Message from the Director
I was very honored to take up the position of director of the Institute for Research in Humanities in April 2023. I am the Institute’s 32nd director since it was inaugurated in its present form in 1949.
The Institute for Research in Humanities seeks to pursue comprehensive studies of diverse cultures and societies in the world, conducting 30 or more collaborative research projects each year. The project teams are always busy: the Institute holds around 10 to 20 seminars a year attended by researchers from inside and outside Japan, and their outcomes earn plaudits at academic conferences. The job of the Institute’s researchers is to run these collaborative research projects, participating in multiple projects themselves. At the same time, they are actively involved in undergraduate- and graduate-level teaching, providing many of the classes for small-group courses given by the Institute for Liberal Arts and Sciences known as ILAS seminars. Furthermore, the Institute for Research in Humanities Academy holds 10 or more public seminars, lectures, and symposiums each year, disseminating the latest research findings to the general public. Thus, far from confining themselves to the world of researchers, scholars at the Institute are also actively providing specialized education to cultivate the next generation of researchers, teaching classes for incoming students majoring in either humanities or sciences, and organizing events for the general public. This is because we at the Institute for Research in Humanities believe that everybody living amid the “information explosion” that characterizes contemporary society needs to be able to observe events around them calmly and see the big picture. Moreover, the fundamental competence for life that can enable people to do this comes from knowledge provided by study of the humanities in a whole range of fields including history, philosophy, and literature.
The humanities are not disciplines that offer solutions to current problems directly. Rather, humanities scholars consider guiding principles for living now and in the future primarily by studying the experiences and historical writings of various ethnic groups in multiple regions of the world, and inform the public of their findings. They often take a critical approach to events occurring in society: when the majority of people are about to head in one direction, humanities scholars tend to stop still and spend time considering whether the other direction could also be an option. As a result, in today’s world, where decisions must be made and action taken instantly, the humanities may be shunned, regarded as of no real use, or branded as little more than hobbies. Perhaps the argument that the humanities are unnecessary is directed not so much at the humanities in general, but specifically at humanities scholars who are critical of trends within society. However, I personally believe that society needs a certain number of people who can identify a range of options and novel perspectives, focusing not only on the possibilities offered, but also the problems that could arise, in order to consider the best direction in which to proceed.
The Institute for Research in Humanities Academy works to disseminate knowledge that can improve fundamental competence for life, but even that knowledge represents only one way of looking at and interpreting society. Arguably, the Academy’s role is fulfilled only once attendees have had the chance to digest and reorganize the knowledge they took in. To facilitate that process, we need to invest even greater ingenuity and effort in determining how to organize events and setting topics to be addressed.
In the 2023–2024 academic year, the Center for Informatics in East Asian Studies, a research center attached to the Institute, will be restructured to form the Center for Innovative Informatics of the Humanities, which will focus its activities on three main areas: Chinese classical documents and materials, modern and contemporary documents, and dissemination of information. In the past, the Center has organized lectures for librarians responsible for Chinese documents and materials, at which it taught the knowledge necessary for cataloguing Chinese documents and disseminated its research findings. However, the new Center will take a more proactive approach to activities emphasizing cooperation with the general public. In the case of modern and contemporary documents, for example, the Center will collect together, catalogue, and preserve for posterity documents at risk of becoming scattered or lost, and particularly those dating from the 1950s to the 1970s, which was a major period of transition for Japan and the rest of the world. However, that is not all; the Center also aims to create opportunities for humanities scholars to talk with people who created the documents, who were present when events took place, or who lived through the years in question, so that the public’s knowledge can be combined with humanities scholars’ knowledge to be preserved as metadata and disseminated. Humanities scholars need to be excellent observers of contemporary society, and I believe that such cooperation with local residents will provide golden opportunities for observation, while combining knowledge in this way will present an entirely new direction for research in the humanities.
So, why is studying the humanities necessary for universities and for society at large? Humanities scholars must deal with the question head-on and explain why it is indeed necessary. Whilst my remarks here express my own personal opinions, many of the Institute’s researchers share a sense of crisis regarding the current state of humanities studies and society in general. However, I am confident that the Institute for Research in Humanities can lead the way forward.
Takuji Iwaki
Director
April 2023
