EVENT

Wednesday, May 7, 2025 10:30-12:00 JST

Japan outlaws gender discrimination in virtually the same terms as every equivalent country and yet it ranks 118th out of 146 countries, 111 notches below Germany, 103 below the US. Why? Is it that Japanese culture demands women remain meekly at home? If so, why do women graduate from universities at a higher rate than men? Why do they participate in the work force at a high rate? Why do they bring – and win - employment discrimination suits? This lecture will explore these questions and offer tentative – extremely tentative – observations on the reasons.

Thursday, 8 May, 10:30–12:00 JST

World literature has been a reality since at least the nineteenth century. Texts travel across continents and cultures, translated from every language, taught in universities worldwide, and forming an emerging global canon. Never before have we been so free to read whatever we wish, from anywhere. Or so it seems. But is this true freedom, or merely a comforting illusion? What are the boundaries of this seemingly limitless literary exchange? This talk aims to explore those limits and propose a new approach to literature—a different way of reading texts, one that is either entirely new or, perhaps, simply old and forgotten. Welcome to the world library!

Thursday, 22 May, 13:00–14:30 JST

This lecture will argue that the Hebrew Bible contains different views on nature and the environment, especially in relation to the destruction of the kingdom of Judah and its capital Jerusalem in 587 BCE. This event triggered different discourses of crisis management that will be analyzed with the help of a German sociologist Armin Steil who distinguishes three attitudes toward crisis also found in the Hebrew Bible: 1) The prophetic attitude: belief that crisis will lead to a new creation with harmony between humans, nature, and animals; 2) The mandarin attitude: view of disasters as divine punishment without much interest in the environment; and 3) The priestly attitude: construction of a mythic past that offers rituals for the present with interest in the place of humans in their environment. The last discourse offers an important reflection about a possible harmony between all beings.

Wednesday, April 23, 2025 15:00-16:30 JST

Carbon and nature markets are struggling with low trust, high costs, and limited scale—falling far short of what’s needed. In this lecture, Professor Weder di Mauro presents a new market design co-developed with Estelle Cantillon and Eric F. Lambin. Jurisdictions offer large-scale projects; investors buy shares that yield carbon and biodiversity “dividends” without conferring land ownership. Market prices reveal demand and support liquidity. Compared to credit-based systems, this approach cuts costs, boosts credibility, and supports long-term commitments. It tackles the core problems holding back today’s markets—and offers a credible path to scale with real environmental impact.

Tuesday, 22 April, 14:30–16:00 JST

From "Being about Something to Being for Somebody" is the memorable title of Stephen Weil's contribution to the 1999 Daedalus volume on American Museums. Though decades old and not without challenges, the phrase continues to resonate within the museum field. In many ways it encapsulates the ways in which institutions have changed from privileging curator-defined information and institution-defined goals to promoting the visitor's experience and the broader community.
In her talk, Leslie Bedford, a longtime museum practitioner and professor of museum studies, will explore the meaning of Weil's phrase and how it has been implemented by museums, including those she has visited in Japan. Her talk will include a discussion of the online conversations she is facilitating with Japanese museum professionals and academics. And finally, she will raise the question of what "visitor centered" can mean today and in the future.

Wednesday, 16 April, 10:00–11:30 JST

The “Black Death” refers to the peak of the second plague pandemic, which spread across Europe from 1347. It remains the greatest demographic catastrophe in history. Today, interdisciplinary research—combining funerary archaeology, anthropology, microbiology, and environmental sciences—has transformed our approaches to it. Advances from DNA analysis to climate studies have contributed to a new understanding. Yet, the challenge remains: how to write a global history of a long-term event on a global scale? Though its precise geography is unclear, the plague’s routes trace the lines of force of connected worlds, mapping out a space that is discontinuous and global, like an archipelago.

