The Santiago Center recognizes the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences as essential pillars for understanding and addressing complex global challenges. These disciplines foster critical thinking, creativity, and a deeper appreciation of culture and history, enabling societies to reflect on their past, understand their present, and shape their future.
One of the Center’s most significant contributions in this area is the 2022 publication of Columbia University and Chile: Over 100 Years of History. This book chronicles a century of intellectual exchange between Chile and Columbia University, highlighting how collaborations have shaped fields such as literature, science, public policy, and the arts. From Chile’s first Nobel laureate to the leaders of the suffragist movement and renowned astronomers, the book explores how this bilateral relationship has left an indelible mark on both the University and the country, reinforcing the value of cross-border knowledge creation.
The Santiago Center also brings the arts and humanities closer to diverse audiences through initiatives like the Earth Day Children’s Art Contest, which engaged over 600 young artists from across Chile, and the Renca Photography Contest, which provided a platform for residents of an underserved borough in Santiago to share their pandemic experiences. Other events have included a webinar on “Pandemics in Movies” with Professor Richard Peña and a literary translation workshop connecting graduate students from Columbia and Chile’s Universidad Diego Portales.
