2026.6.1- 6.3 TRIP Inauguration
Professor Hirofumi Aoki, Anton Schweizer, Gloria Yu Yang, and graduate student Misato Tanno from the Faculty of Humanities represented Kyushu University at the inaugural international forum of the Teaching and Research Innovation Project (TRIP), held at the College of Liberal Arts, National Taiwan University, in Taipei. The forum brought together deans, faculty members, and student representatives from from the Colleges of Liberal Arts at National Taiwan University, Korea University, Kyoto University, and Kyushu University, exploring how the humanities might be redefined and re-experienced in the age of artificial intelligence.
The three-day event featured two academic symposia. The first symposium, held on the morning of June 2, focused on "The Future of Co-intelligence between Humanities and AI" and included presentations by 11 speakers. Our dean Aoki’s presentation highlighted new opportunities for humanities research in the digital age by introducing the university's recently launched international master's programs and a digital archiving initiative that integrates traditional Japanese studies with the digital humanities. Professor Anton Schweizer’s presentation explained that the programs enable students to explore diverse fields through fieldwork and hands-on, off-campus learning. He also introduced the Getty Foundation-funded project “"Shared Coasts, Divided Historiographies” that promotes transnational collaboration across art, intellectual history, and research through workshops and exhibition curation, while challenging established art-historical narratives. Professor Schweizer emphasized that internationalization, digitalization, and advances in AI must remain grounded in on-site learning and authentic experience to further enrich humanities research.
The second symposium, held on the morning of June 3, centered on "Teaching and Learning in Embodied Humanities" and featured 9 speakers. In her presentation, "Embodied Learning: Teaching through Travel and Exhibition Curating,” Lecturer Gloria Yu Yang pointed out that the proliferation of AI tools and fragmented information has made students increasingly reliant on automatically generated answers, undermining critical thinking and distancing them from physical documents and archives. To address these challenges, she developed transnational travel workshops and collaborative curatorial projects that transform students from passive classroom "spectators" into active "observers and team members." Students are inspired to rethink what it means to be a scholar. These embodied learning practices extend education beyond the classroom, creating shared environments where participants explore new approaches, including the use of digital humanities tools. Graduate student Misato Tanno presented an open, searchable, and analyzable database for historical documents on pre-modern exchanges between Japan and Asia, many of which previously existed only as difficult-to-read images. Launched in 2022, the project has produced high-resolution digital images and is developing a TEI-compliant platform, scheduled for release in 2025, that will support full-text searches, advanced queries, and visualizations through timelines and maps.
Kyushu University will host the second TRIP event in 2027.
2025.4.21-24 MoU
A delegation from the College of Liberal Arts at National Taiwan University, led by Dean Professor Cheng Yu-yu (鄭毓瑜), along with Associate Dean Professor Lin May-shine (林美香) and Professor Lin Hui-chun (林慧君), visited Kyushu University to attend the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
During their visit, the delegation participated in a tea gathering hosted by Professor Tim Cross, accompanied by Professor Schweizer and Assistant Professor Yang. They also enjoyed a luncheon with IMAP students, toured the campus with Professors Onjo and Aoki, and visited the seminar rooms of Professors Shizunaga, Nakajima, and Fujii. The visit concluded with a reception dinner hosted by Vice President Kenji Iwata and Prof. Onjo, joined by faculty members from the School of Humanities.