Humanities Center
Welcome to the IE Humanities Center
IE is one of the only institutions globally to include humanities core education as a mandatory part of all its degree programs. As such, part of our mandate is bring the humanities into a professional-degree environment.
We are responsible for coordinating all types of activities in the humanities across IE, from teaching programs, to fellowships, to community events. The humanities represents an integral part of the IE identity, and our students, regardless of their degree program, are all invited to participate in the wider dialogues that humanistic learning fosters and encourages. As such, we are deeply embedded across all aspects of academic life, in both the undergraduate and graduate programs, in and out of the classroom.
The IE Humanities Center is responsible for the development and implementation of the humanities curriculum program across IE. Through an extensive network of both internal and adjunct professors, we offer our community the opportunity to benefit from the broad multi-disciplinary depths represented by humanistic learning. At both the graduate and undergraduate level, we are responsible for the co-ordination of the mandatory core humanities program.
Undergraduate
For IE undergraduate students, the faculty offers a core module for incoming students as well as an advanced seminar program for students from all years and across all faculties.
Seminars vary in content from year to year, including humanistic fields such as philosophy, history, linguistics, anthropology, geography, cultural theory and literature. Discussion-based and with small class sizes, the seminar program allows students to explore specific readings and ideas in depth.
Our goal is to equip IE's students with humanistic culture in order to gain a better understanding of today's world.
Graduate
For IE graduate students, the School offers a number of courses that play either a complementary role to the students' main field of study or else are integrated within the program's core pedagogical design.
In many of the professional degree programs, students take the "World Awareness Seminar", taught by leading area specialists. The seminar examines different cultures that are increasingly critical to the modern professional environment, including China, Japan, Brazil, India, and the Muslim World. The focus of the seminar extends well-beyond merely superficial engagement to instead provide insights about how different ideas, history, legal traditions, sense of belonging, kinship structures, etc… inform cultural, and hence professional, perspectives.
For IE graduate students pursuing their MBA or International Management degree, the School offers a specially tailored program that is integrated within the larger managerial curriculum. "Creative Management Thinking" [sp: Nuevas formas de pensar] forms part of the program core and provides students the perspectives and toolsets informed by a humanities approach to confront the challenges of the modern business environment. Drawn from a multi-disciplinary knowledge base, including anthropology, sociology, history and critical theory, the course encourages students to push beyond the boundaries of what a business education means. This fusion of humanities methodology with business content is proving ground-breaking in bridging what has traditionally been a wide gulf between the humanities and professional education.
Extracurricular
Alumnae Humanities Speakers Series. Monthly conferences run by leading personalities of the humanities world.
Advanced Seminars in the Humanities for Undergraduate Students. Extra-curricular courses of six sessions each, which can be taken in the second semester of each year, designed to advance students' of a highly specific topic. Students can choose year to year from any number of seminars that reflect the breadth of humanistic learning.
Conferencia: Qué es y qué se puede esperar de la literatura: el oficio de escribir.
¿Qué es esa cosa llamada literatura? ¿qué significa para un escritor? ¿Cuáles son sus exigencias y su alcance? ¿Qué compromiso tiene el escritor con su oficio? Desde su experiencia personal el escritor Marcos Giralt Torrente tratará de contestar a estas preguntas. Durante su ponencia también distinguirá la literatura "de tanto espurio producto que se parece a ella en muy poco, pero que también se pública en formato libro", y de sus posibilidades de supervivencia en el mundo hacia el que nos dirigimos.
Marcos Giralt Torrente es escritor y crítico literario en Babelia, suplemento cultural de El País. Entre sus obra literaria destaca Tiempo de vida por el que recibió en el Premio Nacional de Narrativa 2011.
Fecha: 27 de junio a las 19.30 horas.
28 Feb, 2013
IE hosts the conference Impressionism and Open-air Painting
On Thursday, February 28th IE hosted a conference entitled 'Impressionism and Open-air Painting' by Dr. Juan Angel ...
29 Nov, 2012
IE hosts La dolce vita or how Federico Fellini killed the modern man
On May 30th, IE hosted the lecture "The challenges of the collaborative culture; cultural institutions and social networks" where Susana Zaragoza ...
13 Jun, 2012
The challenges of the collaborative culture; cultural institutions and social networks
On May 30th, IE hosted the lecture "The challenges of the collaborative culture; cultural institutions and social networks" where Susana Zaragoza ...
27 Jan, 2012
Contemporary Art collecting: "ARCOMadrid in collaboration with IE Humanities Center
This past January 26th, IE hosted the round table "ARCOMadrid and Contemporary Art collecting", attended by a capacity crowd more than 100 people ...
The Team
Faculty
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Amirah-Fernández, Haizam
hamirah@faculty.ie.edu -
de Anca, Celia
celia.deanca@ie.edu -
Doyle, Vincent
vincent.doyle@ie.edu -
El Khoury, Tamara
-
Fernández del Campo, Eva
efb@faculty.ie.edu -
Fisac, Taciana
tfisac@faculty.ie.edu -
Goy Yamamoto, Ana María
amgoy@faculty.ie.edu -
Herrero de Jáuregui, Miguel
mherrero@profesor.ie.edu
Amirah-Fernández, Haizam
M.A. in Arab Studies (Political Science), School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University (US). BA from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ES).
Professor Amirah-Fernández is Senior Analyst in the Mediterranean and Arab World Program at the Real Instituto Elcano, a think tank based in Madrid. He specializes in international relations, political Islam, and transitions to democracy in the Arab world, where he has lived for over sixteen years. He has lectured at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Georgetown University, Saint Louis University, Universidad CEU-San Pablo, and the Universitat de Barcelona. He has published numerous articles and is co-editor of the books North Africa: Politics, Region, and the Limits of Transformation (London and New York: Routledge, 2008); and The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership: Assessing the First Decade (Madrid: Real Instituto Elcano and FRIDE, 2005). He has recently translated into Spanish the book by the Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany, titled Egipto: Las claves de una revolución inevitable (Madrid: Galaxia Gutenberg, 2011).
He has worked for the United Nations in New York and for Human Rights Watch in Washington DC. He is a frequent commentator in the Spanish and international media. Professor Amirah-Fernández speaks Spanish, Arabic, English, and French.
Podcasts
The role of religion in the Middle East
de Anca, Celia
Ph.D in Philosophy, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ES). M.A. in International Relations, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (US). M.A. in European Community Studies, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (ES). B.A. in Arabic Philology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ES).
Dr. Celia de Anca is currently the Director of the Centre for Diversity in Global Management at IE Business School. She was previously the Director of Corporate Programmes at the Euro-Arab Management School (EAMS), Granada. She has also worked for the Fundación Cooperación Internacional y Promoción Ibero-América Europa (CIPIE) and at the International Division of Banco de Santander.
Professor de Anca runs and designs activities to help diversity in management through training, research, networking and educational programmes, she also organizes training and mentoring programs for female entrepreneurs in Latin American and Islamic countries, and managed educational projects in the Middle East for 10 years.
She is a member of the Ethics Committee of InverCaixa’s Ethics Fund, Spain and a member of the International Scientific Committee of the University Euromed in Marseille, France. She is the co-author of the Managing Diversity in the Global Organization. Macmillan 2007. She had articles published in specialised journals, in addition to regular articles in the press.
Podcasts
Diversity at IE
Doyle, Vincent
Ph.D. in Communication, University of Massachusetts-Amherst (US). MA in Communication, McGill University (CA).
Professor in Globalization and Cultural Studies.
Professor Doyle is a Fellow of the Sexuality Research Fellowship Program of the US Social Science Research Council and has received two top paper awards from the International Communication Association. A book based on his dissertation--about the media activism of the U.S.-based Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation--is under contract with New York University Press (expected 2010). His research and teaching interests include Critical Communication and Cultural Studies, Social Movements and Media, LGBT Media Studies, the Ethnography of Cultural Production and Globalization and Culture.
