Comparative Global Humanities Now
Name
jwl-article-p479_2.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
752.52 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
45a46ab58a91b1ffcc993c1d2a1963c7
Author(s)
Denecke, Wiebke
Date Issued
May 11, 2021
Journal
Journal of World Literature
Publisher
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Citation
Denecke, W. (2021). Comparative Global Humanities Now. Journal of World Literature, 6(4), 479-508.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
This essay proposes to energize the mission of the humanities by radically globalizing their subject matter and methods, taking inspiration from the world’s monumental archive of humanistic creativity over 5000 years of recorded experience. It advocates for Comparative Global Humanities as a crucial complement to the more presentist new humanities fields of medical, environmental, or public humanities. Comparative Global Humanities aims to be inclusively global in terms of subject matter and participants, conceptually comparative, and based on rigorous historical and philological research. A Global Humanities for the 21st century is no antiquarian endeavor, but a head-on response to the greatest challenges of our times: systemic racism, inequality, and fundamentalisms, which are rooted in the unresolved aftermath of wars, colonization, and violence, and use classical heritage for nationalist propaganda. To create more equal societies in the present we need to create more equality for other pasts – and learn from all they offer.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Literature Section
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-20210004
