Go Okui currently works as an intern within the secretariat of the MOST programme in UNESCO, especially focused on philosophy and the humanities, providing intellectual and technical input to programme planning, as a part of the credited PhD course work at Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies of Human Survivability of Kyoto University.
Concurrently, he is a 2nd year PhD student specialized in political philosophy of Hannah Arendt. His master dissertation, “The Theory and Practice of Public Philosophy: The Implication of Hannah Arendt’s Sensus Communis,” examined the troubling relationship between public and philosophy in the modern time while focusing on Hannah Arendt’s concept of Sensus Communis, or community sense elucidated through her readings of Kant as their mediating factor. The part of the dissertation was reported as a peer reviewed paper presentation at the Conference of Hannah Arendt Research Society of Japan in 2016, and the summary of which was published in its yearly report, Arendt Platz No.2 (2016 Winter).
He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude in the double major of Sociology and Economics from State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany. Prior to pursuing graduate education, he had various management positions in the private sector. The positions include a regional loss prevention manager responsible for Flagship programs in Asia at Abercrombie and Fitch, and a director of convention services and researches at the Convention Co.
Go Okui is a world citizen who shares a deep concern over the erosion of the public sphere in modern democratic societies in the globalizing world which continues to threaten the plurality of our lives while stifling the dialogues among citizens. He is aspired to the revitalization of the public sphere through actions seated in reflective thinking and invigorated by dialogues of deliberative citizens.