Yale News

Sunil Amrith, a professor of History and chair of the South Asian Studies Council, will replace Steven Wilkinson as the director of the MacMillan Center.

The MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale aims to introduce diverse global perspectives across disciplines on campus. Wilkinson, who has led the center since 2019, started his term as the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in January and will continue to serve as the interim director through February. Amrith will begin his role on March 1. 

“The outlook I have is very much in tune with what I think the MacMillan Center is trying to achieve here on campus and out in the world,” Amrith said.

Provost Scott Strobel announced the decision on Feb. 12, praising Amrith for his “deep commitment” to regional studies and his openness to interdisciplinary collaborations.

In a message to the MacMillan Center community, Strobel wrote that Amrith helped craft an interdisciplinary framework to solve global challenges such as climate change as a member of the Yale Planetary Solutions Steering Committee. The Committee’s most recent report, which was released in May 2024, suggested diverse methods to raise awareness about climate change and contribute to sustainable developments. 

“He will ensure existing programming at MacMillan thrives while creating new synergies and collaborations between Yale’s schools, bringing humanists, social scientists, and experts from across the university together,” Strobel wrote.

After graduating from the University of Cambridge and teaching history at the University of London and Harvard University, Amrith joined the Yale faculty in 2020.

He told the News that his background in teaching international history, as well as his previous role as the chair of the South Asian Studies Council, will assist him in his new role. As the chair of the South Asian Studies Council, which is under the MacMillan Center, he invited various speakers and funded student and faculty research related to the area.

“The culture of MacMillan is familiar to me. The way things work is familiar to me,” he said. “I also have a lot of very close academic relationships and colleagues at universities in the [South Asia] region … If a part of MacMillan’s role is to build Yale’s partnerships with peer institutions around the world, I feel certainly well-placed.”

Amrith added that one of the most rewarding parts of his time as the chair of the South Asian Studies Council was providing grants for students to visit the region for research and summer experiences. He is excited to continue this work as the director of the MacMillan Center.

While he will always be open to opportunities suggested by faculty members, postdocs and students, Amrith said, he hopes to focus on certain areas in which having a global perspective is urgent, including climate change and artificial intelligence.

In October 2024, Amrith wrote “The Burning Earth: A History,” a global history of the climate crisis which was included in The New Yorker’s list of “Essential Reads of 2024.”

Amrith highlighted the center’s interdisciplinary and collaborative structure, adding that Yale’s “vibrant commitment” to international and regional studies was an important part of what brought him to New Haven. While the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard is similar to the MacMillan Center, the regional studies are “completely autonomous,” which he thought made collaborations across fields more difficult.

Wilkinson praised Amrith for his understanding of the Center and innovative research.

“Sunil is a really inspired choice, someone who is deeply familiar with the MacMillan center … but who has also shown, through his own research on environmental transformations and his collaborations with other scholars, that he is also prepared to lead the center in new and exciting ways,” he said.

Amrith, in turn, credited Wilkinson for the Center’s further collaboration across professional schools and extensive support for research.

Wilkinson added that his favorite part of serving as director was meeting visitors from across the globe.

“Great conversations, experiences and food with the most interesting people from around the world, what could be better!” he said.

For Amrith, the MacMillan Center’s infusion of a global perspective is especially important today, with heightened tensions across the globe.

He said that some visitors have already found it more difficult to acquire visas and that scholars are finding it more difficult to do research abroad. 

“We live in a time of such division, conflict, and tension,” he said. “I think the MacMillan Center is in a position to use its good relationships with institutions around the world and its infrastructure and its resources to try to facilitate dialogue as much as possible.”

The term for the director of the MacMillan Center is five years.