Symposium Series “The Future of the Humanities and Social Sciences”: Perspectives from the Sociology of Knowledge

Tuesday, 26 November 2024, 13:00-14:30 JST

We have been repeatedly told that Japan is a "collectivist" or "group-oriented" society, in contradistinction to the United States and other Western countries, which are said to be "individualist." The argument strikes me as wrong, at best. After briefly rebutting the received view, I trace the genealogy of the mistaken idea and explain its cogency.

Friday, 6 December 2024, 15:00-16:30

This lecture will cover ethnographic research on Filipino trans women or transpinay before, during, and after migration in Japan from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Drawing from an intersectional invisibility (Purdie-Vaughns & Eibach, 2008) framework, it will relate the Filipino trans women’s migration experiences to the cases of current issues transgender migrants are facing. This talk will also explore how social media and films create spaces to show and negotiate the (in)visibility of genders.

Wednesday, 11 December 2024 10:30-12:00 JST

Many low income countries face severe environmental problems. They also face an urgent need for tax revenue to finance social needs and economic development. Can environmental taxes provide a way to meet both objectives? Drawing on a recent book, this lecture will take stock of the most pressing of the many environmental challenges faced by low income countries—including in air quality, waste management, soil quality, deforestation, congestion, adaptation to climate change—and consider to what extent improved tax policy can simultaneously help address them and raise a significant amount of tax revenue.

Available from Friday, 13 December 2024 17:00 JST

H.E. Mr. Teimuraz LEZHAVA, Ambassador of Georgia to Japan, who has deep knowledge and insight into Japanese culture and business practices, and Professor SHIMAZU Naoko, a global historian who has studied Japan from an external perspective, will explore one of Tokyo College’s key research themes, “Japan viewed from the inside and outside.”
We invite you to join us for this insightful and engaging discussion.

Every Monday from from December 2, 2024 (Available from 17:00 JST)

“The Salon” is a 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 and Professor John Lie of UC Berkeley, who is currently staying at Tokyo College.
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.

Tuesday, 12 November 2024 10:30-12:00 JST

Prof. Manju Puri has hypothesized and found evidence that banks use venture investments in fintech startups as a strategic approach to navigate fintech competition. She first documented that banks’ venture investments have increasingly focused on fintech firms. She found that banks facing greater fintech competition are more likely to make venture investments in fintech startups. Banks target fintech firms that exhibit higher levels of asset complementarities with their own business. Finally, instrumental variable analyses showed that venture investments increase the likelihoods of operational collaborations and knowledge transfer between the investing bank and the fintech investee.

Monday, 11 November 2024, 10:00-11:00 JST

As generative AI becomes more widely used, it is crucial for AI models to accurately reflect cultural and linguistic risks in different regions. Identifying harmful content specific to each culture must be continuously updated. This requires collaboration between AI researchers, social scientists, policymakers, and practitioners to form a global community for ongoing discussions. This event will discuss frameworks to sustain such communities, welcoming those interested in AI safety and governance.

Friday, 8 November 2024 8:00 - 9:15 JST

Japan had two elections—LDP President (September 27) and House of Representatives (October 27)—that elected a new prime minister. During the two elections, many economic policy proposals were presented and debated. The webinar will discuss economic policies that are likely to be adopted and those that are unlikely to be adopted but desirable for the Japanese economy.

Tuesday, 5 November 2024 10:30-12:00 JST

The idiom “50 Ways” in my title should not be taken as a literal metric. “Fifty” is a simply a metaphor for a number larger than a few. In his hit song, “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover” (1975), Paul Simon provides six ways to leave. In this paper, I will review a number of ways to “kill” a robot together with some of the ways that robots “die.” Death here is broadly defined as the permanent ending of vital processes. I will also review how “deceased” robots are handled. My cultural area focus is primarily Japan and the United States. Both humans and robots are, in several respects, electrical entities, and so in my concluding remarks, I address the question of what happens to each after the electricity is out.

Friday, 1 November 2024 14:00-15:30 JST

Within this presentation, Prof. Baudinette argues that the fundamentally transformative nature of fan subjectivity encourages the production of queer fantasies tied to idols that marginalized social subjects can utilize to critique the social structures which disadvantage them. He unpacks how LGBTQ+ fans across Asia transform idol fandom into a queer space where their fantasy work creates transnational solidarities grounded in the political project of queer emancipation. Through this discussion, he theorizes “queer fantasy work” as it is tied to idol fandom as an explicitly political force in contemporary Asian culture designed to actively produce a more egalitarian and hopeful world.

Thursday, 24 October 2024 15:00-16:30 JST

In this talk, Prof. Hiramori will present findings from his methodological studies to develop questions to measure sexual orientation and gender identity on population-based surveys in the Japanese context. He will also examine the issue of heterosexual respondents being misclassified as non-heterosexual and the difficulty of fully separating heterosexual and non-heterosexual people in survey data. He will conclude the talk by discussing the findings from his latest study that half of those who select “other” as their gender on surveys may be cisgender women, even though this category was meant to capture non-binary respondents.