Past I-House Academy Meetings
Leading intellectuals who represent the "Wisdom of the 21st Century" will be invited to give lectures every other month for I-House members.
Einstein and Picasso
Creativity in Art and Science―What are the Connections?
Due to the earthquake that occurred on March 11th, this event has been cancelled.
Speaker: Arthur I. Miller, Professor Emeritus, University College London
Moderator: Murakami Yoichiro, President, Toyo Eiwa University
Date: Tuesday, March 29, 2011, 7:00 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall
Admission: 1,000 yen (Students: 500 yen, IHJ Members: Free)
Language: English/Japanese (with simultaneous translation)
Almost simultaneously, in the first decade of the 20th century, Albert Einstein discovered relativity and Pablo Picasso cubism. How―and why? This fascinating story involves their often turbulent personal lives, the high drama of their struggles to achieve new ideas in the face of opposition from contemporaries, and the unlikely sources for their creative leaps, ignored by everyone else. To fully understand what happened involves coming to grips with wide-ranging questions such as: Are there similarities in creativity between artists and scientists? What do artists and scientists mean by 殿esthetics and 澱eauty? Can we unravel creativity at its highest level? These questions will be addressed in this lecture by Dr. Miller.
Dr. Arthur I. Miller is emeritus professor of history and the philosophy of science at University College London. Fascinated by the nature of creative thinking and, in particular, by creativity in art and science, Dr. Miller has examined the histories of the world痴 greatest scientists and artists in an interdisciplinary manner to explore how the human mind works at its most creative. He has lectured on his research at many institutes of higher learning, including L脱cole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and Harvard University. He is the author of Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty that Causes Havoc (Basic Books 2002), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and Empire of the Stars, which was shortlisted for the 2006 Aventis Prize for Science Books. His most recent book is Deciphering the Cosmic Number: The Strange Friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung (W.W. Norton & Company 2009). The paperback version, 137: Jung, Pauli and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession, was published in July 2010. For more on his work, please see his website: www.arthurimiller.com.
Specializing in the history and philosophy of science, Prof. Murakami Yoichiro completed PhD course of the University of Tokyo in 1968. After serving as director of the University of Tokyo Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, visiting professor at the Vienna University of Technology, professor in the Graduate School of International Christian University, and professor in the Graduate School of the Tokyo University of Science, he is now president of Toyo Eiwa University and professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo and at International Christian University. Major publications include: Bunmei no naka no kagaku [Science in Civilization] (Seidosha, 1994); Bunka toshite no kagaku/gijutsu [Science/Technology as Culture] (Iwanami Shoten, 2001), and Ningen ni totte kagaku to wa nani ka [What is Science in Human Terms?] (Shinchosha, 2010).
Is There Life After Democracy?
Due to the earthquake that occurred on March 11th, this event has been cancelled.
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.31, No.2, 2011.]
Lecturer: Arundhati Roy, Writer and Essayist
Moderator: Takenaka Chiharu, Professor, Rikkyo University
Date & Time: Sunday, March 13, 2011, 2:00-3:30 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall
Language: English/Japanese (with simultaneous interpretation)
Admission: 1,000yen (Students: 500yen, IHJ Members: Free)
While we池e still arguing about whether there痴 life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By “Democracy” I don稚 mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: Western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are. So, is there life after democracy?
After studying architecture at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, Ms. Roy started her professional career as a writer of screenplays and later published her first, semi-autobiographical novel, The God of Small Things (Flamingo, 1997), which won the Booker Prize and brought her to international prominence. A publicly engaged writer, Ms. Roy has written about issues ranging from India痴 nuclear test, big dams, neo-liberalism, the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and India痴 military occupation of Kashmir to, most recently, the civil war unfolding in Central India. For her work in freedom and justice, she received the Cultural Freedom Prize awarded by the Lannan Foundation in 2002, and in recognition of her social campaigns and advocacy of nonviolence, she was given the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004. Her major publications include The Algebra of Infinite Justice (Flamingo, 2002), An Ordinary Person痴 Guide to Empire (Consortium, 2004), The Shape of the Beast: Conversations with Arundhati Roy (New Delhi: Penguin, Viking, 2008), and Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy (New Delhi: Penguin, Hamish Hamilton, 2009). Broken Republic is forthcoming.
On the Future of Japan
[A summary text of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.31, No.1, 2011.]
