Event Recaps: Ikeda Forum

During the 2024 Ikeda Forum for Intercultural Dialogue, education professor Lauren Leigh Kelly, organizational development and conflict resolution specialist Eden Weitzman, and nuclear disarmament advocate Emma Pike each discussed how they employ their imaginations and pursue peacebuilding work in their respective fields of endeavor. 

Inspired by Daisaku Ikeda’s lifelong commitment to literature as a core aspect of his peacebuilding ethos, the Ikeda Center celebrated its 30th anniversary with a dialogue event devoted to that very topic. Read about the 19th annual Ikeda Forum here.

The Center's first in-person Ikeda Forum since the beginning of the pandemic was a joyous affair, with Shirley Tang and Karen Ross of the University of Massachusetts Boston sharing their experiences employing story telling to deepen mutual understanding.

The 2021 Ikeda built on Daisaku Ikeda's three aspects of global citizenship—wisdom, courage, and compassion—to chart a path for advancing well being on all levels, personal, social, and worldwide. Scholar was Awad Ibrahim was joined by a panel of doctoral students for the discussion.

The first ever “virtual” Ikeda Forum for Intercultural Dialogue demonstrated the very concept it explored: value creation. There is no replacing the particular energy and sense of connection that define good in-person events.

This Ikeda Forum featured the dialogic experiences of eight young professionals who, over several months, engaged in ongoing, transformative dialogue with established scholars from the Center’s circle of friends and collaborators.

This Forum explored how the average person might engage with human rights as they go about their everyday affairs. It featured contributions from Boston-area scholars as well as members of the Center's youth steering committee.

The event featured presenter Ceasar McDowell of MIT, who was joined by a capacity crowd who came ready to look deeply into what is needed to bridge the seemingly unbridgeable expanses that divide us.

Among the guiding questions for the gathering: How can we actively bring an awareness of dignity into our lives as individuals and communities, and how might we utilize an understanding of dignity as a tool for working towards peace?