Category: News

Japan’s Nikkei, the world’s largest financial newspaper, prominently quoted Professor Wiebke Denecke, faculty lead of the MIT Global Humanities Initiative (GHI), for her stirring call for “social renewal through the humanities and arts” during the First Kyoto Conference.

From October 23 to 24, 2025, Kyoto hosted this landmark event under the co-chairmanship of Yasuo Deguchi (Dean and Professor of Philosophy at Kyoto University) and Jun Sawada (Executive Chairman of NTT, Inc.), and together with the institute’s Senior Global Advisor Markus Gabriel (Chair in Epistemology, Modern, and Contemporary Philosophy, Director of International Centre for Philosophy, Director of Center for Science and Thought, University of Bonn). The conference was convened by the newly founded, business-backed Kyoto Institute of Philosophy, as a forum to confront urgent questions in a world facing global polycrises and AI-driven transformation:

“Can we claim that we are living ‘fulfilling lives’? The economy has developed and technology has advanced. Yet, the world faces serious divisions and is undergoing rapid transformations. These issues are ever complex and intertwined. They cannot be addressed at a superficial level. … What are the values we should aim for? What future do we wish for? The realization of these values will enhance society to create the next chapter of human history.”

The conference brought together approximately 300 participants from about 20 countries, including scholars, policy makers, cultural figures, and corporate leaders. Panels were organized around themes such as “The Starting Point: Values in a Multilayered World,” “AI and the Question of the Human,” “Technological Transformation and the Future of the Corporation,” “Trust and Governance,” “Reconstructing Democracy,” and “Industry as a Driver of Social Change.”

Among the distinguished participants were Shunichi Tokura (Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan), Takatoshi Nishiwaki (Governor of Kyoto Prefecture), Koji Matsui (Mayor of Kyoto), Nagahiro Minato (President of Kyoto University), Teruo Fujii (President of the University of Tokyo), Katsuhiko Hibino (President of Tokyo University of the Arts), Stéphane Decoutère (Secretary General of GESDA), Toshiaki Higashihara (Executive Chairman of Hitachi, Ltd.), Börje Ekholm (President & CEO of Ericsson), Naoto Ohtake (President of Institute of Science Tokyo), Robert Thomson (News Corp CEO), Toshikazu Yamaguchi (Representative Director President of the Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings) and others.

During the conference, Mayor Matsui also hosted a separate event, inspired by the real-word-impact oriented institute, for leaders and citizens of Kyoto City, where they discussed “The Kyoto Philosophical Charter: Kyōsei (symbiosis), Non-Dualities, and the Future of Humanity, a foundational framework for the governance of Kyoto City over the next twenty-five years: the Kyoto Charter 2050.

In this conference, Professor Wiebke Denecke chaired Panel Discussion 4: “The Creative Leap: Value through Arts and Culture,” which focused on reexamining the value of arts and culture. In her remarks, she emphasized that “in today’s world of divisions, we need to use the arts and culture as tools for social renewal.” In the same session, Professor Rein Raud of Tallinn University, Estonia, drew on examples from science fiction, suggesting that “the novel becomes a field that gives birth to new stories” to lead us in the direction of more desirable futures. She was joined on the panel by Mohsen Mostafavi (Distinguished Service Professor Harvard Graduate School of Design), Devdutt Pattanaik (Speaker and Culture Consultant, Mythologist), L.A. Paul (Millstone Family Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Yale University), and Rein Raud (Professor of Asian and Cultural Studies, Tallinn University).

Denecke made an emphatic plea for tapping into the humanistic study of cultures and human creativity in world historical perspective to develop shared visions of a desirable global future, reading, as a Japanese literature and philosophy specialist, the only poem enunciated at the conference—from Japan’s national classic The Tale of Genji by the 11^th century court lady Murasaki Shikibu—and closing the panel on a mantra-of-sorts in a city abundant with temples and shrines, in the presence of dignitaries from the Vatican Library and Kiyomizu-dera Temple.

Denecke cautioned against uncritical deployment of AI in education and governance: when classic texts and scriptures are poorly translated, AI systems risk eroding the cultural and spiritual integrity of humanity’s canonical and scriptural traditions. The Japanese Newspaper the Asahi Shimbun also covered the event, highlighting Denecke’s warning that “There are cases where AI models are being trained on poorly translated versions of classics and scriptures from different cultures. Using such AI systems for training or professional purposes is dangerous. Cultural and religious foundations must not be compromised.”

