A New Humanities Agenda for the 21st Century
Outcome Document of 2017 World Humanities Conference
World Humanities Conference
Liège, Belgium, 6-11 August 2017
Outcome Document:
A New Humanities Agenda for the 21st Century
11 August 2017
We, the participants in the World Humanities Conference held in Liège, Belgium, from 6 to 11 August 2017, who have come from all around the world to reflect and to engage in dialogues to establish a new agenda for the humanities of the 21st century;
Commending the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO)and the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences(CIPSH)for their joint organization of the Conference;
Building on a long tradition of intellectual cooperation and solidarity anchored in humanities scholarship and underpinning the creation of UNESCO;
Inspired by the Constitution of UNESCO, which states that it is in the minds of women and men that the defences of peace must be constructed and that peace must be founded upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of humankind;
Recalling that gender equality and Africa are the two Global Priorities of UNESCO;
Considering the Constitution of CIPSH, which states that a better knowledge of human behaviour is indispensable to a closer understanding of peoples, and identifies cooperation among scholars and with non-academic partners as relevant levers for fostering such knowledge and its dissemination, and reiterating the 2010 call by the General Assembly of CIPSH, meeting in Nagoya, Japan, for a new foundation of the humanities rooted inresponsibility in managing the human and cultural complexity of our societies, within a plurality of world cultures;[1]
Aiming to contribute actively to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with the specific approach and competences of the humanities, understood as including philosophy, history, literature and language, and the arts;
Recognizing that the humanities have a specific competence and responsibility in fostering the freedom and diversity of thought and the transparency that are fundamental for all aspects of life in society, while stressing the irreplaceable role of the humanities for a critical approach to values and for the understanding of long-term processes, such as the challenges related to environmental changes and global migrations;
Affirming the essential role of the humanities in fostering epistemological decolonization;
Reaffirming the 2011 Busan Declaration, [2]which states the urgency of addressing the current status of the humanities and rethinking the meaning of humanism in the face of ongoing crises and rising uncertainty in a world affected by rapid globalization;
Recalling the statement of UNESCO’s Executive Board in May 2017 reaffirming the importance of “the role of humanities in a world in transition” and their “historic task of struggling against xenophobia, intolerance and fundamentalism”;[3]
Noting that the World Humanities Conference has taken place during the International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures and contributed to the achievement of the objectives thereof;
Further noting the outcomes of the preparatory meetings that took place in Brazil, China, Colombia, France, Jamaica, Lebanon, Mali and Portugal, as well as the results of the 4th World Humanities Forum and of the International Year of Global Understanding;
Expressing our sincere appreciation to all the institutions that made the preparatory meetings possible;
Warmly thanking Tencent, the Global Chinese Arts and Culture Society, and Wallonie Bruxelles International, for their generous financial support, as well as all the institutions that made valuable in-kind contributions to the organization of the Conference;
Expressing our particular gratitude to the Foundation for the World Humanities Conference for its local organization and financial commitment, and to the Government of the Kingdom of Belgium for its support;
1. Call on UNESCO, CIPSH, and their partners to adopt a gender lens and integrate gender-based perspectives in all the following calls to action;
2. Call on foundations, councils, sponsors and other funding bodies, public as well as private:
3. Call on the media to make the message of the World Humanities Conference accessible to all members of civil society, and subsequently to engage in regular discussion with regard to how and why the humanities matter to everyone’s lives individually and collectively;
4. Call on higher education institutions, academies, research centres and similar scholarly bodies and communities:
5. Call on CIPSH and its member organizations:
6. Call on UNESCO, through its Secretariat and Member States and in cooperation as appropriate with the United Nations system and other relevant international and regional organizations:
Notes:
[1]Final Statement of Outcomes presented at the CIPSH-ISSC General Assembly and a Joint Scientific Symposium (http://www.cipsh.net/upload/userfiles/ISSC-CIPSH%20Joint%20Symposium%20Statement%20of%20Outcomes.pdf)
[2]Busan Declaration: Towards a New Humanism for the 21st Century (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002212/221283e.pdf)
[3]201 EX/Dec.37 (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002480/248002e.pdf)
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Article Source : CIPSH
August 11, 2017
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