Graduate School of Global Humanities and Social Sciences
Distinctive Education
About the Five Research Fields (Systems) Offered by the Department of Global Humanities and Social Sciences Doctoral Course
The objective of these fields is for students to develop highly specialized knowledge and creative abilities in Multicultural Society Studies and to cultivate human resources who aim to enter the Department of Global Humanities and Social Sciences Doctoral Course. These five research fields are based on the five-course groups in the Master’s Program (Global Studies, Linguistic Diversity, Japan, Nagasaki and Asian Studies, Policy Science, and Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation) pertaining to various problems in the multicultural social situation of the 21ˢᵗ century. They will deepen students’ expertise in those fields even further, and are necessary for students to acquire the abilities specified in the Diploma Policy. Furthermore, in addition to the aforementioned responsibilities of a national university located in Nagasaki, including efforts to abolish nuclear weapons and promote peace, preservation of cultural assets and traditional performing arts, and the development of research on local history, the Doctoral Course will also realize the integrated creation of “the global world with localities,” which is a characteristic of the Doctoral Course. The Sociocultural Research system, Linguistic Research system, and the Japan, Nagasaki, and Maritime Area Studies and Asian Research system are particularly concerned with the cultivation of a more advanced ability to discern the essence of various complex problems in the multicultural social situation of the 21st century, while the Public Policy Research system and the Abolition of Nuclear Arms and Peace Studies system are concerned with the cultivation of a more advanced ability to present various solutions to solve problems. These abilities to discern the essence of problems and to present various solutions to solve problems are indispensable in fostering independent researchers and advanced professionals based on highly specialized knowledge and creative abilities in multicultural society studies.
The skills that students will develop in the five research fields (systems) are as described below.
Sociocultural Research Department
From the perspective of co-existence, we understand the diversity of life, minds, social cultures, and their related societies, systems, organizations, reciprocal actions, structures, and functions, and in perceiving the world as a dynamic equilibrium and different systems composed of the cyclical generation and extinction of events and the materialization (systematization) of events, we explore the formation of a new order and culture that transcend friction and conflict.
Linguistic Research Department
Based on the fact that social realities and problems are linked to language and communication, we pursue the potential of the principal solution of mutual understanding and, in so doing, explore the inherent nature of language from the syntactical nature of symbolic content (i.e., meaning and intention) and symbolic form (i.e., sound and movement) and the sharing of intention through linguistic expression. We also explore the thought and generative grammar related to the adaptive function of language, the potential for creating a society through communication, and the non-linguistic and non-symbolic communication supporting the selection of information as well as its transmission and the understanding of communication.
The Japan, Nagasaki, and Maritime Area Studies and Asian Research Department
As opposed to previous literary-centered Japanese research, we transpose previous results of Japanese research within East Asia and the world, and, from the perspective of Japan and the Nagasaki hub, given their fluidity in terms of people, situations, and things, we explore transdisciplinary Japan, Nagasaki, and maritime area research and Asian research. In other words, we deconstruct the Orientalist perception (the construction of the other as the subject of exploitation and aid and as an inferior existence to give superior significance to the self and the point that the egocentric self–other perception of this kind is deeply rooted in the nature of modern academia based on the discourse of controlling the other) through theory and verification, and while focusing on the world through globalization and the decentralization and multi-centralization of academia, we explore a new relationship of self and other that will be the basis for the study of global humanities and social science in the 21ˢᵗ century.
Public Policy Research Department
In relation to international public policy, as well as understanding the roles and limitations of the respective actors at each stage of the policy process in order to set and design projects and form and determine, implement and manage, and evaluate policies, we critically examine current international relations and explore the formation and realization of global public value..
The Abolition of Nuclear Arms and Peace Studies Department
Focusing on the international situation, we analyze and consider a security framework that is non-reliant on a nuclear deterrent and the relationship between the peaceful use of atomic energy and nuclear non-proliferation, and, by cultivating a specialization in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, we explore the formation and realization of a world without nuclear arms.