Around 60,000 years ago, homo sapiens must have experienced significant DNA changes that profoundly altered our capacity to compete for natural resources. Critical for this change in our behaviors was a new capacity for abstract thinking. Today with AI, we are on the brink of taking the final step away from Darwin’s principle of Survival of the fittest by rapidly evolving to escape our DNA dependence altogether and thereby our mortality as well.

In-Person Event, The University of Tokyo, Hongo Campus
Wednesday, 29 January 2025, 15:00-16:30 JST

In her new book Everyday Ambassadors, Annelise Riles argues that we are on the cusp of an exciting new world order, where leadership is not just in the hands of few but of all. She argues that what the world needs now is many more diplomats–connectors, translators, interpretors, across political and cultural differences, between science and religion, between the arts and the technology world.

Zoom Webinar
Thursday, 13 February 2025, 10:00-11:30 JST

President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 60% tariffs on imports from China, 25% on imports from Canada and Mexico, and 10% on imports from the rest of the world. Three weeks after the inauguration, what are the prospects for those tariffs? If those are really implemented, what will Japan do? Will Japanese manufacturers just suffer huge declines in exports to the United States? Will Japanese manufacturers increase tariff-jumping investment in the U.S.? How will Japanese manufacturers respond?

Zoom Webinar
Friday, 14 February 2025 9:00 - 10:15 JST/ Thursday February 13, 19:00 - 20:15 EST

In 2010, Prime Minister 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. 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?

Zoom Webinar
Tuesday, 18 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.

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

This blog post was created as part of the interdisciplinary zengaku seminar "Different Dimensions of Bilingualism" offered at the University of Tokyo during the 2024 academic year.

Lidiya SHAMOVA
2 September 2024

This blog post was created as part of the interdisciplinary zengaku seminar "Different Dimensions of Bilingualism" offered at the University of Tokyo during the 2024 academic year.

Lidiya SHAMOVA
2 September 2024

Tokyo College is an organization like no other. Founded in 2019 to serve as an interface between the University of Tokyo and overseas researchers and research institutions, our core philosophy centers around the “Joy of Discovery and Power of Knowledge.”