Speaker: Ando Tadao, Architect/ Emeritus Professor, The University of Tokyo
Date: Thursday, February 10, 2011, 2:00-3:20 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall
Admission: 1,000 yen (Students: 500 yen, IHJ Members: Free)
Language: Japanese (without translation)
Born in Osaka. Settled on the profession of architecture without having formal training and education in the field. Established Tadao Ando Architects & Associates in 1969. His major architectural projects include Row House in Sumiyoshi, 1979 (Azuma House, Annual Prize of the Architectural Institute of Japan) and Church of the Light, Osaka, 1989. Among the many honors he has received are the Pritzker Architectural Prize in 1995, the Kyoto Prize in 2002, and Order of Culture in 2010. Served as a visiting professor at Harvard University, Yale University and other universities.
Culture: How to Translate It to “Soft Power”
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.31, No.1, 2011.]
Speaker: Kondo Seiichi, Commissioner for Cultural Affairs
Date: Tuesday, January 11, 2011, 7:00 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall
Admission: 1,000 yen (Students: 500 yen, IHJ Members: Free)
Language: English/Japanese (simultaneous translation provided)
Mr. Kondo served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2006-08) and as Ambassador to Denmark (2008-10), before being appointed Commissioner for Cultural Affairs on July 30, 2010. Mr. Kondo drew up Japan痴 new public diplomacy strategy when he was Director-General, Department of Public Diplomacy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has written numerous publications on cultural exchange and public diplomacy.
His lecture will be preceded by a short performance of traditional Japanese music.
The Future of Power
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.31, No.1, 2011.]
Speaker: Joseph S. Nye, Jr.,
University Distinguished Service Professor, Harvard University
Moderator: Akashi Yasushi, Chairman, International House of Japan
Commentator: Watanabe Yasushi, Professor, Keio University
Date: Friday, December 10, 2010, 10:30 am-12:00 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall
Admission: 1,000 yen (Students: 500 yen, IHJ Members: Free)
Language: English/Japanese (simultaneous translation provided)
Earned a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. After having served as the Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, from 1995 to 2004, he then took up his current position. Contributing greatly to the development of Interdependence theory in international relations, Dr. Nye coined the concept of 鉄oft Power vis-a-vis 滴ard Power and asserted the unchanging importance of the United States in contradiction to the talk of declining American power by pundits in the 1980s. After having long been involved in policy-oriented research and study, Dr. Nye became Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Clinton Administration and pushed forward the so-called 哲ye Initiative to redefine the US-Japan security arrangement, envisioning a new US strategy of security in the East Asia region for the post-Cold War era. His major publications include Power in the Global Information Age: From Realism to Globalization (Routledge, 2004), Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (Perseus Books Group, 2004) and The Powers to Lead (Oxford University Press, 2008).
ASEAN Community Building, Centrality, and Changing Regional Architecture
Speaker: Surin Pitsuwan / ASEAN Secretary-General
Moderator: Akashi Yasushi / Chairman, International House of Japan
Commentators: Kuroyanagi Yoneji / Professor, Daito Bunka University ; Fujiwara Kiichi / Professor, University of Tokyo
Date & Time: Friday, October 22, 2010, 10:30 am-12:00 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall
Admission: 1,000 yen (Students: 500 yen, IHJ Members: Free)
Language: English/Japanese (simultaneous translation provided)
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) enters the second decade of the 21th century facing challenges from within and without. Internally, all eyes are fixed on the upcoming election in Myanmar next month, the border spat between Thailand and Cambodia, and the ambitious plan to create a unified ASEAN community housing 550 million people. Meanwhile, the increasing influence of ASEAN has made it a new political and economic jigsaw piece in the re-alignment of the global power structure, a strategic wedge with China more aggressively asserting itself on one side of the Pacific and the United States on the other. Having embraced the challenge of steering the organization and expanding its role in the effort to build peace and prosperity in the region and perhaps the world, Dr Surin Pitsuwan, former Foreign Affairs Minister of Thailand and current Secretary General of ASEAN, will talk about ASEAN today.
Received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in the field of Political Science. Worked as a columnist for the Nation and the Bangkok Post 1975-92 and taught at the Faculty of Political Science at Thammasat University from 1978 to 1983. Dr. Surin Pitsuwan served as Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs (1992-95) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1997-2001). Upon leaving the foreign affairs portfolio in mid-2001, he was a member of the Commission on Human Security of the United Nations until 2003. He was nominated by the Royal Thai Government and endorsed by ASEAN leaders as ASEAN Secretary-General.
