SFU Global Humanities

AI is upon us, crashing like a wave over global culture. How will it impact humanity and the global humanities? What are AI’s promises and threats, and how should we address them? Who should steer AI’s development, and to what ends? What are AI’s implications for the things we take to be most human: thinking, feeling, willing, judging, relating?

This workshop-style course will explore these questions in hands-on ways, by using AI—or resisting it—and by interrogating its many uses, the agendas behind them, and the communities working toward more civically responsible forms of technological engagement. The course will be supplemented by speakers and public events coordinated through the Institute for the Humanities and the Digital Democracies Institute’s Data Fluencies 2.0 project.

Join us to explore how to humanly take on the challenges posed by AI!

See course outline: https://ow.ly/tyJE50ZvfB8

Join us on August 8th @ 7:30PM for the inaugural town hall hosted in collaboration with No AI Vancouver!

This town hall aims to bring together researchers and community members to discuss concerns around AI technology and data centre projects in Vancouver. We want to facilitate strategy sharing for community involvement and increasing transparency in the shaping of Canada’s AI policy and regulation.

See event details: https://ow.ly/vaV050Zrb8t

Fall 2026 enrollment has begun! From big questions that have shaped human life across time and cultures to archetypes of women in the Ancient Greek world, to the myth of Prometheus as an allegory of utopian promises and dystopian dangers of technology, we offer courses that reflect the inter- and cross-disciplinary nature of the humanities. Explore the richness by taking a HUM course this fall!

See Fall 2026 course offerings by visiting the link in our bio!

Fall 2026 enrollment has begun! From big questions that have shaped human life across time and cultures to archetypes of women in the Ancient Greek world, to the myth of Prometheus as an allegory of utopian promises and dystopian dangers of technology, we offer courses that reflect the inter- and cross-disciplinary nature of the humanities. Explore the richness by taking a HUM course this fall!

See Fall 2026 course offerings: https://ow.ly/kQmI50Zk96w

Thanks to all current, incoming, and prospective Global Humanities students for sacrificing a portion of their Saturday to stop by our booth at this year's event! It was a tremendous pleasure for our undergraduate chair (far left), undergraduate advisor (far right), and members of HUMSU to meet and chat with you all, and we are excited to welcome you to the department this fall!

In the meantime, if you would like to learn more about our courses and programs, please contact our advisor, Elina Jin, at [email protected].

James Horncastle, McWhinney Professor in International Relations, on how the war in Iran has influenced Ukraine's tactics against Russia:

"But even though shifting international attention is to Ukraine’s disadvantage, a key aspect of warfare is that all participants generally play a role in its outcome. Ukraine, rather than idling, has increased its targeting of Russia’s energy infrastructure during the war in Iran."

The Conversation Canada

Read more:

Ukraine is countering the impact of the war in Iran by attacking Russian energy facilities Increased and effective Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure have prevented Russia from effectively exploiting higher oil prices.

Adrian Ivakhiv, J. S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities, publishes new essay marking 40 years since the Chornobyl disaster:

"The accident that took place at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant on 26 April 1986 was not just an event, not merely something that happened. It was a hyper-event. In its confluence of trajectories and flows, a hyper-event delivers an unpredictable manifold of novelty, with reverberations ringing far beyond the scope of its origins, permanently rupturing the ontology of a social order and expanding the circle of affective horizons by which its effects resonate into the world. The hyper-event of Chornobyl implicated us—those who have lived to make sense of it—in the folded fabric of a space-time that has changed as a result of that event. It did this on multiple levels. I will focus on four of them."

Read more:

Chornobyl at 40: Times and Spaces of a Hyper-Event Chornobyl was a hyper-event that ruptured Soviet reality, ending the USSR’s cosmo-industrial dream of conquering the cosmos through nuclear power. This essay traces how one disaster reverberates across multiple dimensions – geopolitical, ecological, ontological – asking what it means when ...

James Horncastle, McWhinney Professor in International Relations, talks with to explain the implications of the recent Hungarian elections for Canada's foreign policy:

加西-政論縱橫 ...

Assistant Professor Spyros Sofos’ HUM 347: Religion, Culture, and Society (“Intersecting Cultures: Islam in Europe and North America”) class visit to the Ismaili Centre and Jamaatkhana Vancouver on March 12th offered students a rare opportunity to encounter, in a lived and dialogical setting, the interconnections between faith, aesthetics, and community practice within the Ismaili tradition.

The group was warmly received with the Centre’s renowned masala chai and refreshments. This was followed by an engaging introduction from Feezah Jaffer, Member for External Relations of the Ismaili Council for British Columbia, who situated the Centre within both local and global contexts, highlighting its role as a space of encounter, education, and interfaith dialogue.

Read more: https://ow.ly/AcuW50YJ6WC

Assistant Professor Spyros Sofos speaks to CBC News's BC Today about the US/Israel-Iran ceasefire (interview timestamp: 10:36–32:18):

BC Today - April 08, 2026 BC Today is where British Columbians connect on issues facing their lives and their community with host Michelle Eliot.