Global Engagement

These efforts, which include a new university-wide initiative, a project based out of Oxford, U.K., and a new Master of Arts in the Engaged and Public Humanities (MAEPH), demonstrate the global, interdisciplinary, and multifaceted dimensions of Georgetown’s approach to humanities education.

“In the humanities we study the past in order to better understand our present condition and plan for the future,” says Kathryn Temple, a professor in the Department of English and director of the new MAEPH. “We can draw on humanities training and habits of mind to help solve global and local problems, to understand why we behave as we do and how we might do better.”

A University-wide Initiative

Launched in 2017, the Georgetown Humanities Initiative aims to fully nurture the strength of the humanities both at Georgetown and around the globe.

This university-wide initiative, led by the College, emphasizes global, interdisciplinary, public, and digital humanities to illustrate the wide-ranging applications of the humanities and build on Georgetown’s Jesuit and liberal arts traditions.

“The initiative is off to an exciting start with a number of projects already funded through an incubator grant program that we started last year,” said David Edelstein, vice dean of faculty in the College. “As those projects come on line and others follow, I expect this coming year to be one in which the initiative becomes increasingly visible and active on our campus and in our city.”

Nicoletta Pireddu, a professor in the Department of Italian and an expert in comparative literature, will be the inaugural director of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative starting January 2020.

The Future of the Humanities

To connect with other nations and work toward shared goals for the humanities, Georgetown launched the Future of the Humanities Project in 2018 under the direction of Michael Scott, a fellow of Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford.

“Not every culture defines the humanities the way we define the humanities, but I think every culture sees a need for approaches that help explain the human condition, and that can work with the sciences and social sciences to help us make better decisions,” says Temple, who serves as a senior fellow for the project.

The goal of Future of the Humanities project is to further integrate Georgetown’s humanities work with that of Oxford and other universities across the globe.

“We seek to foster collaborative outreach that foregrounds the humanities as offering ways to advance the common good and address problems of global importance,” explains Temple.