International Conference on the Science and Technology of the Silk Roads

The Silk Roads have connected civilizations and brought peoples and cultures into contact with each other from across the world for thousands of years, permitting an interaction of ideas and cultures that has shaped our world today. In our age of globalization, when people of many different cultures, regions, and languages are in close contact more than ever before, the legacy of the Silk Roads is particularly relevant. Science and technology play a dominant role in our modern society. But at the same time, the role of humanities is also important. The humanities are standing as a formidable bastion against xenophobia, intolerance, and fundamentalism. It is necessary to break off the rigid boundaries that often keep our disciplines apart from each other and to open them to the plurality of world cultures.

The International Conference on Science and Civilization on the Silk Roads (ICSCSR) will provide a platform for bridging the gaps between science and humanities and for bringing people together in an ongoing dialogue about the Silk Roads in order to foster a mutual understanding of the diverse and often inter-related cultures that have sprung up around them.

The Conference is also meant to be a local and thematic preparatory meeting for the World Conference on Humanities, Liege, Belgium, in August 2017.