Former Initiatives
These initiatives were hosted or facilitated by the Glasscock Center and convened by a lead faculty member at Texas A&M University.
Energy Humanities and the Global South (Research cluster)
The Energy Humanities and the Global South (EHGS) research cluster supported scholarship that approaches our contemporary climate crisis through the study of energy, including carbon-based and renewable energy forms, and that promotes energy transition. It investigated the social, ideological, artistic, ecological, labor, gendered, and racialized relations that are produced by, attach to, and disrupt energy systems and infrastructures. Global South energy humanities, more specifically, sought to understand energy from perspectives situated in the postcolonial and developing world and to facilitate processes of energy transition that are equitable and just.
Led by Carmela Garritano, International Affairs
Humanities: Land, Sea, Space
Humanities: Land, Sea, Space (HLSS) was a transdisciplinary research initiative that explored a range of environmental issues and challenges by applying humanistic methods of scholarship. In the spirit of the Glasscock Center’s mission to foster interdisciplinary humanities research among the community of scholars at Texas A&M University and in the world beyond the academy, HLSS aimed to benefit and impact a broad intellectual community and to have significant reach by exploring not only concerns especially relevant to the state of Texas, but also global issues. The Glasscock Center launched HLSS in 2018, and programming has explored topics such as oceans and seas (2019) and the plant humanities (2021). As a complement to Texas A&M’s designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), HLSS programming in 2022 and 2023 focused on the relationship between space and place in Latinx and Latin American environmentalisms.
Led by Emily Brady, Philosophy, former Director of the Glasscock Center; A.J. Baginski, Glasscock Center
Global Health Humanities
The growing field of Health Humanities seeks to understand cultural practices and products related to health and illness. In particular, by examining different forms of human expression, the humanities offer necessary insight into the lived experience of global health issues. This initiative examined the narrative and artistic expression of individuals’ experiences of illness and health in a global context, by inviting discussion of such forms as song, performance, written narrative, oral history, and visual media. Using methods drawn from the humanities and humanistic social sciences, this initiative explored such topics as health inequities, access to care, gender health disparities, colonial and neocolonial health discourses, human health and climate change, human health and ecology, and immigration and health. Such interdisciplinary scholarship is necessary to better comprehend the historical, political, and economic impact of global diseases.
Led by Jessica Howell, English
World War II and its Global Legacies
A two-year program focusing on World War II, its history and consequences, as well as its global impact on international law, national memory and identity, and the humanities. The Glasscock Center hosted lectures, conferences, workshops and film screenings to help students, faculty, and the general public better understand the events and implications of the conflict.
Led by Richard J. Golsan, International Affairs, former Director of the Glasscock Center