East Meets West: Marco Polo at 700
East Meets West (EMW) connects world-leading Universities, museums, and other cultural institutions in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. It sponsors pioneering research within and between the humanities and sciences. It develops new tools and new methods that will transform research and education. It helps to train the professors of tomorrow in the world’s top institutions and brings their learning and expertise to a global audience.
“Together, we will work on the big questions that face us today and shaped the world in the time of Marco Polo. How do we build understanding between peoples in a world where the balance between national interests and global relations is tipping? What benefits to the globe can such intercultural understanding bring? What are the challenges?”
Professor Ita Mac Carthy
Director, Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
“Key to our answer to these questions will be the concept of Eur/Asian Translations. ‘Translation’ here encompasses not only the crossing of texts like Marco Polo’s Travels between the world’s languages but also the intercultural transit of objects, images, ideas, and practices along many axes of global connection and encounter.”
Professor Richard Scholar
Director, Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies