At the heart of your inquiry may stand the theology of Augustine, the philosophy of al-Ghazali, the ethical witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the analytic reflections of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the transcendental theology of Karl Rahner, the theology of culture of Paul Tillich, the atheistic critique of Daniel Dennett, or the political imagination of Hannah Arendt. It may engage Aquinas’s scholastic reasoning, Maimonides’ rationalism, or the comparative mysticism of Meister Eckhart and Ibn Arabi. Perhaps it wrestles with Kant’s critical philosophy, Hegel’s dialectics, Nietzsche’s provocations, or Kierkegaard’s existential faith. Or it may explore contemporary horizons of liberation and feminist theologies, phenomenology, pragmatism, postcolonial and decolonial thought.

Your path might follow Shakespeare’s stage, Rumi’s spiritual prose and poetry, or Homer’s epic visions; it may resonate with the lyric intensity of Hafez, Tagore’s poetic humanism, or Octavio Paz’s reflections on history and identity. It could draw on the wisdom of Confucius, Laozi, and the Buddhist philosophical traditions of Nagarjuna and Dogen Zenji, or the African humanism of Ubuntu and the visionary writings of Léopold Sédar Senghor. It might equally engage the philosophical reflections of Niyazi Berkes or the poetic modernism of Nazım Hikmet from Turkish intellectual life, or the reformist thought of Nurcholish Madjid, the cultural criticism of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and the humanistic vision of Muhammad Iqbal, or the intellectual and spiritual insights of contemporary Indian Hindu thinkers such as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan or Sri Aurobindo, no less than the vast intellectual legacies of South Asian, Indonesian, and Malaysian traditions. It may connect with the lyrical voices of Emily Dickinson and Pablo Neruda, or the theatrical innovations of Brecht, Lorca, and Wole Soyinka. It could move through the modernist experiments of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, or T. S. Eliot, and into the postcolonial and diasporic narratives of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Derek Walcott, or Arundhati Roy. Or it may embrace the literary experiments of Elena Ferrante, Khaled Hosseini, Kazuo Ishiguro, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Gabriel García Márquez: engaging the shifting dynamics of voice, identity, memory, and power that continue to redefine poetry, drama, and the contemporary novel. Perhaps your research engages with the arts, e.g. Leonardo’s Renaissance canvases, the resonances of Beethoven’s symphonies, the choreography of Pina Bausch, or the cinematic innovations of Akira Kurosawa, Ava DuVernay, and contemporary digital media cultures. It might equally turn toward architecture, from the sacred geometries of Gothic cathedrals and Islamic mosques to modern urban design and sustainable housing, or the broader history of aesthetics, visual culture, and design.

You may also be working in the social sciences: tracing Durkheim’s sociology of religion, Weber’s theories of authority, or Bourdieu’s reflections on power and habitus. Some explore the anthropology of ritual in Amazonian villages, urban ethnographies in Mumbai and São Paulo, or sociology of multifaith space in the European super-diversity. Others analyze migration across the Mediterranean, the resilience of diasporic identities, or the interreligious encounters that shape plural classrooms in Berlin, Lagos, and Jakarta. Scholars of peace and conflict studies may examine reconciliation after wars, transitional justice in postcolonial states, or the practices of dialogue and peacebuilding across divided societies. Comparative studies bring together insights across cultures, disciplines, and worldviews, whether in literature, politics, education, or religion.

In education and psychology, your research might engage Piaget’s developmental theory, Vygotsky’s social learning, or Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed, asking how minds, identities, and communities grow, transform, and resist. Historians may pursue the long arcs of empires and revolutions, from the Roman Republic to the Haitian Revolution, from Ottoman reforms to decolonial struggles in Africa and Asia. In religious education, scholars may examine how learners encounter diverse worldviews in plural societies: exploring interfaith dialogue, comparative theology, intercultural pedagogy, secular and confessional approaches, as well as the challenges of promoting empathy, critical literacy, and peaceful coexistence in classrooms marked by cultural and religious diversity. Geographers may map landscapes of migration, climate vulnerability, or urban expansion, while cartographers chart how knowledge, space, and power intersect. Researchers may turn to information and library studies, codicology, and manuscript traditions, tracing how knowledge is preserved, transmitted, and reinterpreted across languages and eras. Others investigate digital and material cultures, from archives and heritage to algorithms and embodied practices, asking how technologies and objects shape meaning and memory. Critical and emancipatory studies push the horizon further. Scholars engage with the feminism of Simone de Beauvoir and bell hooks, queer theory’s challenge to normative frameworks, and intersectional analyses of race, class, and gender from Kimberlé Crenshaw to Judith Butler. Work on indigenous knowledge systems, minority rights, disability studies, and decolonial theory amplifies voices long silenced and insists that scholarship remain accountable to the marginalized.

For many, the focus lies in law, ethics, or political thought: grappling with the Magna Carta, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the writings of Montesquieu, Rawls, and Fanon, or contemporary debates on constitutionalism, global justice, and human rights. Scholars of economics, administration, and management may trace the crises of capitalism, the rise of digital economies, or the intersections of leadership, organization, and sustainability; they may explore human resource management, entrepreneurship, or the dynamics of project planning in an interconnected world. Others turn to the role of journalism, media, and digital cultures in shaping democracy, public discourse, and collective memory, whether analyzing traditional press freedoms, the ethics of reporting, or the algorithmic dynamics of social networks.

And across all fields in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, researchers confront the urgent questions of our age: climate change and environmental ethics, the Anthropocene and planetary futures, the impact of artificial intelligence on democracy, education, and work, or the fragile bond between humanity, technology, and nature.

Whatever your direction, whether grounded in texts, traditions, movements, comparative encounters, critical struggles, or planetary futures, your research embodies a finding worth sharing, a perspective worth telling, a vision worth making visible, and definitely a new idea worth publishing.