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Scholars from a worldwide network of institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ӣ����Ƶ of California, Harvard University, and the University of Cambridge, will explore and reimagine the vital role of the humanities during the “What is the Business of the Humanities?” conference at Dominican.

Discussions will focus on how to expand the cognitive, creative, ethical, social, playful, and healthful contributions of the humanities to address today’s pressing challenges. Members of the public are invited to join the discussion on November 8 in Dominican’s Guzman Lecture Hall from 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.

The event, hosted by MIT’s Comparative Global Humanities Initiative and Dominican’s Françoise Lepage Center for Global Innovation, is free and open to the public.

The Lepage Center, housed in the Barowsky School of Business, is an entrepreneurship center advancing the business education of future and current entrepreneurs as innovative leaders and managers of global change. The center’s mission is to serve as a global innovation gateway, partner, collaborator and resource for the Dominican community, businesses, government and non-profit organizations.

The Lepage Center’s director is Wayne de Fremery, professor of Information Science and Entrepreneurship at Dominican and a member of MIT’s Comparative Global Humanities Initiative.

Initially an English teacher, de Fremery became fascinated by Korea and Korean poetry. After roughly a decade studying Korean language, literature, and Korea’s textual traditions, he had earned an M.A. in Korean Studies from Seoul National University and a Ph.D. in Korean literature and bibliography from Harvard University. He spent the 2010s as a professor at Sogang University in Seoul where he researched Korea’s textual traditions in relation to changing technologies and concepts associated with information and documentation.

The conference’s keynote will be presented by John Silvanus Wilson, the 11th president of Morehouse College (2013-2017) and executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs in the Obama Administration. Dr. Wilson now serves as the managing director of the Open Leadership Program in collaboration with MIT  and is chairman of The Open Leadership Council.

Details about the conference program and speakers are . 

A day-long series of discussions and presentations will examine:

• Bridging the gap between the humanities and STEM.
• New leadership roles for humanities graduates and scholars. 
• How higher education can promote interdisciplinary programs or joint research initiatives.
• How to reimagine the humanities to create a shared future for our world’s communities.

“To best navigate today’s complex challenges, including climate change, poverty, access to health care, governance, and social justice, society needs contributions from people who have studied the past,” says de Fremery.

“The humanities are essential for educating our future engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and leaders, but also for sustaining our capacity to wonder and innovate,” he adds.

“The basic idea of this conference is to show how humanists are engaging with today’s critical issues. We will discuss, for example, how philosophies from ancient cultures can help us understand our modern political dilemmas and ethical choices. We will discuss how studying the humanities helps students cultivate a sense of responsibility and civic engagement.”