Since its founding in 2021, the MIT Global Humanities Initiative (GHI) has worked to build a worldwide community dedicated to reinvigorating humanistic learning and education by radically expanding the geographical scope and temporal depth of the humanities. Guided by an expanded interpretation of MIT’s own motto—“Mens, Manus et Cor” (Mind, Hand & Heart)—GHI’s mission is to build infrastructures for collective reflection and action, and to create “Legacies for Our Future.”

The First Kyoto Conference resonated strongly with  value propositions of the MIT Global Humanities Initiative. The conference embraced the ABC model (Action–Bridge–Core) as a theoretical lens—moving through the analysis of the current world (Action) and its institutions (Bridge) to reaffirming values (Core)—in order to reconnect practice with meaning and purpose. Likewise, GHI’s methodologies begin with root-cause analysis and comparative study of the treasure house of human experience across deep time and space, leading to the design of practical tools for human flourishing and the creation of infrastructures for transformational change in research, education, and diplomacy. Both share a common orientation: redefining the humanities not just as disciplines of interpretation and analysis, but as disciplines of value and future-oriented design, which reexamine the relationship between technology and humanity, and seek to establish a new ethical, social, and creative foundation for the future.

The First Kyoto Conference marked an important moment where leaders from very different sectors of the world’s societies came together and affirmed humanity’s current crises not only as technological or political failures, but as failures to create shared value propositions and to build common ground beyond purely transaction-based global relations. It declared that the humanities must open the interpretation of the past to take on the task of designing moral and cultural architectures of the future. Ultimately, the Kyoto Conference transcended the question “Is AI our companion or our tool?” Instead, it posed a deeper one: “What can humanity still call valuable in the age of intelligent machines?” In doing so, it opened a new chapter in the global dialogue about how philosophy, art, and technology might converge to design a future in which coexistence and co-creation, not domination, defines the measure of progress: “It is not technology but the global co-creation of value propositions and building of common ground that will determine the future.” Further collaborations between the Kyoto Institute of Philosophy and the MIT Global Humanities Initiative are in planning.

Wiebke Denecke and Tristan G. Brown’s research on humanities education in STEM environments is helping students and educators rethink interdisciplinary learning. Their work, based at MIT and supported by the Integrated Learning Initiative, is featured in the 2025 article “The Pursuit of Humanities at Bronx Science,” which explores how STEM-focused students are actively engaging with humanistic approaches to deepen their understanding of science and society. At a time when high school is increasingly viewed as a launchpad into specialized training, their project shows how exposure to philosophy, history, languages and culture can complement technical education in powerful ways.

The Global Humanities Initiative (GHI) is proud to announce the launch of its YouTube channel!

Search “Global Humanities Initiative” on YouTube to watch recordings of our latest events, including the launch of the Korea University Global Humanities Institute, Asia’s hub of the MIT Global Humanities Initiative. Discover inspiring talks, global collaborations, cutting-edge ideas and more that show how we are shaping our future with Humanities 2.0!

YouTube Channel link here: https://www.youtube.com/@MITGlobalHumanitiesInitiative

The MIT Global Humanities Initiative (GHI) hosted the 2025 KU-MIT Global Humanities Initiative (GHI) Forum to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Korea University on April 24–25 at Cinema Trap, Korea University’s Media Hall. The forum was organized under the theme “Catalyzing Human Flourishing in Uncertain Times” at the proposal of MIT GHI and served as an international academic event exploring the meaning and future direction of human existence from the perspective of the convergence of science and the humanities, and of comparative global humanities. The event also celebrated the Launch of the Asian Hub of MIT’s Global Humanities Initiative at Korea University.

On Day 1, under the theme “Tools for Human Flourishing: Integrating Self-enhancement, Neuroscience, and Technology”, panelists from MIT GHI — Professor Wiebke Denecke (MIT), Jonas Mago (McGill University), and Gabor Hollbeck (ETH Zürich) — engaged in discussions alongside designated discussants from Korea University: Professor Song Hyok-key (Department of Sinographic Literatures), Professor Kang Woo-chang (Department of Political Science and International Relations), and Professor Han Kyu-man (Department of Psychiatry). Together, they explored how the humanities, neuroscience, and AI technologies could collaboratively shape strategies for well-being, resilience, and meaning-making both now and in the future. The session was moderated by Professor Shin Hae-rin (School of Media and Communication, Korea University).

