And each one is watching and observing our behaviors, said AI pioneer . In that way, he believes, AIs behave not like machines of the 20th century but more like “artificial children.” Similar with human children, people must parent their AI children responsibly, argues De Kai, whose surname is Wu but goes by his given name professionally.

“The question I’m asking is, how’s your parenting? Because these artificial kids for the last 20 years already have been by far the most massively powerful influencers in our societies,” De Kai said in an interview. 

That is one of the main messages in his new book, Raising AI: An Essential Guide to Parenting Our Future, and something he reiterated in as part of the co-hosted by the Georgetown Humanities Initiative and the Center for Digital Ethics.

, the director of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative, introduced De Kai as “one of the most important voices about AI and the ethics of AI in the world.”

The event also featured remarks from , the dean of the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł of Arts & Sciences, and a panel discussion with De Kai, , the director of the Center for Digital Ethics, and , the executive director of the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS). 

“We tend to talk about ethics and AI in very general terms,” Pireddu said. “I think what makes De Kai’s book unique is its attention to specific elements that call for concrete responsibilities each of us must take on.”

‘We Are the Training Data’

De Kai has been working in AI research for decades. 

He holds a joint appointment at the ’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering and at the in Berkeley, California. 

The event at Georgetown came together after Katy Bohinc (C’07) saw an email last year from the office of , a professor in the Department of French and Francophone Studies and then the interim dean of the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł. The email mentioned Pireddu and the opening of a dedicated space for the Georgetown Humanities Initiative.  

Bohinc, a mathematics and global and comparative literature major, was thrilled. Pireddu was her comparative literature advisor and Sobanet served as her thesis advisor during her time at Georgetown. She had just finished editing Raising AI – De Kai credits her as his “first editor” in the book – and suggested bringing De Kai to the Hilltop.

“I have an absolutely wonderful network of Georgetown in my life,” Bohinc said.

She sat in the front row in Gaston Hall as De Kai spoke to a crowd of more than 200 people that included Georgetown faculty, staff, students and community members. A group of more than 30 students, along with their law and government teacher, Monte Bourjaily, from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology also attended.

In the talk, De Kai said he believes that the public discourse around AI lends itself to asking the wrong questions. AIs are not toasters, steam engines, carburetors or electric fans – they are embedded in our social fabric. Guardrails and regulations alone aren’t going to save us, he said.

“We are the training data,” De Kai said during his presentation. “Whatever I continue to do with my colleagues on the regulatory side, whatever I continue to do with my colleagues at tech companies on guardrails, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re the parental role models. Those of you who work in AI or machine learning will understand there’s only a few things we really control. We control the training data.”

AIs decide what pops up on our screens – and perhaps even more importantly, what we don’t see – something De Kai describes as “algorithmic censorship.” That is connected to a phenomenon De Kai calls “neginformation,” which as “misleading facts that manipulate you not through deception, but through what’s left unsaid.” 

The potential consequences of that are dire, De Kai warns. 

“When we don’t know something about other groups, about other perspectives, another unconscious bias is that we fear what we don’t know,” he said. “And fear tends to slide into anger and hatred, and that slides into demonization, which slides into dehumanization.”

Responsible Parenting

De Kai wants his book to be a call to action.

“We are the last generation of humans that gets to parent AIs. All the future generations of AIs are going to be parented primarily by AIs in the labs,” he said during his presentation. “We have one last shot at getting this right.”

Being a responsible parent means being mindful of what is being consumed and how you interact with it online. 

In his book, De Kai shares recommendations on how to better raise our AIs.

“Teach your AIs to look for more diverse opinions,” he writes. “Break the echo chambers. Click more on stories framed in contrasting perspectives, on stories explaining other cultures. Try to re-orientate your perspective – especially when the technologists and policymakers still haven’t gotten it right. Teach your AIs to be polite and respectful. ‘Like’ or ‘Share’ reasoned, fact-based, respectful discussions – not insults, offensive wording or trolling.”

AI has the potential to be the most transformative tool invented to address the destructive power of biases, De Kai said, but major changes need to be made. We can all play a part.

“We have only survived today because parents do their best,” he said.

(Photos by Lisa Helfert for Georgetown University)

From translation workshops to an international lecture series, the LCL, which an expansive range of major and minor programs in languages and literary and cultural studies, is committed to bringing together students and scholars in dialogue about the role of language in shaping our understanding of the world. 

, the new convener of the program and chair of the Department of Classics, emphasized adaptability as central to the LCL’s mission. 

“I feel that the LCL is very well placed to create tailored education that gives students a fuller sense of human culture and its potentialities,” Nichols said.

