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Questions and Answers:
Professor Philip S. Khoury
Philip S. Khoury, Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, is a political and social historian of the Middle East. His award-winning publications include Recovering Beirut: Urban Design and Post-war Reconstruction. What is the role of history and the other humanities disciplines in the midst of a science and technology-focused university? The principal role of History and the other Humanities disciplines at MIT is to contribute to the preparation of tomorrow's leaders for all walks of life and mainly for careers in science, technology and management. These future leaders require at least as much rigorous training in the qualitative, synthetic, and contextual methods learned in the Humanities as they do in the quantitative analysis, logic, and problem-solving learned in the sciences and engineering. Specifically, the Humanities (including the Arts and Social Sciences) emphasize the exploration of creative expressions of the human imagination, inquiry into cultural and social experience, and effective communication in both national and international settings. And because we are at MIT, the Humanities place a special emphasis on how science, technology, culture, and society are intertwined. What are some of history's most powerful tools or methods for understanding the present? History is concerned with the unique and the universal, the specific and the general. It is concerned, for example, with why there is change during periods of stability and continuity during periods of upheaval and tumult. Historians have many tools or methods at their disposal, not all belonging exclusively to the discipline of history. The discipline is based on finding and evaluating evidence and aims to construct argument based on this evidence. Of course, there is no single version of the past (or present, which instantly becomes the past), and so historians are also trained to analyze the use of historical argument in relation to who is making the argument and when. How can the study of history, such as your focus on the Middle East, inform current political strategies and struggles? The study of history can inform the present and even offer some lessons for the future. History is often most helpful when it is viewed from a comparative perspective. The United States government is preparing to go to war against Iraq. It is also considering the possibility of occupying Iraq to construct a new government that will be aligned with U.S. interests. To understand the pros and cons of protracted military occupations of distant countries and cultures historians could do a number of things. One would be to see the effect of the British occupation of Iraq after World War I and the government and historical processes that resulted from that "regime change." Another would be to examine previous American occupations of distant countries and cultures. For example, we would do well to examine the American occupation of Japan at the end of World War II. Japan and Iraq, then and now, have little in common, but the U.S. government goal of "positive" regime change in Iraq may be similar to its goal in Japan more than a half-century ago. Incidentally, we should consult John W. Dower's Pulitzer-prize winning book, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: Norton & Co., 1999), which is widely considered the best history ever written on the American occupation of Japan. Dower is the Elting E. Morison Professor of History at MIT.
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Copyright ©2003 Massachusetts
Institute of Technology