Tokyo College International Round Table: ”Living through a Pandemic – Reassessing the Covid-19 Crisis around the World”

Monday, 24 April 2024, 15:30-17:00 JST

This lecture explores Saudi Arabia’s dedication to strengthening its ICT infrastructure to protect businesses and individuals from cyber threats. The discussion includes the Kingdom’s initiatives to reassess its cybersecurity capabilities, its investments in a vision of a digitally secure economy, and a strategic framework to position itself as not only a regional leader but also a global pioneer in collective cybersecurity.

Friday, 26 April 2024, 14:00-15:30 JST

Monuments mourning the deaths of wartime foreign laborers bring to mind two meanings of the term “dark” in relation to heritage: the commemoration of tragic episodes in history and the importance of little known, nearly hidden monuments to this history. What messages are conveyed at these doubly dark locations?

Tuesday, 7 May 2024, 10:00-11:00 am JST

Complexity questions the duality of existence, favoring multiplicity over singularity. In philosophy, Leibniz and Deleuze explored this intricacy. Mathematicians like Cantor, Gödel, and Turing delineated the boundaries of rationality. Freud and Lacan proposed the psyche's autonomy and symbolic realm. This ongoing discourse reaffirms metaphysics' relevance in contemporary thought, highlighting a preference for complexity.

Friday, 10 May 2024, 10:30-12:00 JST

This lecture follows the Yamashiro-maru steamship across Asian and Pacific waters, innovatively reconstructing the lives of migrants who left Japan for work in Hawai'i, Southeast Asia and Australia in the late-nineteenth century. These stories bring together transpacific historiographies of settler colonialism, labour history and resource extraction in new ways. Drawing on an unconventional and deeply material archive, the lecture addresses key questions of method and authorial positionality in the writing of global history.

Tuesday, 14 May, 2024, 16:30-18:00 JST

In this lecture, Prof. Dullin will discuss how Permafrost was invented as a scientific issue, while also being a natural and meaningful ground for the native communities living on it. Then, she will show how Permafrost took, at the turn of the 21st century, a political meaning in the search for sovereignty in different Arctic substates, such as Yakutia.

Friday, 17 May 2024, 14:00-15:30 pm JST

The modern world's international landscape is shaped by an investment in anthropological difference since the emergence of "Europe" in the early modern era. This difference, distinguishing humanitas from anthropos, is anticipatory, guiding humanity's path as a regulative idea rather than a factual norm. It consolidates dichotomies such as Europe/Asia, West/Rest, and white/colored, fostering intricate affiliations. This lecture delves into the identity politics of whiteness, where individuals invest in European culture, Western civilization, and a race devoid of color. However, true belonging remains putative, only realized through contrast with the non-European, non-Western, and non-white.

Wednesday, May 29th, 2024, 15:00-16:30 JST

Central banks, and central bankers, stand at a crossroads. They face five major forks in the 21st century requiring careful reflection: (1) the re-emergence of inflation and uncertainties; (2) climate change; (3) inequality; (4) digital financial innovation; and (5) artificial intelligence. Modern central banks have always strengthened their analytical thinking when facing challenges in the past, balancing risks properly and choosing the best path. Now, these new issues imply that central banks will have to carefully identify and analyze their challenging implications.

Every Friday from June 7, 2024 (Available from 17:00 JST)

“The Salon” is a new dialogue series featuring distinguished scholars in the humanities at the University of Tokyo that aims to transcend disciplinary boundaries. It is hosted by Professor Naoko Shimazu of Tokyo College.The conversations occur over a cup of coffee. We invite you to listen to an informal discussion between experts in different fields, as if you are sitting next to them.This is a chance to see a new side of our guests that you have never seen before.

Wednesday, 17 April 2024, 10:30-12:00 JST

Museums are inherently for their visitors and exhibitions their unique medium of communication. In America's polarized era how can exhibitions engage the imaginations of our diverse publics while also inspiring a feeling of shared humanity?

Monday, 15 April 2024, 17:00-18:30 JST

The World Bank, the American government, and virtually all scholars agree that “Property rights are at the heart of the incentive structure of market economies” and that a “free and robust market can thrive only where property rights are accorded respect.” Drawing on empirical reality, I argue the reverse: that property rights must be destroyed for rapid economic growth and to realize the social benefits that growth can provide.

Monday, 25 March 2024, 05:30-7:00 pm JST

This talk traces the evolution of the idea of "rights" in the West and the notion of rights-talk, and then discusses Gandhi's thinking on rights, his philosophical, ethical, and political reservations about the idea of rights, and his anticipation of the Anthropocene.

Monday, 18 March 2024, 17:00-18:30 JST

To celebrate International Women’s Day this March, Tokyo College’s “Gender, Sexuality & Identity” collaborative research group will host a special webinar event with MURATA Sayaka, author and winner of the 155th Akutagawa Prize for her novel ”Convenience Store Woman” (2016). Through discussing Murata’s writing, experiences, and inspirations, the event hopes to generate reflection on society’s gender and sexuality “norms” and how they shape our world.

Monday, March 11th, 2024 15:30-17:00 JST

Education is a necessary partner in addressing global sustainability challenges. Wild Pedagogies aim to re-examine human relationships with places, landscapes, nature, non-human beings, and planetary boundaries. They foreground nature as a teacher and challenge globalizing trends towards increased control over pedagogy. Wild Pedagogies are offered to all—parents, students, community educators, teachers, academics, business leaders, policymakers, wilderness guides, and more—who wish to expand their horizons and are curious about the potential of wilder practices.

Monday, 4 March 2024, 15:00-16:30 JST

Robotics is gaining increasing importance across a wide range of applications, including industrial production, agriculture, assistance to individuals and households, and medicine. However, its progress is still constrained by the mechanical basis of construction and operation. The disadvantages of the constraints can be radically reduced by the advent of “soft robotics”. In this lecture, Prof. Viovy presents and illustrates the potentialities of this emerging field with a few examples, and discusses its future and potential limitations.