Translation Seminar Series

The “Between Differences, Across Divides: A Translation Seminar Series” debuted this semester with

The event, organized by the with the support of a Global Humanities Faculty Seminar Grant awarded by Georgetown University’s Office of the Vice President for Global Engagement, featured two distinguished literary translators and authors, Jennifer Croft and Lily Meyer. 

It helped draw attention to the artistry and complexity of translation, asking what happens when translators, who are so often behind the scenes, step into the spotlight as authors. The “Translation Seminar Series” highlights how the LCL reaches far beyond grammar drills or vocabulary lists. 

“It is not just about the act of learning vocabulary and syntax,” Nichols said when asked about the meaning of language learning. “It is fundamentally interdisciplinary. Films, novels, culture through food, business practices and norms across the world all become part of how we engage.”

The series will give students further opportunities to learn directly from practitioners shaping the field, with one upcoming session in the fall – on November 4 – and additional workshops and panels planned for the spring. 

Islamic Studies Lectures and Theology in Arabic

The remains a cornerstone of the LCL’s engagement with religious and intellectual currents. The series – launched in 2010 by , chair of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies – reflects her commitment to bringing leading scholarship to the Georgetown community.

In September, the series featured Rushain Abbasi, an assistant professor of religious studies at Stanford, on “The Kingdom of Heaven and Earth: On the Life of Islam.” It will continue this month with Walid Saleh from University of Toronto on “The Late Meccan Suras of the Qur’an: A New Reading” on October 29.

More lectures are planned in the spring, keeping with the tradition of five to seven per year. 

“The Islamic Studies Lecture Series is a way to expose the audience to the state of topics and questions in the field and various methodologies used,” Opwis said. “It aims at providing a fertile ground for discussion and scholarly exchange.”

In tandem, the , organized by assistant professor , continues as an online forum where scholars gather monthly to explore Christian, Jewish and Muslim Arabic theological traditions. 

A Humanities Conference

Another highlight this fall is the conference, on October 30–31. Organized by Georgetown’s German and English departments, together with the Fritz-Hüser-Institut in Dortmund and the , the event asks how the humanities offer distinctive insights into work’s human dimensions.

“This symposium is an inspiring example of collaboration across departments for an event that will bring together faculty, students and non-Georgetown scholars from the U.S. and Europe,” said , director of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative. “It embodies the intercultural dialogue to which Georgetown is committed and explores a quintessential human experience – work – that is central to the definition and dignity of the person, in line with Georgetown’s values.”

While the social sciences often emphasize structural aspects of labor, the humanities delve into narratives, meaning and representation — through novels, films, poetry and performance — to explore work as lived experience. 

Featured speakers include Sonali Perera, author of No Country: Working-Class Writing in the Age of Globalization, Sarah Ann Wells, author of Media Laboratories: Late Modernist Authorship in South America and Jasper Bernes, author of The Work of Art in the Age of Deindustrialization. They will discuss working-class writing, labor in cultural forms and the aesthetics of work under deindustrialization.Ěý

The conference comes at a moment when questions of meaning, labor, automation and human flourishing are increasingly urgent. 

“The humanities play a vital and intellectually generative role across disciplines,” Pireddu said, “because they foster critical inquiry, ethical reflection and a nuanced understanding of human culture, history and expression.” 

Looking Ahead

For students looking to expand their horizons, the LCL is not only a place to learn languages but also a community where conversations across cultures come alive.

There will be no shortage of opportunities for student engagement.

LCL departments are marking the calendar with a range of special events, including a conference on the 10th anniversary of the 2015 Paris terror attacks, an Andrea Camilleri celebration and Persian Poetry and Cinema weeks.

Nichols expressed confidence in the LCL’s future. 

“We are standing on the precipice of enormous change in academia,” she said. “But I believe we are well placed to continue posing the deepest questions — What does it mean to be human? How do we relate to one another across boundaries? — and to answer them through our teaching, research and events.”

Among them are three new Royden B. Davis, S.J. visiting professors: in the Department of History, Danielle Purifoy in the and Mary Roberts in the and the Department of Art and Art History. The positions are funded through an endowment named for Davis, a former dean of the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł, and focus on enhancing undergraduate and graduate instruction and mentoring in the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł.

Gustafson’s expertise is in Persian and Iranian history, Purifoy is teaching a course on Black geographies and Roberts, an art historian, is teaching a class on the exchange and cultural contact between Europe and the Ottoman world during the 19th century.

“We are thrilled to bring these distinguished visiting scholars to campus,” said , the şŁ˝ÇÂŰ̳’s vice dean for faculty affairs. “This will enrich offerings for our students and the intellectual life of campus, more generally. These are the kinds of interdisciplinary connections and opportunities we hope to encourage.”

Learn more about what inspired the professors to enter the world of academia and share their passion for the humanities.