Wednesday, 9 April, 2025 JST 15:00-16:30 JST

Despite the enthusiasm they generate, it is difficult to satisfactorily identify what humanoid robots could do that a human or a non-humanoid robot could not do better and more cheaply, and this observation constitutes a major challenge for the philosopher. Using the example of Sophia, the first humanoid robot to be granted citizenship in 2017, I will suggest that these strange machines occupy a sensitive place in our societies by taking on the role of messianic machines (machines that announce the coming of other machines), metaphysical machines (machines that force us to ask fundamental metaphysical questions such as knowing who is human or who is alive) and conjuring machines (machines that help to fight against the fear of dangerous machines).

Friday, 4 April, 13:00–14:30 JST

In this richly-illustrated lecture, I discuss two collaborative partnerships in which I have been involved with historically marginalized, Indigenous communities in both the Himalayan region and in Native North America who are working to preserve and revitalize their languages. Through the presentation, I explore these three words: Collect, Protect, Connect.

Wednesday, 19 March 2025, 12:00-13:00 JST

At the University of Tokyo, a webinar was held on December 11, 2024 and January 15, 2025, to explain the EU AI Act and the first draft of the CoP. In this webinar, we will provide an overview of the third draft released at the end of February and highlight important points that Japanese companies should particularly pay attention to.

Monday, 17 March 2025, 3:00 - 4:30 pm (Doors open: 2:00 pm)

Today, digital networks provide us with an abundance of information. We invest more than ever in education and science. Despite these achievements our mental, socio-economic and political conditions have not improved. They seem to be even deteriorating. Why? What is going wrong? What can we do better? What can the first information revolution 600 years ago teach us? Two leading Japanese scholars in the field of media and AI governance will discuss these questions with Yuval Harari, the world-famous thinker and best-selling author, who explores the risks and opportunities of the information age in his new book Nexus.

Thursday, 13 March, 2025, 16:00-18:00

The Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), established in June 2020, is an international initiative for the responsible development and use of AI based on the concept of “human-centered.” The GPAI has several working groups, one of which discusses the “Future of Work.” As part of this group’s project, an international interview survey is being conducted around the world to find out how our work will change as AI is introduced into the workplace. One of the unique methods of this survey is that the students who will be responsible for the future are interviewing companies and organizations.
At this event, following the survey report last year, we will introduce an overview of the survey conducted this year. Inviting students and faculty members who joined in this year’s project to share their observations on the “future of work” through the survey, we also discuss the possibilities and challenges of its methodological aspects. We would like to discuss future developments of the survey with companies, organizations, and students who are interested in this work.

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

This lecture explores the influence of the Japanese language on the global branding of Japan beyond its borders. It examines how the Japanese language is strategically employed to evoke distinct imagery, cultural significance, and authenticity. The session offers insights into the current landscape and future research directions of Japanese language as an important world language. Employing linguistic case studies from Germany and Hungary, the lecture highlights how Japanese writing elements are rephrased or combined with a product’s identity and with design cues evoking Japaneseness. Creatively adapted in new contexts overseas, the Japanese language has become a strong branding tool in Europe.

Thursday, 27 February 2025, 15:00-16:30 JST

The past, it is said, is a foreign country, and historians seek to understand it without imposing present-day values. Yet inevitably, to write history is to engage in a dialogue between the past and the present. In this talk I will introduce my internal dialogue over the 25 years during which I wrote four editions of A Modern History of Japan, and am now considering a fifth edition.

Friday, 21 February 2025 9:00 - 10:15 JST/ Thursday February 20, 19:00 - 20:15 EST

Will President Trump demand higher defense spending by Japan? How will Japan respond? President Trump has pledged to negotiate a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine War in the first 100 days of his administration. Will it happen? How will he do that? What will the truce influence the situations in East Asia? Will Japan’s policy to advance defense technologies and promote defense industry succeed? Will Ishiba’s minority government be able to handle it?

Tuesday, 18 February 2025, 15:00-16:30 JST

The Conservative-led British government's perception of China changed markedly between 2010 and 2024. In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron described the rise of China as an opportunity. A decade on, the government described China as the biggest long-term threat to the UK's economic security and expressed increasing concerns about Chinese assertiveness overseas. During the same period, the UK and Japan built up an ever-closer security relationship. Did British government perceptions of China determine its policy towards Japan during this period, or were other factors just as influential? What approaches should we expect now from the new Labour government?