EVENT

Wednesday, December 3, 2025, 15:00-16:00 JST

In 2024 the UNESCO World Heritage Committee listed the gold mines on Sado island as world heritage sites with significantly less controversy than in 2015, when the cluster of Meiji Era Industrial Revolution sites, mainly in Kyushu, were listed. At issue in both cases was the way these industrial heritage sites would describe the treatment of wartime foreign laborers, Koreans in particular, who were brought to Japan and forced to work against their will. The Sado case generated less controversy mainly because the Japanese side offered a fuller and more honest account. In this presentation I explore the reasons for this difference with particular attention to the role of local civil society actors.

Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 15:00-16:00 JST (14:30 Open)

In this interview, Tokyo College Ushioda Fellow Alastair Morgan will share with the audience some fascinating insights on three decades as a British diplomat. Retired in 2019, Alastair Morgan spent his diplomatic postings in Asia, namely Tokyo, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Pyongyang. What was his life like as a British diplomat? What were the challenges he faced in his various postings? How does a diplomat balance the needs of a local posting with the needs of Whitehall? This will be a unique opportunity to gain insight through Alastair Morgan’s reflections on his life as a British civil servant and diplomat in Asia from the 1980s onwards.

Wednesday, 17 December 14:00-15:00

What is the big picture of global politics, and can we even draw one? Three simultaneous dynamics shape global developments, yet they are difficult to think together. ...

Wednesday, January 7, 2026, 14:00-15:00 JST

In economics, there is a well-known idea that new technologies and ideas replace older ones, driving progress. This concept, known as "creative destruction," was a central theme in the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics. In contrast, physics teaches us the principle of conservation: nothing is lost, everything simply changes form. So, is economic progress truly about destruction—or is it more about transformation? In this lecture, a physicist and an economist will explore the differences between these perspectives, and discuss topics such as sustainable growth and the power of human imagination, in a way that is accessible to all.

Wednesday, 14 January 14:00-15:00

The ‘body politic’ has, since the Middle Ages, provided an enduring an analogy in Europe for describing the ‘right’ kind of political organisation. In this talk I explain how this analogy was turned inside out by the scientific discoveries made around the real body in16th and 17th centuries Europe.

Wednesday, 8 March 2023, 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm JST

Challenges that both concern and span the globe, such as those indicated by the SDGs, are drawing increasing attention, and the problems resulting from pandemics and economic turmoil have grown more significant. Many of these challenges become apparent as they come in contact with issues at the local and regional level. Rather than attempting to solve individual challenges, however, more fundamental, forward-thinking social transformations are required. In this discussion forum, we explore what social responsibilities universities should fulfill in these circumstances with a special focus on the impact on knowledge production. The forum will also summarize the contents of “The Future of Higher Education” dialogue series held by Tokyo College over seven sessions from December 2022 to March 2023.

Wednesday, 1 March 2023, 15:00-16:00

In this presentation, Dr. HIRAMOTO Mie explores the changing ideas of masculinity in Asia and beyond through the lens of sociolinguistics. She focuses on the relationships between sociocultural stereotypes and masculinity ideologies, as well as the ways in which genre, style, and medium shape our understanding of these concepts. Drawing mainly on Agha’s works, the theoretical concepts of mediatization and enregisterment, as well as figures of personhood, will be employed in the analysis of three case studies.

Wednesday, 1 March 2023, 10:00 am - 11:00 am

Higher education around the world is experiencing vast changes in its multiple environments as a result of numerous factors, including globalization, shifts in the boundary conditions of truth, the effects of technology, geopolitical uncertainties, and calls for ‘decolonisation’. This seminar series explores the impact of these factors on the future of higher education.

Wednesday, 1 March 2023, 16:00-17:30

In this workshop, we discuss the role of media in manifesting, representing, and reifying identities, and what role language plays in this relationship. We explore the role of genre, imagined audience, and media creator in language use, and what implications media consumption has for our own perceptions of identity and belonging.

Monday, 27 February 2023, 4:00-5:30 pm

The general public is more familiar with Mary Wollstonecraft’s daughter Mary Shelley, who imagined Frankenstein as a monstrous metaphor of modernity. Historians are also aware that Mary Wollstonecraft died giving birth to Mary Shelley.
However, among scholars, the two texts of Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Men as a response to Edmund Burke and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, are of foremost importance. In this lecture, Prof. Serna will introduce another less-known and long-depreciated text titled An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution; and the Effect it Has Produced in Europe. He intends to show that it is one of the first great histories of the French Revolution, proposing a new narrative and a new historiographic epistemology.

Monday, 20 February 2023, 4:00-5:30 PM

A number of humanoid robots in Japan have been supplied with gender and emotions, qualities that are stereotyped and greatly simplified in order to create algorithms. Artificial intelligence (AI), which is comprised of numerous algorithms, is useful for tasks that rely on pattern recognition, but AI can also perpetuate and reproduce the everyday social biases of their human designers. In this presentation, Prof. Jennifer Robertson discusses these robots and the implications that their design has for other industries, including surveillance.

Wednesday, 15 February 2023, 3:00-4:00 pm

Higher education around the world is experiencing vast changes in its multiple environments as a result of numerous factors, including globalization, shifts in the boundary conditions of truth, the effects of technology, geopolitical uncertainties, and calls for ‘decolonisation’. This seminar series explores the impact of these factors on the future of higher education.

Wednesday, 8 February 2023, 4:00-5:30pm

Professor Craig Jeffrey and Associate Professor Jane Dyson will show how young people in rural Uttarakhand, north India, attempt to make viable lives as they respond to environmental and socio-economic crises and engage in everyday social action. They will also screen Professor Dyson’s documentary film Spirit, which explores related themes.

Wednesday, 8 February 2023, 10:00-11:00 am

Higher education around the world is experiencing vast changes in its multiple environments as a result of numerous factors, including globalization, shifts in the boundary conditions of truth, the effects of technology, geopolitical uncertainties, and calls for ‘decolonisation’. This seminar series explores the impact of these factors on the future of higher education.

Friday, 3 February 2023, 4:00-5:30 pm

In 2021, the British Government announced and put in train a ‘tilt to the Indo-Pacific’ in defence, security, development and foreign policy. How has this fared in 2022, in the face of developments including political turmoil and economic difficulties in the UK, and the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

Thursday, 2 February 2023, 17:30 - 18:30 JST

This talk extends the concept of translanguaging by looking at transitional mutilinguals’ journey of 'transpositioning,' a process where people break from their pre-set or prescribed roles and switch perspectives with others through communicative practices such as translanguaging and transmodalities.

February 2, 2023 18:30-19:30 JST

In this workshop, we are aiming to present up-to-date approaches to linguistic identity and multilingualism. Focusing on linguistic identity as emerged through various forms of natural speech, we will discuss how transnationalism, migration, pandemic, and digital communication affect linguistic identities.