James Gustafson, History 

Gustafson is teaching two courses this semester: History of Iran and Environmental History of Iran.

The first course covers Iran’s social and cultural history from the Persian Empires of antiquity to the modern Islamic Republic. The second is a seminar that explores how climate change and environmental hazards have shaped modern Iran’s history. 

“It’s really exciting to have the opportunity to come in and help build some momentum for developing a really strong program in Iranian studies,” Gustafson said.

He hopes his courses will reveal to students the “remarkable similarities” between Americans and Iranians.

“I think the United States and Iran have had a very difficult relationship for a long time,” Gustafson said. “And I think the only way that you start to build bridges is through understanding. Having a depth of understanding of the rich history of Iran is a great starting point for building a little bit of empathy, a little bit of cross-cultural dialogue.”

Gustafson is visiting from , where he is a professor of history. He started learning Persian on his own as an undergraduate student at the University of Massachusetts. At the time, he was working at an evening pharmacy job, and his coworker, a woman who had fled Iran after the Iranian Revolution, taught him Persian.

“I just got hooked on it,” Gustafson said. “And then ended up getting deep into Persian language and literature and never really looked back.”

He would go to earn an M.A. in Middle Eastern studies at the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in history at the University of Washington. Within six weeks of finishing his Ph.D. program, Gustafson received a visiting professorship position teaching Islamic studies at Western Washington University. He has been a professor of Middle East history at Indiana State University since 2012 and has served on the executive committee of the Association for Iranian Studies since 2019.

“I love when you can really see that you’ve introduced someone to a new idea that they hadn’t considered before,” Gustafson said of why he enjoys teaching. “Or a new perspective that they hadn’t taken in before.”

Danielle Purifoy, Black Studies

For Purifoy, who is teaching the seminar Black Geographies, the field of geography covers much more than maps.

“Maps are a very fascinating, very interesting element to the discipline, but the real scope of geography is pretty boundless,” they said. “You are always situated in a place, and there are so many different ways to think about how your life is shaped by place.”

Purifoy’s course examines how peoples of the African diaspora have shaped spaces in and around the West. 

“The course is intended to give folks a very different perspective on how they might think about geography traditionally,” they said.

Purifoy’s origin story in academia began her senior year of college during Hurricane Katrina. She was a budding journalist interested in writing about race and politics but didn’t have a specific topic to think through that lens. 

But working on hurricane recovery in Baton Rouge and New Orleans for three years inspired her interest in environmental justice. Purifoy eventually earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. in environmental policy from Duke University.

While at Duke, she collaborated with students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who encouraged Purifoy to explore geography as a discipline. She has been an assistant professor of geography and environment at UNC-Chapel Hill since 2020.

Human society and geography help explain the world around us and highlight the importance of learning the humanities, Purifoy said.

“We absolutely need all of the ways to understand ourselves and our place in this world if we’re going to do anything to change it for the better,” they said.

Mary Roberts, Georgetown Humanities Initiative and Art and Art History

At Georgetown, Roberts is teaching Ottomans and Orientalists, a course that explores the role of visual culture in forms of exchange and cultural contact between Europe and the Ottoman world between 1798 and 1910.

The class, which includes master’s and undergraduate students, encompasses the study of diverse forms of visual culture — from architecture and city planning to illustrated news images, panoramas, caricature and high art, Roberts said. 

“One of the many topics we are addressing is the history of exhibitions and the kinds of stories that can be told about cultural relations between Europe and the Islamic world through museum displays,” she said.

Roberts is a specialist in 19th-century modernism, orientalism and Ottoman art and has written several books examining those topics. Her appointment at Georgetown is between the Department of Art and Art History and the Georgetown Humanities Initiative.

“The research strengths in art history and in Ottoman and Turkish studies at the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł of Arts & Sciences appealed to me,” said Roberts, who is a professor of art history and 19th-century studies at . “What also appeals to me is the rich culture of free inquiry and open debate that is encouraged at Georgetown.”

Roberts grew up in Brisbane, Australia, and was always passionate about making art. In high school, her art history teacher opened up a new world to her, and she discovered that writing about art felt just as creative as making it. 

“At the same time I was making art, I was actually seeing that one could be completely inspired by artworks from another time,” Roberts said.

When her parents took her to a local art museum, a curator there encouraged Roberts to study art history in Sydney or Melbourne. Roberts moved from Brisbane to Sydney and graduated with a double major in art history and political economy at the University of Sydney. She completed her Ph.D. in art history at the University of Melbourne.

“I was really interested in that crossover between the social and economic function of art within and between cultures,” Roberts said.

For Ortiz, this is an opportunity to continue beating the drum for the value of the humanities, both within the halls of academia and out in the world.

