What happens to humanities in a global world? At a first glance, "global" and "humanities" seem contradictory in terms. Indeed, humanities have emerged in a national and local setting. Their development has paralleled the birth and the strenghtening of the nation state. This conference brings into a discussion philosophers and social scientists that will address the following questions. To what extent the very concept of humanities is affected by the dynamics of globalization? What role institutions such as universities play in this context? Are we witnessing the multipolarization of culture? The specialization of knowledge has created divides between and within disciplines. As knowledge crosses national borders, will this dynamic put into question those disciplinary divides? Will it create new disciplines and new approaches? In what way can we imagine a new role for the humanities in a global world? Has the notion of "humanity" changed because of the globalization of culture and knowledge? What are the cultural, ethical or legal innovations that would testify for such a change?
The conference will take place through the Web starting from June 2011. A kick-off meeting with some of the participants has taken place in New York, on May 27th at the Italian Cultural Institute, 686 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065. Tel: 1 212 879 4242;
fax: 1 212 861 4018; email: iicnewyork@esteri.it
Please, register on the website to take part into the virtual debate.
Papers open for discussion
The Future of Global Humanities
Date of publication: 17 June 2011Since the early 90s, there has been a rapprochement between the new field of global studies and the humanities. As the world is following a path of growing integration, I argue that this process is likely to continue. This paper draws the profile of the humanization of global studies and imagines the plots of future books that will discuss the changes the world will undergo in the next three decades.
The Fugue of Globalization
Date of publication: 21 June 2011This paper looks at the relationship between globalization and mimicry, the faculty to copy. My central contention is that we have little choice either to use or be used by globalization. And we have little choice either to use or be used by mimicry. So how then do we reclaim and redeem the power of mimicry as a deeply humanistic practice? As I shall argue, it is to its nonutilitarian and noncorporate dimensions that we must look should we wish to recuperate this most extraordinary human capacity.
How does a new, global conversation in humanities look like?
Date of publication: 21 June 2011Global Humanitiesis a way to suggest a landscape of reconciliation between the inevitable globalization of the means of production and markets and an intimate need for anchoring our identity in local traditions and legacies.
A new Republic of Letters?
Date of publication: 21 June 2011Is there such a thing as a “global humanities”? Can the humanities be useful in the global world, relevant not to economics but to the culture at large, and in such a way that would justify their being placed on the list of society’s endangered species? In a networked world of instant communication, can Shakespeare matter to an audience today in the same way that he did even just twenty years ago, let alone a century or two ago? One way of answering this question is to look back upon the pan-European Republic of Letters, which connected the intellectual and scientific elite in an age where horse-driven post carriages worked admirably fast and sufficed for nearly immediate communication. Philosophical ideas and scientific experiments were shared with intensity and published in a variety of languages, almost simultaneously. This is an example of a network of humanists that was neither specialized nor local.
Global Intellectual Life Past and Present
Date of publication: 26 July 2011Some reflections on global intellectual history, starting out with David Mitchell's recent novel "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet"
