The Comparative Global Humanities Initiative (GHI) was born in 2021 with the goal of creating an MIT-based worldwide community that works globally towards reinvigorating humanistic learning and education by radically expanding the geographical scope and temporal depth of humanistic disciplines, reimagining thereby their critical relevance to the grand challenges of today’s world. GHI supports the study of the world’s cultures and their diverse histories in all their historical, linguistic, cultural, scientific and technological manifestations; promotes the creation of new cross-disciplinary methodologies and theories based on the world’s cultural archives and conceptual vocabularies; and advances the critical study of the social, political, and creative functions of cultural heritage in today’s world.
Through a growing community of scholars, students, and associates, locally and around the world, the Initiative seeks to develop new cultural practices of knowing, teaching, sharing, and acting. We aim to contribute to efforts already under way to create a cross-disciplinary undergraduate curriculum that equips MIT graduates with humanistic values and critical understanding of society and the broader world, as they emerge as global changemakers and leaders on a planet facing overwhelming challenges.
Currently, GHI is organized around six Big Issue research teams called “Pillars,” led by current members of the Initiative. Each team functions as a rubric for individual projects. But our community is welcoming new members who would like to propose a project within any of the current Big Issue Pillars or also propose ideas for new Pillars and projects that deserve broad attention.
The current pillars are:
• Healing Arts and Human Well-being
• Environment, Biodiversity, and the Sacred
• A Long History of Human Relations