Guest Editor’s Introduction: Liah Greenfeld and the Future of Comparative Civilizational Studies

Authors

• Monika Monika Guest Editor, Comparative Civilization ForumFollow

Keywords

comparative civilizational studies, symbolic reality, interdisciplinary scholarship, Liah Greenfeld’s legacy

Abstract

Every scholarly life leaves behind unfinished questions. Professor Liah Greenfeld was acutely aware of this. Throughout a career spanning more than four decades, her research never settled into the repetition of established arguments. Each major work emerged from the unresolved problems of the previous one, enlarging both the scope of its inquiry and the range of disciplines with which it engaged. Nationalism led her to questions of modernity (Greenfeld, 1992) and the foundations of economic development (Greenfeld, 2001). The growth of the modern economy and the emerging new forces of globalization, in turn, raised broader questions about the self and the human mind (Greenfeld, 2013). Her study of the mind as an individual culture then brought her to the problem of the growing Anomie and the spread of mental illness among American youth. Later, her engagement with Chinese academia and Indic society led her, almost inevitably, to the question of civilization itself. None of these projects represented a departure from her earlier work.

Recommended Citation

Monika, Monika Guest Editor (2026) "Guest Editor’s Introduction: Liah Greenfeld and the Future of Comparative Civilizational Studies," Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 95: No. 95, Article 3.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol95/iss95/3