Podcasts
Cultural Markets
El Khoury, Tamara
Tamara El Khoury is currently pursuing her PhD in Constitutional Law at Carlos III University in Madrid. She holds a Master's degree in Comparative Public Law of the European States from the Sorbonne University and a degree in Lebanese and French Law from Saint Joseph University in Beirut.
She teaches Legal and Constitutional History at Carlos III since September 2009. She is also the Project Manager of the Middle East and Mediterranean Programme at the Toledo International Centre for Peace (CITpax). She has lectured at the Université Catholique de Paris and the Universitat de Girona, and has been a visiting scholar at the Centro di studi per la storia del pensiero giuridico moderno in Florence. She has published an article on the development of legal education in Lebanon (Cuadernos del Instituto Antonio de Nebrija) and co-published a chapter on Spanish Foreign Policy in the Near East in Política exterior española: Un balance de futuro (Biblioteca nueva 2011).
Fernández del Campo, Eva
Ph.D. in Art History, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (ES). Professor Fernández del Campo’s research interests include the study of Asian and contemporary art from the point of view of fusion, multiculturalism and cross-culturalism.
Dr. Fernández del Campo is a professor of East Asian and Contemporary Art at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. She is a specialist in Indian Art, and was awarded several researching scholarships; she spent three years researching in India with grants from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Universidad Complutense and UNESCO. Her many publications related to Asian Art and Western Contemporary Art include “Paintings at Ajanta: The Indian Theatre of Nature” (Abada, 2007); the monograph about Anish Kapoor (Nerea, 2006).
“History and Stories of Indian Art” (Akal, 2012) and the “Dictionary of Universal Myth” (Espasa Calpe, 2000). She has also collaborated on “Asia” (Océano, 1996) and “The Tree of Life: Nature in Art and Indian Traditions” (ed. Chantal Maillard, Kairós, 2001) as well as the translation of Coomaraswamy’s Shiva’s Dance (1996, 2006). She is currently working on transculturality, hybridation and ethnicity in Contemporary Art (Eastern and Western) and is directing an I+D international research Project on the subject.
Fisac, Taciana
Ph.D. in Philology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ES). M.A. in Modern Foreign Languages and Literature, with a concentration in Chinese literature, Istituto Orientale of Naples (IT). B.A in Theology, Universidad Pontificia de Comillas (ES).
Professor Fisac is the Director of the Center of East Asian Studies in the Universidad Autónoma in Madrid. She has been one of the leading forces in introducing Asian studies to Spain and has become one of the most well known sinologists in Europe. Her activities have focused on the creation of international networks between large universities and research institutes of Asian studies throughout the world. Meanwhile Professor Fisac has always maintained close and fluid ties with China. She was the Universidad Autonoma’s Vice Rector of International Relations during 1998- 2002, and has been a visiting scholar of Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing Foreign Studies University, University of North Carolina, Oxford University, Stanford University and Leiden University. She speaks fluent Chinese, English, Italian and French.
Podcasts
Chinese literature impact in East Asia
Goy Yamamoto, Ana María
Ph.D. in Marketing Research, Universidad Autónoma in Madrid (ES). M.A in Sociological Consumerism, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (ES).
Dr. Goy Yamamoto helps to develop research projects, seminars, and publications related to youth consumption culture, and social change in Japan. Her work relates to how different kinds of consumption, ranging from Japanese to Spanish, are structured. Dr. Goy Yamamoto is Executive Board member of East Asia Net (European Research School Network of Contemporary East Asian Studies) and member of the expert panel of the Observatory of Foreign Policy OPEX at the Fundación Alternativas Think Tank.
Podcasts
Japan's Perception towards China
Herrero de Jáuregui, Miguel
Ph.D in Classics, B.A. in Law and Classics, Universidad Cumplutense de Madrid (ES). Ph.D in History of Religions Bologna.
Dr.Herrero´s doctoral thesis was awarded the first prize in 2005. He has pursued his research in Harvard, Oxford, Zurich, and the Real Colegio de Espana in Bologna, and he has taught ancient Greek language and literature in the University of Oviedo. He has published various papers on ancient religion, philosophy and literature and on early Christianity in journals like Emerita, Ilu, Adamantius, Revue de l'Histoire des Religions and Revue de Philosophie Ancienne.
