Uniqueness

MSH is one of the very few international programs addressed to humanists and the only one, which is focused on the Mediterranean tradition of the region. Law, economics, business, administration, and the applied social sciences dominate curricula supported by the European Community in this region of Europe. Yet the humanities remain particularly significant because of the need for consolidating intellectual communities for leadership in civic society. These communities are vitally important in promoting an understanding of traditions and developing historical memory that shape public opinion in their respective countries.

The role of public intellectuals in this part of Europe needs to be thoroughly reevaluated by a new cohort of young people whose humanities education has been until now neglected. In civic society, it is difficult to overestimate the value of teaching in the spirit of artes liberales, addressed to diverse multi-ethnic and multinational communities, whose members will subsequently return to their respective countries to take up posts as professors and heads of libraries, archives and museums, to work in mass media and participate in public life.

MSH wants to promote and test this kind of sorely needed liberal arts education in the region of Central and Eastern Europe.