On Day 2, during an interactive workshop, student participants from Korea University engaged in free discussion on major topics in global humanities and explored alternative solutions through interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue. Structured around the nine thematic pillars of MIT GHI, breakout groups tackled subtopics such as “The Contemporary Transformation of Historical Memory and Cultural Heritage,” “The Relationship Between the Climate Crisis and Religious Imagination,” “Linguistic Diversity and Literacy in the Digital Environment,” “The Present and Future of Traditional Literatures Across Cultures,” and “In the Age of AI, How Will Humans Communicate?” Participants engaged in activities based on the Five Stages of the Design Thinking Principle and presented their ideas at the end of the session. The workshop was facilitated by Professor Shin Hae-rin, with mentoring provided by Professor Wiebke Denecke, Jonas Mago, Gabor Hollbeck, Dr. Johann Noh (MIT GHI), and Professor Song Hyok-key, Professors Kwon Young Woo and Lee Chan (Department of Philosophy).

President Kim Dong-won of Korea University remarked, “This forum represents a true convergence between science and the humanities, breaking down traditional boundaries,” adding, “Through discussions with MIT, Korea University is sharing its vision for comparative global humanities and creating a valuable opportunity to reimagine the role of the humanities in future society.”

What does it mean to speak of renaissance in the plural? That question animated a roundtable hosted by MIT’s Global Humanities Initiative on 21 March 2025, which brought together five scholars to explore the humanities beyond the familiar contours of the European canon. Under the title Humanisms & Renaissances Across World History, the event challenged linear narratives of progress and invited a more layered understanding of cultural renewal.

Prof. Wiebke Denecke opened the conversation with the global vision for the study of “renaissances” and “humanisms” across world history that she developed for a  “Humanisms” cluster in the Norton Anthology of World Literature (5^th edition, Volume C, 2023) and called for a broader humanistic horizon that is neither confined to the West nor reducible to disciplinary silos. The discussion that followed offered a space to reconsider humanistic inquiry: its dialogue with the sciences, the potential of human imagination, and what we owe to the past and posterity.

With AI raising new questions about the nature of human agency, several speakers turned to historical traditions of humanism that ventured beyond strictly anthropocentric frameworks. Dr. Ugo Mondini turned to Byzantine thoughts, where the human and the divine were often seen not as mere opposites but mutually constitutive. Arabic thinkers like the 9th century polymath al-Jahiz—but also the monastic traditions of 13th-century Egypt—similarly reflect a world marked by generative tension between divine authority and human creativity. Johannes Makar noted that the pursuit of knowledge in such traditions often gestured toward a more timeless, moral horizon that stretches beyond the fleeting present.

This moral dimension recurred throughout the panel. Prof. Laura Ashe pointed out that thinkers such as Wiliam of Ockham, though often labeled as “medieval,” grappled with competing scientific and moral imperatives that remain relevant today. MIT Senior Jason Chen offered a contemporary echo, arguing that humanistic thinking is vital to projects like decarbonization, which depend as much on cultural and ethical understanding as they do on purely technical solutions.

Renaissance, then, need not denote a single historical rupture or a triumphant rediscovery of lost knowledge. It can also name quieter, more recursive processes that emerge in dialogue with older traditions, in places and periods often left outside the usual frame. Vaclav Zheng’s reflections on 16th-century Poland, along with the panelists’ examples from 12th-century England, 19th-century Egypt, and various East Asian humanisms, gestured toward parallel experiments in reimagining the human.

On February 10, 2025, MIT’s Comparative Global Humanities initiative (GHI) hosted a invited talk by Professor Rosario Hubert titled Disoriented Disciplines: China, Latin America, and the Shape of World Literature. Co-hosted with the MIT Global Mediations Lab, Literature at MIT, and MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing, the event featured Professor Koichi Hagimoto (Professor of Spanish and Chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Wellesley College) as a discussant.

Rosario Hubert is Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Trinity College, where she works on the crossover of world literature, geography, and the visual arts. Her book Disoriented Disciplines. China, Latin America, and the Shape of World Literature (2023, Northwestern University Press, FlashPoints Series) was recipient of the ACLA Helen Tartar First book subvention award and was funded by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies. She is currently working on new project about poetics of the inhospitable and polar modernity.

For more details, please see the following link.

