Seeking an Academic Utopia
I am KAN Huai-chen, teaching at Department of History in NTU all along. Since 2026 February, I have been assigned the President of Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
It has been twenty years since IHS was founded in 2005.
Back to the time before 2000, higher education in Taiwan had had brand-new development due to the government’s huge investment in founding national research institutions. From 2003 and on, NTU founded four research centers: Genetic Medicine, Integrated Technology of Information and Electronics, Nanotechnology, and “Research Center for Studies in East Asian Civilizations,” which I served as director then. Later, NTU officially founded IHS, and the research center became part of the institute thanks to the dearly departed Research Fellow HSU Cho-yun’s selfless efforts of lobbying and negotiation as well as the NTU President LEE Si-chen’s generous supports.
It has been twenty years since IHS was founded; I started my academic career twenty years ago, too. From director of research center to institute president, undoubtedly this turn is “an accident” in my academic journey. A solid foundation has been laid and sumptuous academic achievements have been yielded due to the endeavors made by former presidents during these twenty years. As the saying goes, “”. We, carrying our fruitful past and looking toward a promising future, is responsible to face new challenges in this new era with honesty.
｜What Is “Institute for Advanced Studies”?
The archetype of Institute for Advanced Studies originated in Princeton University. I was fortunate enough to have visited there; its atmosphere feels like an academic utopia. It is even honored as “Plato’s Paradise.” It is the product of the reflection on “academic institutionalization” (that is, the invention of university’s departments and institutes) among American academia in 1930s.
How universities in Taiwan are institutionalized came in American way majorly. Departments such as History, Physics, Politics, Chemistry, Economics, etc. came into beings due to the concept of discipline. The fact that I, a historian, myself teach in Department of History and publish my research in journals on history is nothing wrong; however, we have to understand that the subject matter of academia is phenomena in Nature and human life as well. These phenomena never recognize and label themselves as “historic,” “economic,” or “physical.” Until now, the discipline of physics has its history of three hundred years, social sciences two hundred, and contemporary historiography at least one hundred and fifty. Every discipline is deeply aware of its own strength but has to face its own blind spots.
｜Crossing Boundaries, from Interdisciplinarity to Academic Salons
Recently, cross-disciplinarity has become a trend in universities. Students of NTU can even apply cross-disciplinary majors freely. This is an attempt to renovate academic institution. But from the perspective of a research institution, our mission seems similarly different.
After 2000s, Institutes of Advanced Studies were founded across East Asia. NTU is one of the trailblazers. Their visions vary: Tokyo University’s Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, where I have served before, refers its “Advanced Studies” to cutting-edge Asian Studies. It has its own faculty and research fellows. On the other hand, we “research center,” whose research energy comes from elite scholars across NTU’s departments of humanities and social sciences.
Neither “Interdisciplinarity” nor “Cross-interdisciplinarity” are novel concepts. Two decades before, IHS took the mission to direct research projects of humanities and social sciences in large scale (such as the project “East Asian Classics and Cultures” which I’ve been part of). For now, colleges and research centers have ability to direct large-scaled research project as well; IHS doesn’t need to confine itself in what others can do.
Then, what is the mission of IHS now? To me, it is to serve as a research platform that is designed for elite scholars from various fields, for interdisciplinary integration and fruitful academic dialogues.
｜Confronting the Era’s Uncertainty, Reshaping Epistemological Co-ordinates
The twenty-first century is experiencing an unprecedented geopolitical shift since late nineteen century. Globalization brought the dismemberment of unipolar system; Uncertainty became the new normal these two decades.
In face of contemporary hardships, a single perspective of academic field is no longer sufficient. Therefore, since 2026, we officially initiated “Cutting-edge Research Platforms of Humanities and Social Sciences,” inviting NTU’s elite scholars to address their research and insights to four urgent issues for the humanity here and now:
- Social Inequality and Demographic Problems: Examining democratic malfunction and class conflict, facing the vulnerability of contemporary society and demographic problems, and hypothesizing low birth rate and aging population as main factors of human extinction.
- International Relations and New World Order: Breaking western-centric perspectives and concepts, introducing historical sources from other histories such as East Asia, China, etc., and rebuilding the principle of a new order for future world.
- Migration and the Making of the Modern World: Re-examining global history in macro perspective as historic memories re-enter the global context, by focusing on Taiwan and starting from the traces of post-war migration in Taiwan.
- Cultural Exchange in East Asia: Exploring the possibility of East Asia as commonality in historical world, and seeking cultural solutions for regional cooperation based on the profound research potentials in East Asia Studies in NTU.
Could Princeton University’s “Plato’s Paradise” exist in the current institution of university? I am not sure. But I believe that academic disciplines need a space in which their intellectual confinement could be lifted. Through genuine dialogue and exchange, we can see new lights on the solid ground of our disciplines.
This is an intellectual journey that confronts epochal challenges. I full-heartedly invite outstanding scholars from various fields, from and beyond NTU, to join IHS’s academic salon. In this time of upheavals, we can search for the next key solution to the humanities and social sciences, together.
中華民國一一五年三月 院長