“For higher education, the field of public humanities offers an opportunity to deepen and extend our commitment to innovating in some of the more traditional humanities disciplines, as well as in some of the newer inter-disciplines,” said Ortiz, a professor in the Department of English. “In the wider world, the practice of public humanities offers us an opportunity to act, and in meaningfully collective, collaborative ways, not only to bridge the divides between our campuses and our communities, but also to engage with otherwise unlikely partners in work that invites us to forge shared commitments and interests.”

Publicizing Public Humanities

Launched this fall, Public Humanities is a new journal that seeks to “bridge the connection between the academic and everyday life.” To that end, the journal publishes research from across the humanities, regardless of discipline or methodology, that brings ideas to the public sphere.

“It’s scholarship written with fire and footnotes,” said Jeffrey R. Wilson, one of the journal’s co-founders and editors-in-chief, in a press release announcing the launch of Public Humanities. “The journal is a response to the complexity of contemporary societal challenges and the demand to demonstrate the societal impact of humanities research,” said Zoe Hope Bulatis, the journal’s second co-founder.

The first issue of Public Humanities, dubbed “The Manifesto Issue,” sought to “set an agenda for public humanities in the years ahead.” The forthcoming special issue edited by Ortiz is called “Public Humanities in Action” and seeks to highlight the practical work of the humanities in the world.

“The special issue will contribute directly to the journal’s larger goal of establishing the scope, depth, and variety of approaches that qualify work as genuinely within the field of the public humanities,” said Ortiz. “In particular, this issue will showcase a wide array of publicly-engaged projects modeling successful collaborations between university-based humanities scholars, often themselves working in teams, and community partner organizations.”

Ortiz, an expert on Latinx literatures and cultures within the United States, is excited by the global scope of “Public Humanities in Action.”

“At its current state of development, the field of public humanities relies heavily on a case-study approach to archive and disseminate information about what’s happened, what’s happening, and what’s possible going forward,” said Ortiz. “This special issue has the added advantage of collecting case studies from around the world and not just the United States, in keeping with the global reach of the Public Humanities Âá´ÇłÜ°ů˛Ô˛šąô.”

Humanities on the Hilltop

At Georgetown, Ortiz serves as the director of the , which launched in the fall of 2020.

“Editing this journal is a great opportunity to bring our program to the attention of Public Humanities’ global readership,” said Ortiz. “It’s also a great opportunity to complement work by some of our excellent core faculty, in particular , who co-edited the Routledge Companion to Public Humanities Scholarship, and , who has been working with a team of ENPH students on the creation of Interspaces, our own Georgetown-based public humanities Âá´ÇłÜ°ů˛Ô˛šąô.”

On the Hilltop, Georgetown has continued to invest in the humanities through the , which works to promote interdisciplinary collaborations across the university. In October, the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł of Arts & Sciences celebrated the opening of a dedicated space for the initiative in the university’s historic Old North building with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Ortiz hopes that “Public Humanities in Action” will not only catalyze a global conversation, but will continue to inspire Hoyas in the humanities.

“I hope the creativity, diversity, and impact of the projects we’ll showcase will in turn inspire the creation and execution of an ever wider, more diverse array of future projects,” said Ortiz. “‘Action’ is the keyword in our special issue’s title, and it should orient readers forward, toward that better future that endeavors like theirs might make possible.”

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By housing the initiative in historic Old North – the oldest academic building on the Hilltop – the university is symbolically and formally recommitting to, and celebrating, the humanities. Since the university’s founding in 1789, the humanities have been central to a Georgetown education. 

Today, they offer students an entry point into interdisciplinary research that pushes the boundaries of knowledge and facilitates journeys of personal growth.

“The humanities will broaden a student’s perspective of the world around us through a deeper understanding of the human condition and cultures,”  said Toni Boucher, (P’98, ‘00, ‘04), one of the initiative’s founding donors. “The skills developed through the humanities include communication, writing, evaluation of ideas, problem-solving and critical thinking skills, which are essential in any profession.”

Getting Into the Gilded Age

Davis Fellow Melinda Reed (C’25) spent the summer bringing the humanities into her personal passion project, a novel set in the Gilded Age. 

“I wanted to turn a novel I’d started as a teenager into a historically accurate, textured work that I could send to literary agencies,” said Reed, a justice and peace studies major and creative writing minor. “In service of that specific personal goal, my alien-in-the-archives mentality worked—it allowed me to be curious and to approach my research with the mind of an artist as well as a historian.”

Reed began working on the book when she was 16 during a summer writing camp at Georgetown.  

