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Interdisciplinarity and the Future of Life

Thursday 7 May, 10pm Eastern / Friday 8 May, 10am China

Interdisciplinarity lies at the heart of Duke Kunshan University’s innovative curriculum for the 21st century. Recently DKU appointed James Miller, Co-Director of the Humanities Research Center to be its first Associate Dean of Interdisciplinary Strategy. Join Professor Miller and students from the HumanSpace+ research group as they embark on a series of conversations with leading theorists and practitioners of interdisciplinarity in the world today to explore how interdisciplinarity is tied to innovation and future of knowledge.

Ed Turner

The fourth conversation in this series is with Professor Ed Turner from Princeton University and focuses on the future of the life. Working extensively in both theoretical and observational astrophysics, Professor Turner has published more than 240 research papers with particular concentrations on topics including binary galaxies, dark matter, quasars, exoplanets, astrobiology and the origin of life.  Professor Turner is also a leader of the Breakthrough Starshot initative, which aims to develop a light-powered starship to journey to Proxima Centauri b, an exoplanet discovered in August 2016.

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Interdisciplinarity and the Future of the Planet

Thursday 30 April, 9am Eastern / 9pm China
Zoom: 695-290-0771

Interdisciplinarity lies at the heart of Duke Kunshan University’s innovative curriculum for the 21st century. Recently DKU appointed James Miller, Co-Director of the Humanities Research Center to be its first Associate Dean of Interdisciplinary Strategy. Join Professor Miller and students from the HumanSpace+ research group as they embark on a series of conversations with leading theorists and practitioners of interdisciplinarity in the world today to explore how interdisciplinarity is tied to innovation and future of knowledge.

Thomas Bruhn

The third conversation in this series is with Dr Thomas Bruhn from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) at Potsdam University. Dr  Bruhn is a physicist who has been working transdisciplinarily at the IASS since 2012. His research initially focused on climate engineering and CO2 utilisation. In 2016 he began to co-lead the AMA (A Mindset for the Anthropocene) project together with Dr Zoe Lüthi on the question how the cultivation of mental qualities like mindfulness and compassion can contribute to sustainability. He has also been engaged in research on collective learning and co-creation in the context of political decision-making for sustainability since 2017. Dr Bruhn’s  ambition is to bring together a variety of stakeholders in reflexive processes that allow for the emergence of truly shared perspectives and action pathways for a context-specific implementation of specific sustainability targets.

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Interdisciplinarity and the Future of the Mind

Thursday 23 April, 10pm Eastern / Friday 24 April, 10am China
Zoom: 695-290-0771

Interdisciplinarity lies at the heart of Duke Kunshan University’s innovative curriculum for the 21st century. Recently DKU appointed James Miller, Co-Director of the Humanities Research Center to be its first Associate Dean of Interdisciplinary Strategy. Join Professor Miller and students from the HumanSpace+ research group as they embark on a series of conversations with leading theorists and practitioners of interdisciplinarity in the world today to explore how interdisciplinarity is tied to innovation and future of knowledge.

Evan Thompson

The second conversation in this series is with Professor Evan Thompson from the University of British Columbia and focuses on the future of the mind. Evan Thompson is a writer and professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He works on the nature of the mind, the self, and human experience. His work combines cognitive science, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and cross-cultural philosophy, especially Asian philosophical traditions. He is the author of Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy (Columbia University Press, 2015); Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Harvard University Press, 2007); and Colour Vision: A Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception (Routledge Press, 1995). He is the co-author, with Francisco J. Varela and Eleanor Rosch, of The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press, 1991, revised edition 2016). Evan is an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

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Interdisciplinarity and the Future of Knowledge

Tuesday April 14: 10am Eastern, 10pm China
Zoom: 695-290-0771

Interdisciplinarity lies at the heart of Duke Kunshan University’s innovative curriculum for the 21st century. Recently DKU appointed James Miller, Co-Director of the Humanities Research Center to be its first Associate Dean of Interdisciplinary Strategy. Join Professor Miller and students from the HumanSpace+ research group as they embark on a series of conversations with leading theorists and practitioners of interdisciplinarity in the world today to explore how interdisciplinarity is tied to innovation and future of knowledge.

Simon Goldhill

The first conversation in this series is with Professor Simon Goldhill from Cambridge University. Professor Goldhill was the first director of CRRASH,  the Centre for Research in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cambridge University. During his tenure as director, CRRASH  became the world’s leading interdisciplinary research institute of its kind, employing over 40 postdoctoral researchers on a number of groundbreaking collaborative projects. Continue reading “Interdisciplinarity and the Future of Knowledge”