About the series

How do we express our common humanity in ways that articulate the things that connect us while also giving due credence to cultural, geographical, social, political, religious and economic differences? What does it mean to be a human being in our increasingly intricate, varied and challenging global contexts? And how might we address the matter of being human, and what that entails, in these same contexts, via the humanities disciplines? It is those key questions that this new series will attempt, however tentatively and exploratively, to answer. In investigating the prospects for and value of the humanities per se, the series will situate that wider discussion against the canvas of a globalizing and globalized world which is yet, in so many ways, more fragmented and divided than ever before. It will seek to forge new relationships and partnerships from around the planet which offer a greater diversity of voices than is often found in projects of this kind, and which attempt to address some of most pressing issues of our age: whether (just for example) AI, the climate emergency, and the migration of peoples; or the spectres of war, populism, and pandemics. The Elements will bring fresh insights to a range of topics which – though global in scope – will also have the solidity of rootedness in the local and the particular. Commonality will be meshed with singularity and distinctiveness. In moving towards fresh understandings of the ‘global humanities’, the series will try to construct a vision for the humanities that breaks down barriers, rethinks the past, and reimagines the future.

About the editors

Saul Dubow is Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge

Malvika Maheshwari is Associate Professor of Political Science at Ashoka University

Frisbee Sheffield is Associate Professor of Classics in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge

If you are interested in contributing to the series please contact: [email protected]