I-House Academy / I-House Ushiba Fellowship Public Lecture
Traditional Futures: New Indigenous Politics and the Question of Global History
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.30, No.2, 2010.]
Speaker: James Clifford, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz; Ushiba Fellow
Moderator: Ota Yoshinobu, Professor, University of Kyushu
Date & Time: Wednesday, June 23, 2010, 7:00 pm-8:30 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: 1,000yen (Students: 500yen, IHJ Members: Free)
Language: English/Japanese (with simultaneous interpretation)
James Clifford is a world-renowned cultural critic and "post-modern" anthropologist whose work has challenged conventional academic norms and methods, contributing to postcolonial critiques of Euro-centric epistemologies. He received his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, and has taught since 1978 in the interdisciplinary History of Consciousness doctoral program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has also served as a visiting professor of anthropology at University College London and Yale University. Throughout his professional career, Dr. Clifford has published books and essays that are widely translated and frequently cited in many areas of the arts and culture. They include Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Co-edited with George Marcus, University of California Press, 1986), The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and Art (Harvard University Press, 1988), and Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Harvard University Press, 1997).
Dr. Clifford is currently engaged in a comparative study of contemporary "indigenous" resurgence. His lecture explores the dialectic of trans-national forces and local cultural politics, reflecting on how the survival and transformation of Native peoples forces us to revise established ways of thinking about "global history." Where are we all going, together and separately, in the early 21st Century? The question imposes itself today with new urgency, and uncertainty.
Deng Xiaoping's Historic 1978 Visit to Japan
Implications for the Future of Sino-Japanese Relations
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.30, No.1, 2010.]
Speaker: Ezra F. Vogel, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, Emeritus, Harvard University
Moderator: Shin Kawashima, Associate Professor, University of Tokyo
Date & Time: Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 7:00 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: 1,500 yen （IHJ Members: Free, Students: 1,000 yen）
Language: English/Japanese (with simultaneous translation)
Contributing greatly to the development of China and Japanese studies in the postwar United States, Prof. Vogel has served as Director of Harvard’s East Asian Research Center, Chairman of the Council for East Asian Studies, and Director of Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at the Center for International Affairs. His publications include Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (1979), Canton Under Communism: Programs and Politics in a Provincial Capital, 1949-1968 (1980), and The Four Little Dragons: The Spread of Industrialization in East Asia (1991).
In this lecture, Professor Vogel will discuss Deng’s historic visit to Japan in 1978 and the Sino-Japanese relations since this visit.
The Japanese Government and the Aging Society
Speaker: John C. Campbell, Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan
Moderator: Michio Muramatsu, Professor, Gakushuin University
Date & Time: Wednesday, July 22, 2009, 7:00 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: 1,500 yen （IHJ Members: Free, Students: 1,000 yen）
Language: English/Japanese (with simultaneous translation)
Professor Campbell received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University and taught political science at the University of Michigan from 1973 until he retired. He works on Japanese politics in general, decision-making, and social policy. His books include Contemporary Japanese Budget Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), How Policies Change: The Japanese Government and the Aging Society (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), and The Art of Balance in Health Policy: Maintaining Japan’s Egalitarian, Low-Cost System (Co-author with Naoki Ikegami, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). These books and many of his other writings also were published in Japanese. Professor Campbell served in administrative posts at UM, including director of the Center for Japanese Studies, at the Social Science Research Council, and as Secretary-Treasurer of the Association for Asian Studies. Since moving to Tokyo in 2006, he was a visiting professor, at the University of Tokyo, the Institute of Social Science, and the Keio University Medical School. Currently he is a visiting scholar at the Institute of Gerontology at the University of Tokyo. His research still centers on Japanese policy toward the aging society, particularly long-term care, as well as broader welfare state concerns in Japan and beyond.
In his talk, Professor Campbell will discuss what has happened in old-age policy since 1990 (the cut-off point of his book), assess the performance of the Japanese government in comparative perspective, and consider the relationship of this policy area to Japanese politics in general. He will conclude by trying to put current catastrophic forecasts for Japan’s “aging society” into perspective.
Foreigners in Japan
A Case of Cultural Homogeneity versus Civil Society
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.29, No.2, 2009.]