“We went to the National Gallery of Art and were supposed to write something based on a painting,” said Reed. “So, I picked a painting, “Study of Lilia” by Carolus-Duran, and started writing what would become my first novel that I finished in quarantine. Fast forward five years and I started building an academic project around my creative writing, realizing that there were a lot of gaps in that novel because originally I was writing it for fun and not for historical accuracy.”

The book begins the same year Carolus-Duran painted his piece: 1887. A bildungsroman, it follows 19-year-old Lilia Daley from her sheltered rural life through an unplanned pregnancy and a clash of cultures as she begins working as a maid for a wealthy family on the New England coast. 

Reed cites several faculty and staff members at Georgetown as being instrumental to the completion of the project, including creative writing professor and historian , who helped point her in the right direction when she began doing research. Outside of class, Reed worked as a student employee at the Center for , where the  staff were able to help her reframe her creative project as a piece of academic research. 

Reed began her summer in Rhode Island, where she conducted formal research and informal exploration of one of the settings in her work. 

“I’d visited Newport when I was a kid and I remembered these mansions that are typically associated with the Gilded Age and the incredible amount of wealth that certain families had to have these summer homes on the coast,” said Reed. “I was there looking at the current experience and talking to anybody who would talk to me–all of the tour guides were lovely and would talk about the period and help me get a sense of the physical space that the story was set in.” 

Once Reed was back home in New Jersey, she began commuting into New York City to do archival research. There, she looked through journals and letters from the Gilded Age to get a firsthand look at how her characters should speak, act, and think. 

“I got so invested in the stories of the people that I was reading about–reading very personal documents that they probably never intended for anyone else to look at,” said Reed. “I was very aware of that kind of privilege and that distant violation of privacy–to be able to read these documents and meet people who had lived so long ago and had all these emotions and feelings that they put on the page. I honestly felt honored to get a glimpse into their lives.” 

“After doing the research, I realized how much work the book needs in order to make it something I’m willing to send out. Now, I have a clearer sense of what I want the book to look like. 

“Research, broadly defined, is the process of discovery,” said Reed. “But in our attempt to define it more specifically, we’ve narrowed our understanding of what research can be, creating laws and a locked gate professing that only the qualified are allowed to enter and discover for themselves.”

Reconstructing Paradise in the Humanities

Inspiration struck Alex Wang (C’25) during an introductory English literature course when she first read John Milton’s Paradise Lost. 

“All the texts we were reading were canonized—that’s why they’re in a survey course,” said Wang. “I read Paradise Lost and it was such a long, dense, and incredibly beautiful text. It was so good and so amazing, but in many ways it didn’t provide a foundational story that was relatable to me, personally, and to the community that I identify with.”

Wang, who also received a Davis Fellowship to pursue her humanities research over the summer, scripted a one-act theatrical adaptation of Paradise Lost. At the end of the summer, she marked the completion of her script with a reading staged and attended by her close friends.

“I sought to create a world, a paradise, that I wish to live in,” said Wang. “Even with minimal tech, I attempted to envision a coherent space. Having been a director and designer, I often see a world on stage more vividly than I can on paper—and that’s where the audience comes in.”

Wang is a double major in English and political economy with a minor in theater and performance studies. 

“Paradise Lost can establish aesthetics often aligning with mainstream productions, I sought to create a world, a paradise, that I wish to live in. Even with minimal tech, I attempted to envision a coherent space. Having been a director and designer, I often see a world on stage more vividly than I can on paper—and that’s where the audience comes in.

“Universal might not be the right word, but I believe that the script reflects a queer experience that is not just Chinese or only related to one religion,” said Wang. “I hope this work is the first step toward creating more intersectional and cross-cultural projects.”  

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On Oct. 25, Georgetown celebrated the opening of a dedicated space for the , a university-wide project that aims to promote and strengthen studies in the humanities.

Located between McNeir Auditorium and the Davis Performing Arts Center, the Georgetown Humanities Initiative is at the physical intersection of numerous departments and programs that comprise the humanities at Georgetown. 

The space in the university’s Old North building will serve as a home for events, group discussions and other in-person work to advance the humanities. 

“With the creation of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative we have been able to demonstrate that we are much more than a cluster of juxtaposed disciplines,” said Nicoletta Pireddu, inaugural director of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative. “Now, thanks to these beautiful spaces, Georgetown Humanities can finally be not only an intellectual endeavor but also a physical reality, a distinctive forum for hosting events, exchanging ideas and promoting a sense of community.”

The Georgetown Humanities Initiative, which is housed within the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł of Arts & Sciences, supports faculty research and interdisciplinary collaboration in the humanities, funds fellowships for undergraduates, and develops humanities-focused programming and events for community members. 