MIT’s Comparative Global Humanities initiative (GHI) hosted its Third Annual Conference on What is the Business of the Humanities? on November 8 & 9, 2024, at Dominican University of California. Co-hosted with the Francoise O. Lepage Center for Global Innovation at Dominican University of California, and its director, Wayne de Fremery, the Initiative convened scholars and leaders from Higher Education, business, and philanthropy to explore and reimagine the “Business of the Humanities” in today’s business-and-STEM-driven world. We were honored to welcome John Silvanus Wilson (Former President of Morehouse College and Former Director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Universities and Colleges) as our keynote speaker. The rest of the first day featured lightening talks on topics ranging from the “business” of education, humanities and democracy, the history of the humanities and current transformation of the humanities under financial pressures, humanities and artificial intelligence, humanities and the global health economy, and new leadership training for entrepreneurially-minded

The conference also featured the Roundtable Discussion on the Business of the Humanities moderated by Wayne de Fremery, Director of the Françoise Lepage Center of Global Innovation at Dominican University of California. The panel included Nicola Pitchford (President, Dominican University of California), Otto Scharmer, Michael Puett and Wiebke Denecke (Faculty lead of MIT Comparative Global Humanities Initiative). The discussion moved around how we can we expand the cognitive & creative, ethical & social, playful & healthful contributions of the humanities to our world and its pressing challenges, beyond their traditional role as producer of scholars and educators; what new leadership roles could humanities graduates and scholars could play in our societies; how we can reimagine the humanities and turn them “inside out,” pushing them out of their traditional siloed, ivory-towered existence and comfort zone into a new era for higher education in the era of STEM, big tech, and business.

On October 22, 2024, representatives of the Global Humanities Initiative (GHI) at MIT and Korea University in Seoul signed a Memorandum of Agreement for academic and educational exchanges and collaborations. This agreement builds on eight years of close academic collaboration between faculty members at MIT and Korea University. Korea University is currently establishing a Global Humanities Center in active dialogue with GHI at MIT. The delegation included former Vice President of Korea University, Song Hyokkey, the Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Lim Junchul, and prominent faculty in Korean and Chinese literature and humanities. The visit included two workshops on collaborative book projects in pre-modern East Asian studies, a special session hosted by Harvard faculty for the study of rare books at the Harvard-Yenching Library, and a visit to Salem to explore with curators from the Peabody Essex Museum, the legacy of the earliest Korean student Yu Kil-chun, who arrived in Boston and studied in Massachusetts beginning in 1883.

We look forward to continuing and growing our partnership with Korea University and their Global Humanities Center.

Tristan Brown’s Laws of the Land: Fengshui and the State in Qing Dynasty China has been awarded the 2024 Fairbank Prize in East Asian History by the American Historical Association. Termed “A groundbreaking history of fengshui’s roles in public life and law during China’s last imperial dynasty,” Laws of the Land shows how the nature of knowledge and knowledge of nature shaped Chinese society and the institutions that governed it during the last dynasty of the imperial era. 

Classical World Literatures: Sino-Japanese and Greco-Roman Comparisons

Ever since Karl Jaspers’s “axial age” paradigm, there have been a number of influential studies comparing ancient East Asian and Greco-Roman history and culture. However, to date there has been no comparative study involving multiple literary traditions in these cultural spheres. This book compares the dynamics between the younger literary cultures of Japan and Rome and the literatures of their venerable predecessors, China and Greece. How were writers of the younger cultures of Rome and Japan affected by the presence of an older “reference culture,” whose sophistication they admired, even as they anxiously strove to assert their own distinctive identity? How did they tackle the challenge of adopting the reference culture’s literary genres, rhetorical refinement, and conceptual vocabulary for writing texts in different languages and within distinct political and cultural contexts?

Classical World Literatures captures the striking similarities between the ways early Japanese authors wrote their own literature through and against the literary precedents of China, and the ways Latin writers engaged and contested Greek precedents. But it also brings to light suggestive divergences that are rooted in geopolitical, linguistic, sociohistorical, and aesthetic differences between early Japanese and Roman literary cultures. Proposing a methodology of “deep comparison” for the cross-cultural comparison of premodern literary cultures and calling for an expansion of world literature debates into the ancient and medieval worlds, Classical World Literatures is both a theoretical intervention and an invitation to read and re-read four major literary traditions in an innovative and illuminating light.

В этой книге сравнивается культурная динамика японо-китайской и греко-римской литератур и исследуются способы, с помощью которых «молодые» культуры соотносятся со своими почтенными предшественниками. Как на писателей Рима и Японии влияло присутствие более древней, «эталонной» культуры, утонченностью которой они восхищались, стремясь при этом утвердить и свою собственную самобытность. Исследуя труды писателей от Сугавара-но Митидзанэ до Сэй Сёнагон, от Цицерона до Овидия и Марциана, Вибке Денеке демонстрирует поразительное сходство между тем, как ранние японские писатели писали свою собственную литературу с опорой на художественные достижения Китая, и тем, как латинские писатели использовали и оспаривали греческий опыт.

More info here…