反射系列: A Humanist’s Perspective on What It Means to Be a Preeminent Jesuit 研究型大学
11/29/2023
When I arrived at Saint Louis University in 2014, I wasn’t sure what to expect from 我毕业后的第一个教员职位. 经过多年的训练 作为加州的历史学家和欧洲和北非的研究人员，St. 路易是 一个新的城市，在一个新的国家. 博彩网址大全是一所耶稣会大学. 我认为 that I had some idea of what the latter might mean since I had researched early Jesuit education and pedagogical initiatives in the Renaissance Mediterranean as part of 我对伊比利亚全球化的研究. 但我了解到，尽管有这样的历史观点， I did not know what it meant to be part of a contemporary American Jesuit university, one with a long tradition of research excellence and tremendous promise for growth.
What I found in this vibrant Midwestern city were incredible resources for studying the past and a dynamic and welcoming community of scholars whose work impacts local 并在社区建立了全球声誉. 在过去的九年里，我 enjoyed watching and contributing to the successes accumulated by my colleagues as 人文学科的研究在博彩网址大全不断发展壮大.
Humanities in the contemporary university represents the constellation of disciplines and scholarly approaches that investigate the human condition as described and recounted 在过去，在现在，甚至投射到未来的人类. 博彩网址大全, this scholarship explores the meaning of the human experience across different places and times, across different linguistic and cultural settings, through a wide variety of disciplinary approaches, from historical and literary methods to anthropology, from enduring philosophical questions to cutting-edge techniques in digital humanities. And because 博彩网址大全 is a Jesuit institution with a commitment to seeking truth and holistic 教育、人文学科的研究都有服务和社区的传统 在教室、图书馆和 在野外. 200多年来，博彩网址大全的学者们聚集在一起进行了深刻的思考 about the human condition and to cultivate service and dedication to the societies 我们在.
As a historian, my research concentrates on past human experiences in various cultural, political, scientific, economic, religious settings and draws on methods from 人文社会科学学科. 虽然我研究的人生活在很久以前 and far away, I have found that engaging with the traces of meaning they left in various archives allows me and my students — graduate and undergraduate — to consider the 这些经历的含义. 当我们破译和语境化的时候 fragmented historical sources, we interrogate data that can help recreate daily practices or broader cultural shifts, for example, how members of different faith and language communities came to know and treat each other following military conquest, or how politicians and their legal and religious advisors worked to create new categories 他们在社会中的归属感. 我们看到强者和弱者是如何精心制作的 their arguments, we find examples of both compassion and terrifying cruelty, which 与世界各地正在进行的类似辩论产生共鸣. 我们感到失望 of the merchant whose cargo was lost following difficult negotiations in far-off lands while we learn of innovative financial instruments developed to mitigate that same risk, reflecting new modes of communication and collaboration across local and global 网络. 我们发现了与我们一样的智力兴奋 ourselves might feel, as scholars recount debates among their scientific community over information distributed through new media technologies, we realize how ideas wend serendipitous paths through time, shaped by the hands and minds that held them.
And through this kind of discovery, the 博彩网址大全 humanities community finds itself asking “这对那些经历过的人来说意味着什么??和“有什么关系? 这对我们来说意味着?”
These are the fundamental questions that allow humanities scholars to broadly shed light on the ways in which humans have understood themselves and others, how this understanding shaped their decisions about how to treat each other and to pursue their 个人和集体目标. 在过去，和现在一样，人类做出了这些决定 and pursuits against the backdrop of political conflicts, economic instabilities, cultural developments, environmental change, social division, all of which shaped 他们的想法和由此产生的后果. 考虑到这些 in the past faced such challenges gives context and perspective to the challenges we now face, reflecting on such comparisons and experiences can give us insight 探讨我们如何接近我们共同的未来.
我们常常认为人文科学研究是理所当然的. 然而那些学科和方法 认真对待这个问题:作为人类，这意味着什么，可能意味着什么. 等 scholarship can provide an antidote to the plagues of misunderstanding and unkindness 这确实可以分裂社会，摧毁社区. 正如历史学家查尔斯·蒂利所说 and Jesuit philosopher Michel de Certeau each explained, humanities reflect on the situatedness of knowledge and question what it means to ask “why” from different times 和地方.
Humanists create new concepts for understanding the human condition and (as is the 任何严谨的研究人员的案例都会产生更多的问题. 在这不断的祈求中， we can find an inherent good, a quest for truth and understanding that requires us 去想象超越自己的经历和身份. 这种追求几乎无一例外 cultivates a perspective from which we may better understand and respect diversity and thereby find common ground through the human condition we share across time and 空间. This balance of seeking, understanding, serving is what I have found pursuing research in the humanities at 博彩网址大全, where I have been honored to join colleagues engaged 在这个企业中从各种角度和承诺. 这种多样性 enriches our scholarship and reveals the enduring importance of humanistic inquiry 在学术界和现代社会. 对这种调查的承诺是一个标志 博彩网址大全已经成为杰出的耶稣会研究型大学.
克莱尔·吉尔伯特博士.D.
克莱尔·吉尔伯特博士.D.他是历史学副教授和学术中心主任 research initiatives in the Office of the Vice President for 研究, a position 自2022年以来，她一直担任该职位.