Events by year: 2010

14 December 2010

International Architecture in Interwar Japan: Constructing "Kokusai Kenchiku"

After World War I, architects around the world aspired to transcend national boundaries that had been devastated by conflicts. The result was a flurry of artistic creativity. In Japan, young architects strove to create an “international architecture,” or “kokusai kenchiku”, an expression of increasing international travel and communication, growth of the mass media, and technological

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17 November 2010

Public Diplomacy and National Identity in the UK and Japan

The final seminar in the 2010 seminar series, ‘States in Change: National Identity in the UK and Japan’, explored the ways in which aspects of foreign cultures and national interests may be communicated and projected abroad. Concepts such as ‘soft power’ have contributed to changing definitions of public diplomacy, a term which was first used in US diplomatic circles in the 1960s.

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4 November 2010

Japan and the Commonwealth of Nations

This seminar marked the publication of a special issue of ‘The Round Table’, the Commonwealth’s ‘Journal of International’ Affairs. Edited by Dr Kweku Ampiah, it charts Japan’s relations with Australia, India, the United Kingdom, sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia. Starting with an account of post-war Anglo-Japanese relations, the five ‘Round Table’ articles in this

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28 October 2010

Project Japan: Architecture and Art Media, Edo to Now

Graham Cooper, the author of ‘Project Japan: Architecture and Art Media, Edo to Now’ (Images Publishing, 2009), considered contemporary Japanese architecture through its relationship to art. In the book, he explores Japan’s situation, which has allowed diverse forms of architecture to co-exist to an extent unparalleled in the rest of the world.

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22 September 2010

Immigrants, Minorities and the Multiculturalism Debate

This sixth seminar in the 2010 series, ‘States in Change: National Identity in the UK and Japan’, provided two very different perspectives on the subject of ‘Immigrants, Minorities and the Multiculturalism Debate’. Multicultural Britain has a long history of immigration and integration of foreign nationals into local communities while Japan’s traditionally homogeneous society, for historic and economic reasons, has followed another pattern.

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