Towards the World Conference of the Humanities: A Brief Overview

Objective

The Conference results from the awareness of the need to re-think the scope and role of human sciences in contemporary society, resuming the understanding of the relevance of the Humanities for everyday life.

The need for such an agenda is twofold. On one hand, there has been no global re-thinking on the role and scope of humanities following the major global changes that were accelerated in the past few decades. On the other hand, there is a growing need to re-introduce in the daily agenda of society a mid and long term perspective, that is required in face on the future uncertainty and which finds no answer within the limits of a purely immediate problem- solving approach.

The humanities provide unique skills and resources for individuals and societies to meet the growing need for sustainable living, participatory, and peaceful coexistence. Empowered by historical knowledge, critical thinking, and nuanced analysis of human ideas, values, and imagination, the human sciences provide understanding of the new salience of cultural capital in our contemporary world. Humanistic thinking offers a broader, deeper and more creative perspective than conventional problem-solving approaches to societal challenges. It contends that human flourishing can only be realized through renewed awareness of the human condition—past, present, and future–in relation to other sentient beings, our natural environment, and scientific and technological developments. Moreover, the humanities emphasize the potential of artistic expression to provide meaning in increasingly diverse societies.
The Conference will allow establishing a new agenda for the Humanities, with implications at the educational, research and policy making dimensions.

Participants

The Conference will be attended by c.1.800 delegates from all continents, representing all Humanities, but also natural and art sciences, the arts and social actors (e.g. policy makers).

Organization

The Conference will be jointly organized by CIPSH, UNESCO and LIEGETOGETHER. The organization structure includes a leading core group, a scientific board and an honorary and advisory board, besides a local organization committee.

Preliminary Programme

Conference Structure

• The work will be grouped around 10 (ten) main themes, seen as crucial for present-day societies.
• Each theme will be approached from different disciplinary perspectives and (as far as possible) will reflect a certain cultural diversity.
• Each theme will become a chapter of the publication issuing from the Conference.
• A list of themes has been prepared in consultation with the advisory committee of the Conference, the Board and the member organizations of CIPSH.

SOCIETAL ATTITUDE

1. A dysfunctional world: world order and disorder, world governance, war and peace, wealth and poverty, and the search for humanness (maaya, ubuntu) and democracy.
2. The cultural repository.
   1. Discovery of the past: archeology, history, anthropology, ethnology, linguistics.
   2. Reinvention of the past: the destruction of tangible and intangible heritage, historical revisionisms, memorial actions, usurpations, and creationism.
3. The anthropological standpoint: human attitudes facing challenges.
4. Preparing the future: education, gender, health, and intergenerational transfer.

STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES

1. Cultural identities and their construction: identity drifts and cultural integration, migrations and xenophobia.
2. Cultural and cross-cultural diversity: languages, arts and literatures, new and old communication technologies, tangible and intangible heritage, traditions and universality, genetic and cultural comingling.
3. The coexistence of beliefs: religions, social norms and values, individual rights.
4. Mankindinitsenvironment:anagendaforacommittedpartnershipwiththesocialand natural sciences for citizenship, sustainable social development, management of natural resources, technological innovation, bioethics, and ethics.

HUMANITIES: AN IMPERATIVE FOR A HUMAN WORLD

1. Education and teaching (including the impact and challenges of ICTs and new media on education).
2. Hegemony and scholarship in the humanities, social and natural sciences.

Major Milestones