今までのイベント

2 March 2021

10 years from the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami

On 11 March 2011 Japan experienced the Tohoku Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the country. The quake was followed by a massive 120-foot-high tsunami smashing into the coast of north-east Japan. The tsunami wiped out many coastal communities, dragging houses, cars, trees and people on its way. This natural disaster resulted in the greatest loss of life Japan has suffered from a single event since the end of World War II. In this webinar, British journalists Jon Snow and Richard Lloyd Parry spoke about their different experiences reporting the tragedy, describing the impact of the disaster as they witnessed it on the ground.

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26 February 2021

Kintsugi - The Poetic Mend

The Japanese repair technique of kintsugi restores beauty and function to broken objects, leaving visible lines that appear as solid gold. These golden seams speak of kintsugi’s innate metaphor of fortitude, individuality, and the strength to be found in overcoming loss and hardship. Kintsugi: The Poetic Mend tells the story of this remarkable art form through its technical and practical elements, its origins, and its connections to today’s world. With a Daiwa Foundation grant, Dr Kemske interviewed maki-e artists and ceramicists in Japan, and their stories express kintsugi’s deep-rooted place in Japanese culture, giving the reader an experience of kintsugi on a personal level.

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23 February 2021

Ainu Mosir - a movie starring Ainu people

The film Ainu Mosir, directed by Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Fukunaga, depicts an Ainu boy’s life story in modern society, and shows his ambivalence to his traditional Ainu heritage. The film gives a multifaceted picture of the Ainu community and culture, as well as the generational differences within it. As a Japanese filmmaker, Fukunaga looks for ways to tell his stories truthfully. The result is a fictional film starring Ainu non-actors playing. Fukunaga hopes that the film gives Ainu people a voice and helps to create a better understanding of them. In this talk chaired by Alastair Phillips, the film will be examined from various perspectives.

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19 February 2021

New COVID-19 Variants: The Race between Vaccines and the Virus

As vaccination campaigns began to be rolled out in the UK and other countries, new strains of the virus emerged. The number of coronavirus cases in the UK has dramatically increased since December, with many attributed to one of the new variants, while two other important variants have emerged in South Africa and Brazil. All these strains have been identified in Japan, where the infection rate is also increasing. There are growing concerns about whether existing vaccines are effective against the new strains. In this webinar, Dr Ono from Imperial College London explained the relationship between vaccines, new variants, and immunity.

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18 February 2021

Science communication from Fukushima to COVID

After the Fukushima nuclear accident, the Japanese government struggled to communicate to the public information about the situation and the likely radiation risks. By contrast, four days after the accident the UK Government’s CSA Sir John Beddington released a worst-case scenario of the accident and predictions. This enabled people in Japan to get reliable information. Following this experience, the Japanese government tried to develop a more robust framework for scientific advice, but were overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The journalist Shigeyuki Koide explained from a journalist’s perspective why the Japanese government in 2011 failed to communicate the science. Professor Cope discussed the British government’s approach of communicating promptly to the public.

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12 February 2021

シャーロック・ホームズで読み解く英国

名探偵といえば誰もがシャーロック・ホームズを思い浮かべますが、シャーロック・ホームズについてどれほどご存知でしょうか。シャーロック・ホームズが活躍した１９世紀末の英国へ想いを馳せ、シャーロック・ホームズを学問として研究してしまう「シャーロキアン」の観点から、推理小説として楽しむにとどまらず、英国をより深く知るきっかけとして読み解いていきます。さらに、シャーロック・ホームズと日本の知られざるつながりについてもご紹介いたします。

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28 January 2021

1945年以降の「日本の写真作品」

This talk will provide an introduction to Japanese photography. It traces developments chronologically from post-war Realism to the diversity of contemporary photography. Fritsch focusses on selected photographers whose work she has researched in depth for her recent publication, Ravens & Red Lipstick: Japanese Photography since 1945 (Thames & Hudson/Seigensha, 2018) and whom she knows personally. These include Kawada Kikuji, Hosoe Eikoh, Moriyama Daido, Ishiuchi Miyako, Yoneda Tomoko, and Sawada Tomoko, amongst others.

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26 January 2021

Pleasure in Profit

In the first comprehensive study of the birth of Japanese commercial publishing, Dr Laura Moretti investigates the world of popular literature. She marshals new data on the magnitude of the seventeenth-century publishing business and highlights the diversity and porosity of its publishing genres. Moretti explores how booksellers sparked interest among readers and demonstrates how they tantalized consumers. In this book launch, Dr Moretti presented some of the key arguments that she puts forward in ‘Pleasure in Profit’. She also introduced a number of primary sources and fleshed out the wealth of information packed in this monograph.

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20 January 2021

Beyond Kawaii: Studying Japanese Femininities at Cambridge

Kawaii. The love of all things cute has become the dominant image of Japanese girls and women. Real Japanese women are, however, more complex. Some celebrate their uterus, others experiment with fashion and cross-dressing or embrace their chubbiness, and many struggle with motherhood. Some may even return as vengeful ghosts. This third collection of studies by young scholars from the University of Cambridge looks beyond the kawaii image and explores the diversity and complexity of being a Japanese woman in the new millennium. It explores gender issues in contemporary Japanese society by focusing on women’s lives and their identities in the twenty-first century.

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10 December 2020

Kabuki: Matsumoto Kōshirō X on Tradition and Innovation

Kabuki is a traditional Japanese performance art known for its rich fusion of drama, dance, music, stylised gesture, and costumes. Although its rich history makes it tempting to consider it a solely traditional art form, kabuki is innovative and has consistently evolved to adjust with the times. In this webinar, Matsumoto Kōshirō X explained the relationship between tradition and innovation from the perspective of a kabuki actor, and shared his thoughts on how kabuki has responded to the pandemic and how it will evolve in the future.

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1 December 2020

The Shogun’s Silver Telescope

This book takes up the matter of the arrival of the English in Japan in 1613. It addresses why they sought access to Japan, and how they prepared themselves to enter the market. Screech argues that the English presence in Japan in this period was extremely important. His argument centres on the decision to send the spectacular present of a silver-gild telescope to the retired shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu. It was the first telescope to leave Europe and the first built to be a royal present. This book thus outlines a key but forgotten answer to the vexed question of why the missions were closed in Japan, after so many decades of successful evangelism.

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24 November 2020

The New Global Order after the US Election

The protracted presidential election process has put America in the limelight, with the world watching intently to see who would take the reins and lead this global superpower. In this webinar, Professor G. John Ikenberry discussed how the global order and power balance are likely to be impacted, especially in Asia, with reference to his new book ‘A World Safe for Democracy’ (Yale 2020). Then, Wataru Sawamura, Bureau Chief of The Asahi Shimbun in Washington, shared his thoughts on the impact of the US election on Japan-US relations and Japan’s global position.

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