Speaker: Harumi Befu, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University
Moderator: Koichi Iwabuchi, Professor, Waseda University
Date & Time: Wednesday, May 13, 2009, 7:00 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: 1,500 yen （IHJ Members: Free, Students: 1,000 yen）
Language: English/Japanese (with simultaneous translation)
Having received his Ph.D. from The University of Wisconsin, Dr. Befu joined the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University in 1965. Since then, he has played an important role in spearheading Japanese studies as an anthropologist in the United States and at the same time fostering as an educator a new generation of American scholars in area studies on Japan. In particular, he is a respected authority in the analysis of Japan’s cultural identity in the form of Nihonjinron or Nihonbunkaron from an anthropological perspective. His research interests include the social and cultural aspects of Japan’s globalization, the search for Japanese national identity, and the history of Japanese-American s (Nikkei). He has written numerous papers and books including Japan: An Anthropological Introduction (Chandler Publishing Company, 1971), Hegemony of Homogeneity: An Anthropological Analysis of Nihonjinron (Trans Pacific Press, 2001), and Globalizing Japan: Ethnography of the Japanese Presence in Asia, Europe, and America (Co-editor, Curzon, 2003).
In this lecture, Prof. Befu will consider the ideology of cultural homogeneity prevalent especially among power-holders against the backdrop of increasing application of the “civil society” concept at the grassroots level. His talk will examine this conflictual situation in the context of the undeniable presence of foreigners in Japan.
Toward Greater Mutual Influence
A Vision of Our Cultural Future Between Japan and the United States
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.29, No.1, 2009.]
Speaker: Richard J. Wood, President, Japan Society
Moderator: Yasushi Watanabe, Professor, Keio University
Date & Time: Tuesday, February 10, 4:00-5:30 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: 1,500 yen (I-House Members: Free, Students: 1,000 yen)
Language: English/Japanese (with simultaneous translation provided)
Co-sponsored by 
Supported by The America-Japan Society, Inc.
Photo: Ken Levinson
The making of a documentary film The Quiet Builders (Tentative) is currently under way in New York. Introducing the collaborative work and joint commitment of John D. Rockefeller 3rd and Shigeharu Matsumoto in establishing the International House, this upcoming film shows as an hidden motif what individuals of wisdom, insight and dedication could accomplish in the realm of cultural and foreign affairs, with a focus on the cultural dimension in international relations, especially, the improvement of postwar Japan-U.S. relations.
After the second World War, American soft power in the form of such ideas as “Democracy”, was instrumental to Japan’s postwar rehabilitation and development. Now, Japanese Cool, its own cultural soft power as coined by Douglas McGray, Journalist, during his residency in Japan as a Japan Society Media Fellow, is gradually and increasingly sweeping American society in the domain of the visual & performing arts, design , fashion, architecture, literature, and sport, thereby contributing to strengthening more stable Japan-U.S. bilateral ties. Under such an environment of increased interdependency and mutual influence between the two countries, what direction will Japan-US cultural relation take in the future under the leadership of Barack Obama, who will enter the oval office soon as the new President of the United States, with a slogan of bringing about real change ? What will be the new roles of cultural and educational organizations of private and non-profit sector in this challenging milieu? Drawing on his experience as Chairman of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, as President of Japan Society, and his long involvement with Japanese philosophy and with student and faculty exchange, in this lecture, Dr. Wood will talk on the cultural future between Japan and the United States.
Dr. Richard J. Wood is President of the Japan Society in New York, a private, nonprofit and nonpolitical organization devoted to American understanding on Japan and improving Japan-U.S. relations through implementation of cultural as well as educational programs.
Receiving his Ph. D. in philosophy from Yale University, Dr. Wood has spent time in Japan under various fellowships to do research on Japanese religion, ethics, philosophy and aesthetics. After serving as President of Earlham College from 1985 to1996, he became Dean of the Yale University Divinity School, one of America’s leading theological schools. As an internationally acclaimed scholar in Japanese studies, he has given lectures and authored numerous papers and writings, contributing to the advancement of Japanese studies abroad. Having worked as Chairman of the Japan–United States Friendship Commission and as founding chair of the U.S.–Japan Bridging Foundation, he is also engaged in a variety of cultural and educational activities furthering friendly and cooperative relations between Japan and the United States.
Japanese Foreign Policy: Balancing Off Asia, Europe and the United States
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.29, No.1, 2009.]