“Georgetown has a rich history in the liberal arts and promotes a well-rounded ethical graduate who contributes to society,” said Toni Boucher (P’98, ’00, ’04), one of the initiative’s founding donors. “As many institutions of higher learning focus on specialization at the expense of liberal arts, Georgetown sets itself apart by developing a student learning environment that has a worldview and sense of responsibility to contribute more broadly for the greater good of all.”

Its new space was formerly occupied by McCourt School of Public Policy offices. After the school moved to its new downtown headquarters on the Capitol Campus, the space was converted into a new central home for the humanities. 

Community members gathered for a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony, with remarks from Provost Robert M. Groves, Interim Dean of the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł of Arts & Sciences Andrew Sobanet and Pireddu. The ceremony concluded with a musical performance from the Georgetown University Chamber Singers. 

“Georgetown’s mission is animated by critical thinking, free inquiry, creative processes and respect for words – values that are the heart of the humanities,” Groves said at the ribbon cutting. “That we dedicated the Humanities Initiative in historic Old North is a testament to the centrality of the humanities at Georgetown.”

Lifting Up the Humanities

The humanities, which include art and art history, the classics, English, history, film and media studies, foreign literatures and languages, linguistics, the performing arts, philosophy, and theology and religious studies, have been a cornerstone of a Georgetown education since the founding of the university.

In 2020, Georgetown leaders founded the Georgetown Humanities Initiative to foster collaborative projects across departments and schools that highlight the human element of research and service. 

In the years following, the initiative has developed local and global partnerships, like with the School of Medicine on the , with the Earth Commons on and with the University of Oxford to study . 

It has also dedicated to scholarship on the humanities across the university, like Melanie White, assistant professor of Afro-Caribbean studies, who received a grant this academic year to finalize her first book, Sovereign Mosquitia: Intimate Colonial Violence and Black Feminist Refusal. The book traces Black and Afro-Indigenous women’s anti-colonial performance, visual culture and political organizing on the Miskitu Coast from the 17th century to the present. 

“The Georgetown Humanities Initiative is inspired by our Jesuit ideals and the university’s mission to promote a liberal arts education,” said Sobanet. “It is an extension of the commitments we make as a community to foster interdisciplinary research, teaching and public-facing projects that demonstrate the enduring value of the humanities for a better understanding of the human condition and our place in the world.”

“Research in the humanities implies creation of new knowledge and critical and artistic reinterpretation of it,” said Pireddu. “These lines of inquiry greatly benefit from diverse thinking and multiple perspectives. The new space will offer opportunities for conversations and collaborations across disciplines beyond the silos of individual activity.”

“This new home for our Initiative allows us to aspire to higher goals — from having scholars and practitioners in residence, to showcasing faculty and student work, and facilitating teamwork across academic ranks,” she said. “We are also one step closer to our ultimate objective, a full-fledged center that can make Georgetown the humanities intellectual hub of the greater Washington area and one of the most prominent in the nation.”

In the coming weeks, the initiative will be hosting a number of events in its new space, including an event with Assistant Professor Will Fleisher on and a from Guggenheim Fellow Robert Barsky on his book, The BeltLine Chronicles.

Last year, the initiative co-sponsored an event with award-winning writer Amitav Ghosh, who discussed his latest book The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis. 

For Aayush Murarka (SFS’26), part of the inaugural class of GHI’s student fellows, attending Ghosh’s lecture presented a one-in-a-lifetime extension of the classroom. 

“I realized that the extent of getting to know people, their background, their interests and their influences didn’t stop at reading their book – it could extend to seeing them talk in person and sitting in a circle speaking with them directly,” said Murarka.

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Georgetown faculty and more than 100 higher education leaders in the humanities from across the country convened on the Hilltop for the Modern Language Association’s (MLA) 2023 Summer Seminar.

Organized by , the , the and others, each year the series brings together a slate of lectures, screenings and events that probe the “intersection of science, the humanities and the arts that link environmental journalism, literary writing, activist performance and critical approaches to climate change, the environment and language.”

Bringing Ghosh to the Hilltop was a cross-campus initiative that involved several schools, departments, institutes and programs. , the Inaugural Director of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative, spoke to the gathered crowd. 

“We could not have a more inspiring keynote speaker with us today than Amitav Ghosh to address the many facets of our planetary and environmental crisis,” said Pireddu. “In his fiction and nonfiction writings, his stories and imagination show us the interconnectedness of our past, present and future. They help us recover lost meanings that are vital to humanity. They allow us to see and foresee responsibilities, potentialities and risks. They teach us that life on our planet relies on the entanglement between the human and the nonhuman.” 

Rosario Ceballo, Dean of the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł of Arts & Sciences, introduced Ghosh to the assembled audience. 

