Cross-disciplinary curriculum

About the Curriculum (General Remark)

The curriculum at the Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences focuses on project participation and Ph. D thesis work during years 3 and above. The preparatory education of the first two years lays the groundwork for the more advanced work that follows.

Despite the two world wars of the last century, the world continues to experience new forms of conflict. Some predict the nation-state will be transcended in the 21st century, but so far, ideas for sustainable global-scale practices and a new bioethics have born little fruit.

The problems above are examined in the Basic Reading Seminars: Core Ethics I, II and III. Next, in the Applied Reading Seminars that follow, students choose as a study focus one of the graduate school’s four themes of publicness, life, socio-cultural symbiosis and representation.

Held in parallel with Reading Seminars are Support Courses, which are provided to help students develop the communication and management skills necessary for conducting and disseminating research successfully. The integration into the curriculum of these Support Courses is a unique aspect of our graduate program.

The Preparatory Doctoral Thesis, due at the end of Year 2, is used as a screening device for admitting students to the next academic stage: participation in research projects in year 3 and above.

When students take part in the projects, they are required periodically to report their results, and receive evaluations of their research. The student’s individual research culminates in a Ph. D Thesis, the final product of the graduate program. An individual’s Ph. D Thesis may or may not be directly related to the project research.