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How America Invented the Humanities

Geoffrey Galt Harpham, president and director of the National Humanities Center, will speak to the MIT community from 4-6 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 29, in Killian Hall.

Although the humanities have long been associated with the global heritage of human creative activity, Harpham makes the case that the concept of the humanities — as a collection of academic disciplines — is a recent invention, of the American academy, during the post World War II culture of the United States.

Harpham will examine how this context of emergence effect the character of humanistic study today. For more information, visit the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences website.

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