Previous Events

Wednesday, 18 December 2024, 14:00-17:30 JST

Every Monday 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.

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.

Wednesday, 11 December 2024, 12:00-13:00 JST

This webinar will outline the overview of the EU-AI Act, the activities of four working groups involved in the formulation of the Code of Practice, and important points that Japanese companies and organizations should particularly pay attention to. 
We look forward to the participation of companies, research institutions, and development communities involved in the development, provision, and distribution of AI-related technologies as an opportunity to deepen understanding of the “Brussels Effect” brought about by EU regulatory trends and its impact on Japan. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wednesday, 23 October 2024, 10:30-12:00 JST

This talk addresses the creation of future narratives in US-based, transnational think tanks, with a view to the combinatorial use of metrics, imagination, and speculation. What kinds of knowledge is brought into play and created? What are the tools and technologies used in future foresight exercises? How are the outcomes of future foresight exercises made credible and authoritative? The talk also discusses how seemingly playful exercises are rendered powerful as significant resources for future leadership, and thus potentially performative.

Wednesday, 16 October 2024 15:00-16:30 JST

There are some feminist issues which are appropriately addressed to the government of one nation-state, while others necessarily cross borders: such as issues to do with migration, imperialism, multinational capitalism. Wherever feminists have attempted to deal with such issues with their sisters in other countries they have been engaged in ‘transnational feminism’, or ‘feminism beyond the nation-state’. This talk will survey some examples of ‘feminism(s) beyond the nation-state’ from the late twentieth century to the present.

Friday, 6 September 2024, 9:00-10:30 JST

In this lecture, Howard CHIANG proposes a new paradigm for doing transgender history in which geopolitics assumes central importance. Defined as the antidote to transphobia, transtopia challenges a minoritarian view of transgender experience and makes room for the variability of transness on a historical continuum.

Saturday, 24 August, 2024, 10:00 - 13:30 (Doors open: 9:45)

This workshop will deal with three case studies: (1) AI for generating text and images, (2) facial recognition technology, and (3) child abuse response systems, providing participants with an opportunity to gain more in-depth knowledge and information about the use and impact of AI. At the same time, participants will share their perspectives on their expectations and concerns about AI.

Friday, 23 August 2024, 16:00-17:30 JST

This panel discussion will feature two distinguished Japanese economists from overseas. They will discuss the current situation of the Japanese economy and the challenges it faces. This discussion will provide new insights into the Japanese economy from an international perspective.

Thursday, 25 July 2024 15:00-16:30 (Doors open: 14:30)

Why is the gender ratio at UTokyo so unbalanced? What can we do to solve this problem? This event will explore these questions through an interactive roundtable that will feature UTokyo professors, researchers, and students. The panelists will share their different perspectives on this pressing disparity, followed by open discussion with the audience. We welcome students and community members with diverse perspectives and backgrounds.

Monday, 22 July 2024, 14:30-16:00 JST

Dr. Neville Bolt discusses two important concepts that governments around the world have embraced with enthusiasm in the early 21st century. These concepts are related but distinct. Yet all too often they are misunderstood and assumed to mean the same.

Friday, 12 July 2024, 14:00-15:00

This lecture will delve into the inherent risks that AI systems pose across the broader security domain, which are mentioned above, and will conclude with some insights on proposed governance models to prevent and mitigate the risks associated with these technologies. The afore include the need to elaborate binding norms, standards, and guidelines, as well as oversight, monitoring, validation and verification functions through a centralised authority with the appropriate mechanisms to enforce these regulations and ensure compliance through accountability, remedies for harm and emergency responses.

Friday, 28 June 2024, 15:30-16:30

On July 25, 2023, Chuo Koron Shinsha published Dr. Komenko's book, 'The Faraway Sky of Kyiv. Ukrainians in the War', offering a unique perspective on the war in Ukraine.
This book originated from her experience of the war in Ukraine and stories from family members, friends, and former students. Her motivation to write this book came from being interviewed by Japanese media in early 2022. The questions she was asked lacked general knowledge of Ukrainian history and culture; therefore, she decided not to give any further interviews and to focus on writing in Japanese to provide a voice for Ukrainians instead.

Monday, 24 June 2024, 15:00-15:45

The traditional historical narrative locates the birth of hacker culture in US universities in the 1960s. This talk will look at hackers as part of a longer chronology, beginning with science fiction novels at the end of the 19th century, continuing with radio hams in the 1910s and "phone phreaks" in the 1970s, and ending with computer hackers in the late 20th century. It will examine both what hackers and proto-hackers wrote about themselves and how they were perceived by the print media. It will show not only that hacker culture existed before computers, but also that it is an integral part of modern Western technoculture, influencing its ideas about innovation and positive human-machine relationships, as well as media coverage of technology and online communication strategies.

Every Friday from June 7, 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.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.