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Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

An innovative and comprehensive graduate school that crosses disciplinary boundaries to take an international, interdisciplinary approach to new research questions.

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, located at the Komaba campus, has, from the very beginning, been committed to the principles of interdisciplinarity and internationalism and has aimed not only to train highly specialized researchers but also to develop professionals with a high level of knowledge who can make practical contributions to our society. We offer four humanities and social sciences specializations (Language and Information Sciences, Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, Area Studies, and Advanced Social and International Studies). In the natural sciences, we have the Department of Multi-Disciplinary Sciences, which contains three specializations: Basic Sciences, Life Sciences, and General Systems Studies.

In April 2004, in order to produce leaders who can make meaningful international contributions, we established the Graduate Program on Human Security, an interdisciplinary humanities and social sciences program that spans five academic specializations. April 2010 saw the establishment of the Institute for Advanced Global Studies (IAGS), incorporating into one organization our existing Center for Pacific and American Studies and Center for German and European Studies and the newly created Center for Sustainable Peace, Center for Sustainable Development, and Center for African Studies. In April 2011, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Center for Asian Studies were added to IAGS, making it a base for research activities that are quite literally global.

Furthermore, in April 2012, aiming to address the various cross-regional issues confronting the contemporary world, we established the Graduate Program on Global Humanities, an interdisciplinary humanities and social sciences program that crosses four academic specializations. In October 2012 we launched programs conducted entirely in English: the Graduate Program on Global Society (an interdisciplinary humanities and social sciences program), and the Graduate Program on Environmental Sciences (an interdisciplinary humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences program).

Other programs established at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences after 2005 include the Science and Technology Interpreter Program, designed to further the development of leaders who can improve communication between science and technology fields and society at large; the European Studies Program and the Japan-Germany Graduate Externship Program, designed to advance interdisciplinary teaching and research related to contemporary Europe and the University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy, an institute that aims to pioneer new humanities scholarship for the current age. The fruits of these efforts will each be passed on to new organizations.

Through our efforts to teach and research across disciplinary boundaries, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences continues to produce a large number of leaders able not only to identify new problem but also to devise new solutions.

 

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