Major Inquiries

1. Catching up with Post-West – Re-evaluating Traditional Cultures amidst Western Modernity:

In the past four hundred years or so, the Hebraic-Hellenic thinking has produced what has been known as Western modernity, which, while having imposed itself as human destiny, eventually led to the Anthropocene. In view of an increasingly vocal critique of Western modernity and desperate endeavor to redress the ills it has produced, do non-Western traditional cultures unexpectedly become a contemporary antidote to Western modernity and play a role in coping with Western modernity and going beyond modernity? Following the spirit of decolonial “border thinking”, this line of inquiry will try to tap the local wisdom of non-Western traditional cultures with a view to finding alternative paths to Western modernity.

2. Unfolding Posthumanities – Negotiating Old Humanism and Scientific Advancements:

The developments of science and technology have been one of the deciding factors in shaping human existence. In modern times, the accelerated pace of developments in both has even more radically impacted on human existence in both positive and negative ways. While the positive impacts can offer impetus for reflecting and renewing humanistic values, the negative ones have been especially urgent as manifested by the Anthropocene. So how are we to make the best use of the advancements in science and technology while avoiding their pitfalls requires constant dialogues and negotiations with them. In so doing, this line of inquiry seeks to remold humanistic values into forms relevant to our time.

3. Envisioning Post-Globalization -- Interrogating Neoliberal Globalization from the borderlands:

In the post-War period, the ways of global movement and interaction have undergone drastic changes through advances in technology as well as man-made disasters. Thus, while having brought the world closer than ever, globalization has also generated constant frictions: those between different cultures as well as between the rich and the poor. The impact of globalization has even the distorted the practice of democracy on which the West has prided itself. Thus, this emphasis will seek to discover in the experience of this unprecedented human movements and encounters what is beneficial to re-inventing the humanistic values and make the best of it.