International Journal of the Humanities, Volume 2, Number 3 • www.Humanities-Journal.com Copyright © Common Ground • ISSN 1447-9508 (Print) • ISSN 1447-9559 (Online) Paper presented at the Second International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities, Monash University Centre in Prato, Italy, 20-23 July 2004 • www.HumanitiesConference.com Global Citizenship and Humanities Scholarship Toward a Twenty-First Century Agenda Michael Karlberg, Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, USA Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims, Assistant Professor, Conflict Studies Program, St. Paul's University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Abstract At the opening of the twenty-first century, when humanity is struggling to come to terms with the exigencies of global interdependence, the critique and deconstruction of anachronistic social constructs is a necessary but insufficient undertaking in the humanities. The humanities will remain relevant to the extent that humanities scholars also articulate constructive insights regarding how to approach globalization in a just, sustainable, and humane manner. Toward this end, much can be learned from naturally occurring, yet widely overlooked, experiments with global integration and global citizenship. This paper presents a case study of the international Bahá'í community in order to illustrate such an approach, and to invite engaged dialogue between constructive and deconstructive analytical approaches in the humanities. Keywords: Global citizenship, Globalization, Global interdependence, Humanities agenda, Case study In the latter half of the twentieth century, humanities scholarship was increasingly focused on the critique and deconstruction of inherited social norms and institutions, based on the social injustices embedded in them. This social injustice paradigm in the humanities paralleled, in many ways, the pathology paradigm that came to dominate disciplines such as medicine and psychology. Within the pathology paradigm, doctors and psychologists have been preoccupied with reacting to illness and disease rather than promoting constructive models of health, wellness, and prevention. Likewise, within the social injustice paradigm, humanities scholars have been preoccupied with reacting to social oppression and inequity rather than examining constructive models of social justice and sustainability. In medicine and psychology, alternatives to the pathology paradigm are now emerging, or in some cases re-emerging after decades of neglect, to correct this imbalance. Many medical researchers and physicians are beginning to pay more attention to nutrition, physical fitness, and other positive health and lifestyle variables. They are also gradually becoming more receptive to “alternative” and “complementary” health care practices. Similarly, a movement known as positive psychology is gaining ground among psychologists who are recognizing the limitations of merely treating mental illness in a reactive mode. The goal of positive psychology is to find or develop models that promote mental health in proactive and systematic ways (refer, for example, to Aspinwall & Staudinger, 2003; Seligman, 2003). In the humanities, we would do well to address the imbalance created by our own recent pre-occupation with the social injustice paradigm. Granted, as long as social injustices exist, social critique will remain a valid and important activity. The intent of this paper is not to belittle or diminish this important undertaking, but to suggest that critique is insufficient by itself. Critique tells us only what is not working. It does not tell us what is working and what we might learn from it. Currently, critiques of market-dominated globalization and Western global hegemony fill the pages of academic books and journals. But where can one turn for a critically-informed yet constructive vision of a just and sustainable world order? Perhaps we would benefit from the systematic analysis and observation of communities and movements who have embraced alternative visions of globalization and are working toward mature and humane models of world citizenship. This is the contribution of this paper: to provide an analysis of one constructive model of global citizenship, and to invite others to engage in similar contributions, in order to begin filling an important gap in the literature on globalization. Case Study: The International Bahá'í Community There are, of course, many alternative models of globalization and world citizenship that we might examine. These have been articulated by peace movements, environmental movements, labor unions, world federalist organizations, and many other groups. One of the oldest, most well- established, and most globally dispersed models available for analysis is the international Bahá’í community, which was founded on a vision of global interdependence and world citizenship over