“Ghosh’s work spans many genres, with the inclusion of history, politics and science,” said Ceballo. “Events like these, much like Ghosh’s work itself, are testaments to the centrality and the power of the humanities. These are celebrations of imagination, of the way imagination opens us up to face enduring challenges and new solutions with empathy, with insight, history, narrative and journeys across time.”

The Nutmeg’s Curse

Ghosh, known for his groundbreaking novels and non-fiction works, blends stylistic and genre boundaries to explore the complex interplay between the climate crisis and the lasting legacy of colonialism. His most recent book, The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, traces 400 years of the production of nutmeg and mace, from the promise of prosperity to the mass murder and plunder of colonialism to the impacts of the climate crisis. 

“The story of the Bandalese no longer seems so distant from our present predicament,” intoned Ghosh. “The continuities between the two are so pressing and so powerful that it could even be said that the fate of the Banda islands might be read as a template for the present.”

For Ghosh, the Banda Islands, a remote cluster of land in the Banda Sea, elucidate much of what is threatening the world. Rich soil, fertilized by volcanic ash, led to lush forests that provided the fertile breeding ground for the evolution of nutmeg and mace. The resulting centuries of bloodshed, strife and extraction are lessons that cannot be forgotten. 

“Humanity is today even more dependent on botanical matter than it was,” said Ghosh. “The idea that modern man has freed himself from the planet is not just absurd – it’s a dangerous delusion.” 

After the keynote lecture, Ghosh spoke with Rabih Alameddine, an acclaimed writer and painter, and Ashanee Kottage (SFS’22), a Post-Baccalaureate Fellow at the Earth Commons and the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics. In the fall, Alameddine will begin his three-year appointment as the Lannan Foundation Visiting Chair. 

Bringing Ghosh to campus was a collaborative effort between the aforementioned groups and the , the , the , the , the , and the .  

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“My co-editors and I are deeply honored to have received this iconic prize in comparative literary and cultural studies,” said , a professor in the Department of Italian. “The selection committee appreciated not only the theoretical innovations of our project but also the ethical and pedagogical implications, and this is particularly rewarding to us.”  

Publishing Across the Disciplines

Published in 2022, the book brings together 20 essays from scholars around the globe and was co-edited by Pireddu and two French scholars, Didier Coste and Christina Kkona. Pireddu penned the book’s sixteenth chapter, Euroglottogonia, or Exercises in Continental Cosmopolitanism. 

“In a world torn between the leveling effects of globalization and divisive ideological polarizations, our book explores what it means to be world citizens and how the humanities can offer a new understanding of cosmopolitanism through a constructive critique of its various iterations,” said Pireddu. “Our contributors from different scholarly traditions, languages and locations help us interpret cosmopolitanism as much more than a condition of mobility, rootlessness, or hybridity. Migrating Minds articulates ways of inhabiting the world that entail constant self-interrogation, creative interaction with other peoples, cultures and languages, a​ sense of justice and of responsibility.”

Named after the renowned literary critic, the RenĂŠ Wellek Prize counts among its awardees luminaries like Umberto Eco and Edward Said. Founded in 1960, for more than half a century the ACLA has created a space and platform for scholars whose work spans cultures, languages and academic fields. In 2019, Pireddu organized the ACLA’s annual conference, which was held at Georgetown. 

On the Hilltop, Pireddu’s work in the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł of Arts & Sciences emphasizes interdisciplinarity. The inaugural director of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative and the current director of the Global and Comparative Literature program, Pireddu is a champion of students who pursue research that breaks outside of traditional academic silos. 

Volume to Volumes 

Building on the work of Migrating Minds, Pireddu and her co-editors have launched a new open-access journal bearing the same name – . 

The peer-reviewed journal will provide a “unique, international forum for innovative critical approaches to cosmopolitanism emerging from literatures, cultures, media and the arts in dialogue with other areas of the humanities and social sciences, across temporal, spatial, and linguistic boundaries.”

 â€œWe are really excited to have been able to create the first scholarly journal devoted to this quite specific but multifaceted area of research, with particular attention to new voices, especially from peripheral and less discussed cosmopolitan traditions,” said Pireddu. “We look forward to this editorial adventure, through which we also hope to offer experiential learning opportunities to our students.” 

Supported by the and , the first issue of Migrating Minds is scheduled to be published in the fall and the journal is open to submissions for the following issue. 

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“The Racial Justice Speaker Series represents one part of the necessary work we must do to recognize and then act on the deeply embedded racial inequities in our society,” says Christopher Celenza, dean of Georgetown şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł. “Our diverse and interdisciplinary speakers will bring different perspectives to this ongoing conversation. I appreciate the work they are doing and am honored that the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł will be hosting this series.”

Research and Racial Justice

These conversations invite faculty from various departments and programs across campus, including the , the , the , and the . 

