6 June 2017
In this talk, Professor Kiyonori Kanasaka spoke about the different aspects of his Isabella Bird studies and activities. In particular, he considered how he came to understand Isabella Bird the person – her actions, decisions and motivations – and how and why her travels in Japan have been so widely misinterpreted and misunderstood.
More info8 June 2017
This Side and the Other Side is an Anglo-Japanese odyssey of the artistic achievement of Nana Shiomi. It follows a 20-year journey of printmaking. In this event, Nana Shiomi discussed her life as a printmaker and the completion of ‘One Hundred Views of Mitate’.
More info2 May 2017
Professor Arthur Stockwin and Dr Kweku Ampiah ask how far right wing trends in Japan exhibit common causality with shifts to the right elsewhere.
More info4 April 2017
The Nuclear Culture Source Book is a resource and introduction to nuclear culture. In this talk, Ele Carpenter and Eiko Honda bring together contemporary art and ideas investigating the nuclear Anthropocene, nuclear sites and materiality, along with important questions of radiological inheritance, nuclear modernity and the philosophical concept of radiation as a hyperobject.
More info20 April 2017
The Tales of Ise and its hero Ariwara no Narihira have fascinated Japanese and international readers for centuries. In this talk, Dr Laura Moretti explores the 1766 picture-book Ise fūryū: Utagaruta no hajimari (The Fashionable Ise: The Origins of Utagaruta), examining how it adapts the The Tale of Ise for an eighteenth-century young audience and investigating how it challenges our expectations towards children’s literature.
More info25 April 2017
The post-2012 standoff over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands has unveiled the antagonistic quality to Sino-Japanese relations, with an important addition: a massive information war that has cemented the two states’ rivalry. Dr Giulio Pugliese will give an account of Japan-China power politics in the military, economic and propaganda domains.
More info23 March 2017
The Edo Period is known worldwide as one of the most vibrant and exciting times in the history of Japanese art. In this talk, Professor Timon Screech takes us on an entertaining tour of Edo art and suggest ways in which art historical scholarship, and appreciation, can develop in diverse periods and fields.
Fully bookedMore info13 December 2016
In this talk, novelist Lesley Downer will describe the life, luxury and intrigue of Ooku, the Women’s Palace at Edo Castle which was home to hundreds of women – mother, wife and concubine, but only one man, the shogun. Weaving her talk around the story of Princess Atsu, the Satsuma girl sent at the age of twenty to be the shogun’s bride, Downer will recount some of the scandalous events that took place in the Women’s Palace and the extraordinary women who resided there.
Fully bookedMore info27 September 2016
In recent decades Japan has changed from a strongly growing, economically successful country regarded as prime example of social equality and inclusion to a country with a stagnating economy, a shrinking population and a very high proportion of elderly people. In this book launch, David Chiavacci, Takehiro Kariya and Peter Matanle will provide a comprehensive overview of inequality in contemporary Japan.
More info30 June 2016
The title of Kimiko Barber’s new book ‘Cook Japanese At Home’ says it all. As a Japanese-born food writer and cookery teacher, Kimiko has been encouraging people to cook for many years. Although Japanese food has gained worldwide popularity, it is still considered somewhat ‘difficult’ to cook at home. In this talk, Kimiko aims to dispel this fear and to reveal the diversity of Japanese home cooking.
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