Podcasts
Sentidos del mito clásico
Larrañaga, Miguel
Ph.D. in Medieval History, Universidad de Deusto (ES). M.A. in Philosophy from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ES).
Professor Larrañaga’s research interests include cultural and social history of the Middle Ages, the history from the 5th to 15th centuries and landscape archaeology. His works include a large number of publications, including books, magazine articles and seminar papers about the social and cultural history in Europe during the Middle Ages. He has been managing director of Cultural Institute in Saint Sebastian, as well as professor in the Faculty of History at the University of Alcala (ES). In addition, he worked as researcher in the Department of Medieval History in the Instituto de Historia/Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) in Madrid. Currently he is professor of Medieval Art and Culture, Director of Art History Studies and Vice-Chancellor of Student Affairs for IE University (ES).
He is also professor at the Overseas Studies Program of Stanford University (US) and at the Study Abroad Program in Madrid of Middlebury College (US).
Podcasts
The importance of Humanities and Philosophy Studies
The Functionality of Liberal Arts studies
Lucena Giraldo, Manuel
Ph.D. in History of the Americas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (ES).
Professor Lucena-Giraldo is a Senior Research Fellow in the Spanish Council for Scientific Research. He was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, Lecturer in Stanford University and Visiting Professor at Tufts University, Javeriana University (Bogotá, Colombia), IVIC (Venezuela), the Colegio de México, the Universidad Complutense and SAM in St. Antony’s College (Oxford). His publications include a number of books on travels, scientific expeditions, and images of nations and empires or Globalization. More recently he was editor of “Polyphonic History”. His latest books are “Naciones de rebeldes. Las revoluciones de independencia latinoamericanas” and “Francisco de Miranda. La aventura de la política”. He is also a regular contributor to the press in Spain and Latin America.
Podcasts
Culture and Globalization
Luján, Eugenio
Ph.D. in Philology, Universidad Cumplutense de Madrid (ES). M.A. in Comparative Linguistics, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sorbonne, Paris (FR). B.A. in Philology and B.A. in Geography and History, Complutense University de Madrid (ES).
Dr. Luján is an Associate Professor of Indo-European Linguistics at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid. His main research focus has been on the comparative study of ancient Indo-European languages and cultures. In the field of Indian studies, he has worked mainly on Vedic texts and the origins of the brahamanic tradition and he has published some translations of classical Sanskrit works into Spanish. He has been a visiting researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, the École Pratique des Hautes Études at Paris and the Freie Universität of Berlin. Besides his academic career, he has also been a consultant in the Department of Human. Resources and Training of Ernst & Young Spain.
Podcasts
Indian Culture and Society in the 21st Century
Martínez de Guereñu, Laura
PhD in Architecture, Universidad de Navarra (ES), MDes in Theory and History of Architecture, Harvard University (US).
Laura Martínez de Guereñu won in 1998 the Thesis Award of Excellence and Third Spanish Award for Architectural Studies and in her Master in Design Studies (History and Theory) from Harvard University obtained Distinction. She has been a Lecturer of Design Theory at the Universidad Ramon Llull (2006-2008), a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University (2004-2006), and a Teaching Assistant of Design Projects at both Universidad de Navarra (1998-2003) and Harvard University (2001). She was trained as an architect at Patxi Mangado's office (1996-2001). She has published several papers in academic journals and presented the outcome of her research in Barcelona, Madrid, Granada, Paris, and Cambridge. She is currently finishing the edition of a book of essays on the guiding principles of Rafael Moneo's work (Monacelli Press/Gustavo Gili, forthcoming Spring 2010). She combines her research and her independent professional practice in Madrid.
Podcasts
Intellectual Underpinnings of Visual Culture
McAnallen, Julia
IE-Berkeley International Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the Humanities.