, vice dean and Idol Family Professor of the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł of Arts and Sciences says that the title of the series draws from Esther 4:14. 

“I understand this passage as a call to action and responsibility for those put in positions of power,” says Colbert. “The series will consider how Georgetown faculty’s research advances racial justice and how racial justice produces certain responsibilities for researchers. We will consider how the pursuit of justice informs the impact of each speaker’s work, understanding that pursuit as a fundamental part of being a faculty member at Georgetown.”

This series is part of the new Racial Justice Initiative which will be formally launched through Georgetown şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł next semester. It’s first course, Anti-Black Racism: History and Ideology, Justice and Resistance, will be taught by Colbert and , a professor in the African American Studies department. 

“Racial justice and anti-racist praxis require a mastery of the histories that created, cultivated, and exacerbated racial inequities, and that threaten to make these inequities insurmountable without thoughtful, systematic, and energetic thinking, planning and implementation,” says Patterson. “This course equips students with both the knowledge and skills necessary to think about and enact racial justice, exploring the complexities, complications, and contradictions that emerge when trying to create a beloved community and more perfect union that center Black communities and Black citizens.  

“Situated firmly in the historical and pedagogical mission of Black Studies, this course equips students to address these opportunities,” he concludes.

These conversations have been scheduled from 12:00-1:00 pm EST on Wednesdays throughout the month of October, starting on Wednesday, September 30, 2020, and concluding on Wednesday, October 28, 2020.

To watch the series, please visit our .

“Our outstanding new faculty members span the disciplines of the arts and sciences, bringing with them excellence in research and teaching, a remarkable diversity of perspectives and great intellectual energy,”  says Christopher Celenza, dean of Georgetown şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł. “I am delighted to welcome them to Georgetown şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł.”

Contributing to a Community of Top-Notch Teachers 

The faculty will also continue their research projects at Georgetown that address a variety of topics that range from the examination of systems and network security to writing the first cultural history of Black Chicago’s mid-twentieth century apartments. Several of these new faculty members have interests that are interdisciplinary and require interdepartmental collaboration.  

, inaugural director of the , says that she is thrilled to work with incoming and professor , a historian of medicine and medical humanities scholar, on the intersection of medicine and the humanities.

“An enlightened, creative and generous colleague, with excellent credentials in medicine and literary studies, Professor Krishnan is instrumental to the vision of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative,” says Pireddu.  “Through her pioneering scholarship and pedagogy and her strong community engagement, Professor Krishnan will help students, faculty, and administrators inside and outside Georgetown to appreciate the crucial role of humanities tools in the medical profession–emphasis on critical reading and analytical skills and the ability to master complex narratives, different cultural productions and multiple interpretive methodologies.”

Krishnan says that she is honored to join the Georgetown faculty and stresses that now more than ever, this work is of critical importance “as we remake and reimagine our current and post-pandemic world.”

“Though we are living through a profoundly unsettling time, I have personally been energized by the global movements fighting systemic racism, health disparities, and socioeconomic injustice,” she says. “We know that pandemics unerringly expose social inequalities, and the intersection of this outbreak and our healthcare system has powerfully revealed all the areas ripe for intervention. The humanities and social sciences have already offered critical insights to the biomedical, and I hope and believe our initiative can contribute in profound ways. I look forward to how the Medical Humanities initiative can support, contribute, and innovate in creating a more equitable, just campus and world.”

She is eager to lead the Medical Humanities Initiative, work closely with colleagues at the Medical Center and şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł and Pireddu and the Humanities Initiative. 

These new professors are some of the leading experts in their fields. , an incoming professor in the , has authored and edited several books on the intersections of Black women’s intellectual history, 20th-century US political and cultural activism, African American and African Diasporic politics and gender and sexuality studies. 

“Dayo Gore is a preeminent scholar of Black women’s and Black movement histories,” says , vice dean of faculty and Idol Family Professor of the şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł of Arts and Sciences. “She has conducted original archival research that transforms our understanding of the Civil Rights Movement. Her new book on Black women’s transnational travels and activism will evidence how Black women formed international movement networks in the mid- and late-twentieth century, which serve as a precursor to contemporary organizations that struggle for justice.”

Many of these professors are eager to conduct their research on campus with the help of undergraduate and graduate students’ participation. 

21st Century Postdoctoral Fellows Program Launches

The şŁ˝ÇÂŰĚł is excited to continue its postdoctoral fellowship that brings exceptional early-career scholars from historically underrepresented groups in their fields to teach and pursue research in their area of interest.

This year, will serve as a postdoctoral fellow in the under . 

Tenure-Line Faculty

Full-Time Non-Tenure Line Faculty

21st Century Postdoctoral Fellows