ABOUT
Founded in 2019, the Tulane Global Humanities Research Center was developed as an initiative by Brian T. Edwards, Dean of the School of Liberal Arts. Dean Edwards’ research on global perspectives on the U.S. and the circulation of cultural forms in the contemporary Middle East and North Africa helped guide our founding principles that scholarship in the humanities needs to engage diverse communities, employ and interrogate multiple liberal arts disciplines, and always think transnationally.
Anchored in Uptown New Orleans, the Tulane Global Humanities Research Center is at a unique geographical crossroads. New Orleans is a global port city in the Gulf South, a complex hub where the colonial project of the Americas and the transatlantic slave trade had profound impact on the economy, population, and built environment, and a place where climate change and rising sea levels are a part of lived experience. The Choctaw name for this land is Bulbancha, or place of other tongues; the area’s linguistic and cultural complexity preceded the arrival of Europeans in the late 17th century. Established by the French in 1718, ceded to Spain in 1723, and acquired by the United States in 1803, New Orleans is home to many diverse populations who either have descended from this complex history or established themselves in the intervening centuries.
Ports are spaces of contact and access, transnational and transitional places where the global informs the local and vice versa. The Tulane Global Humanities Research Center aspires to inspire research, host conversation, and convene dialogues worthy of its host city.
The wicked problems of the present and the great challenges of the future require bold thinking that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries. Tulane’s location in a global port city makes it ideal for nourishing innovative thought leaders and harnessing the creative power of the humanities, the social sciences, and the arts for positive social change.
PROJECTS
Global Port Cities
The Global Port Cities project explores the relationship between port cities and creativity and the potential for their creative economy for positive change.
EVENTS
Upcoming
Global Port Cities Symposium: Saigon-New Orleans Connections
Wednesday, October 30, 2024, 12-2 pm
Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University
The symposium highlights connections between Vietnamese and American artists, including a conversation with exhibiting artist Arlette Quỳnh-Anh Trân. This program is developed in partnership with the School of Liberal Arts Global Port Cities initiative. There will be two panels: one with artist Arlette Quỳnh-Anh Trân in conversation with museum curator Laura Blereau – second panel will be with Brian Edwards, Nic Brierre Aziz, John Sabo, and Linh Do regarding the Saigon-New Orleans connections. The exhibition at the museum is in conjunction with Prospect.6.
Previous
“Port Cities, Creative Cities!” Panel
September 2024
Brian Edwards, Driss Ksikes, Fatima Bintou Rassoul Sy, Hady Ba, and Hicham Bouzid will be participating together in a panel at the Art Explora Festival in Tangier, organized by Laila Hida.
Global Port Cities: Logics, Challenges, Creativity
February 2024
Brian T. Edwards, in conversation with Patrick McGuinness, discusses his new multisited project on Global Port Cities. The project—a collaboration with Moroccan author Driss Ksikes and a multinational network of partners—brings together scholars, curators, artists and activists based in port cities on five continents
The magic of port cities
May 2023
On Good Authority, EPISODE 46 - Brian Edwards, dean of Tulane University’s School of Liberal Arts, is leading a new initiative exploring the idea that there’s something about port cities that set them apart — making them natural centers for creativity, culture, and vibrancy. What can we learn from the connections between New Orleans, Naples, and Tangier?
Global Port Cities 2022
December 2022
The Global Port Cities project is an initiative led by Dean Brian Edwards (School of Liberal Arts, Tulane University) alongside his longtime collaborator, Moroccan playwright, novelist, and journalist Driss Ksikes (Director of Economia, HEM Research Center, Morocco).
Port Cities with Brian Edwards and Iñaki Alday
October 2019
School of Architecture Dean Iñaki Alday and School of Liberal Arts Dean Brian Edwards emphasize cross-disciplinary research and education as a means to reveal and support societal and cultural evolutions.
Globalizing American Studies
April 2019
This symposium featured a global network of scholars responding to the publication Globalizing American Studies, co-edited by Brian Edwards and Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar (U of Chicago Press, 2010). The book’s introduction argued that we had come to a time when “American exceptionalism has to stand alone in the multilateral world of the global.” Participants addressed some of the blindness of the original project, broadly engaging native and indigenous studies, as well as environmental history and climate change, which variously impact the idea of what was called the “specter of America” differently.