Dr. McAnallen´s research is in linguistics and Slavic languages, with a focus on historical and contact linguistics at the peripheries of Slavic-speaking Europe where speakers of Slavic languages have long been in contact with speakers of non-Slavic languages. She received her PhD and MA in Slavic Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley where she taught courses in linguistics, geography, and the Russian language. Her research has taken her to Central and Eastern Europe on several occasions, including extended trips to Russia and the Czech Republic. While Dr. McAnallen\'s training is primarily in Slavic, her teaching and research interests encompass language contact and spread scenarios across the globe.
Podcasts
Linguistic diversity at IE University
Medina, Luis Fernando
Ph.D. in Economics, Stanford University, M.A. in Economics, Universidad de los Andes.
Senior Research Fellow, Juan March Institute, Madrid.
Research and teaching interests:
Political Economy, Game theory, Collective Action, Latin American Political and Economic History.
Podcasts
Rationality and Society
Montaño, Julián
M.B.A., IE Business School (ES). M.A. in Philosophy, University of Glasgow (GB). B.A. in Philosophy, Universidad de Sevilla (ES).
Professor Montaño’s research engages in central issues in epistemology (the nature of justification, relativism) aesthetics (emotions, taste and normativity, the nature of the work of art) and social philosophy (communitarianism, cultural relativism, the concept of tradition, social & common goods). Among his interests are subjects like Wittgenstein, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Analytical Thomism, Scottish Enlightenment and Communitarian philosophers. His current research project focuses on the epistemology of testimony and how knowledge is transmitted in a community or tradition. Other topics of interest include: literature and philosophy, Iris Murdoch and T.S. Eliot. Currently he is the Marketing Director of IE University. He has developed his professional career in marketing, in industries different to higher education, especially media and entertainment, with positions in Pearson Group and Walt Disney Television international.
Podcasts
The return of Dependency I: Knowledge
The return of Dependency II: Self-identity
Moshfegh, David
IE-Berkeley International Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the Humanities
Mr. David Moshfegh is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in the History Department at UC Berkeley, where his work in European intellectual history has focused on the intersection of the histories of academic disciplines, Orientalism and imperialism. His dissertation,"From Kulturpolitik to Jihad: The Rise of Islamwissenschaft and German Orientalism in the Era of WWI", examines the emergence of a new Islamicist discipline in German Orientalist scholarship in the closing decades of the nineteenth century and tracks the field's development through the 'Jihad debate' within it during World War I.
Podcasts
Foundations of Modernity
Strom-Olsen, Rolf
Ph.D. in History, Northwestern University (US). M.A. in History, McGill University (CA). B.A. in intellectual History cum laude, University of Pennsylvania (US).
Professor Strom-Olsen’s research focuses on the relationship between state ritual and political formation in late fifteenth/century France and the Low Countries. He is also interested in late medieval Spanish history and especially the relationship between Castile and the Burgundian Habsburgs in the late 15th and early 16th century. A Fulbright scholar to Spain in 1998-99, and a Social Sciences Research Council fellow in 2000, he has published a variety of articles and reviews on European history. He is also very interested in music and studied composition at the Royal College of Music in London.
Podcasts
Introduction of Liberal Arts Studies in Business Degrees at IE
Fellowships
IE - Brown Postdoctoral International Teaching Fellowship
IE University and Brown University are pleased to invite candidates from the humanities to apply for the International Teaching Fellowship (ITF) for the academic year 2012-13.
The ITF provides the opportunity to teach in Spain at IE University in Segovia, Spain as a fellow of the IE School of Arts and Humanities. The fellow will also be affiliated with the Cogut Center for the Humanities at Brown University. The fellowship offers the opportunity to develop and implement innovative curricula in one of Europe's foremost professional degree-granting institutions while also providing time for research and career development.
More information about the IE- Brown International Teaching.
Fellowship can be found hereIE - Berkeley Post-doctoral International Teaching Fellowship
The IE-Berkeley International Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship is an annual opportunity open to the University of California at Berkeley postgraduate community in the area of the humanities. The fellowship offers the opportunity for young academics to further their development through designing and implementing their own curricular ideas in the international classroom setting of IE's cross-disciplinary approach to humanities.
More information about the IE- Berkeley International Teaching.
For more details please visit here