Speaker: T. J. Pempel, Director, Institute of East Asian Studies,
University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Susumu Yamakage, Professor, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, University of Tokyo
Date & Time: Friday, October 17, 7:00 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: 1,500 yen (Students: 1,000yen/ I-House Members: Free)
Language: English/Japanese (with simultaneous translation)
Japanese policymakers have in the postwar period rather consistently structured their nation’s foreign policies with an eye toward Washington’s preferences and changing priorities. America’s heightened focus on military relations during the Bush administration found a welcome partner in Prime Minister Koizumi who shifted a number of Japanese policies to strengthen bilateral military ties with the United States. Asia has also loomed large in official Japanese thinking, spurred by geographical proximity and the combination of security challenges and economic potential provided by Japan’s Asian neighbors. Negative bilateral relations with both China and Korea for the first five years of this century have, however, recently been replaced by a warmer climate through visits by top officials and a mutual embrace of Asian regionalism. Where does this leave ties between Japan and Europe? For most of the postwar period neither governments nor mass publics in either Japan or Europe have given much attention to the other. Yet, Japan-Europe linkages have been deepening of late as each side begins to realize the potential benefits of closer ties with one another, particularly on non-security issues such as global warming, bans on land mines, the International Criminal Court and other issues. In this lecture, Professor Pempel will address the ongoing tradeoffs Japan faces in balancing out these three often competing relationships.
T. J. Pempel
With a Ph. D. from Columbia University, Prof. T. J. Pempel is an internationally acclaimed political scientist on Asian studies. Prior to occupying his current position, he was at the University of Washington in Seattle and Director of the East Asia Program at Cornell University. The main focus of his research interest is on comparative politics, political economy, contemporary Japan, and Asian regionalism. As well as being engaged in the study of U.S. foreign policy and Asian regionalism, he serves on various committees of the American Political Science Association, the Association for Asian Studies and the Social Science Research Council to promote interdisciplinary policy-oriented research project. His major publications include Uncommon Democracies: The One-Party Dominant Regimes (Cornell University Press, 1990), Beyond Bilateralism: U.S.-Japan Relations in the New Asia-Pacific (Stanford University Press, 2003), and Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region (Cornell University Press, 2004).
The Historical Legacy of Takahashi Korekiyo (高橋是清): A Liberal Visionary in the Early 20th Century
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.28, No.2, 2008.]
Speaker: Richard Smethurst, Professor, University of Pittsburgh
Moderator: Masato Shizume, Professor, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University
Date & Time: Friday, June 20, 7:00 pm
Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: 1,500 yen (Students: 1,000 yen / I-House Members: Free)
Language: English / Japanese (simultaneous interpretation provided)
Playing a pivotal role as "Japan's Keynes" by implementing countercyclical fiscal and monetary policies to bring about economic recovery during the Great Depression between 1931 and 1936, Takahashi Korekiyo (1854－1936) is regarded as one of the most important financial statesmen in Japan between the Meiji Restoration and World War II. An advocate of international cooperation, the decentralization of governmental power, of limiting military expenditures, and of civilian control of the military and foreign policy, Takahashi was a liberal visionary and the last fortress against the rise of aggressive militarism. Facing strong resistance to his critique of excessive military spending from the Army and Navy, he was assassinated by young army officers in the coup d'etat attempt of February 26, 1936.
In the light of the current economic and socio-political situation in Japan, evident in widening gaps in income between rich and poor, lessened employment opportunities, increasing demand from both inside and outside Japan for it to play a greater role in international military and security affairs, and debates over how schools should teach about Japan's past, what can we learn from Takahashi's liberal vision and ideas? Based on his recent publication of a biography of Takahashi entitled from Foot Soldier to Finance Minister: Takahashi Korekiyo, Japan's Keynes, in this lecture Prof. Richard Smethurst will trace Takahashi's life and works, highlight the contemporary significance of his thought and actions, and draw on historical lessons in exploring Japan's future direction.
Dr. Richard Smethurst received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and is a well-known scholar of the modern history of Japan, especially Japanese economic history. He has written numerous papers and books including From Foot Soldier to Finance Minister: Takahashi Korekiyo, Japan's Keynes (Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), to be published in Japanese by Toyo Keizai Shinposha in 2008, Agricultural Development and Tenancy Disputes in Japan, 1870－1940 (Princeton University Press, 1986) and A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism: The Army and the Rural Community (University of California Press, 1974).
I-House Academy / I-House Ushiba Fellowship Public Lecture
The Spatial Logic of Economic Development in Contemporary China
Speaker: G. William Skinner, Professor, University of California, Davis; Ushiba Fellow
Moderator: Takeshi Hamashita, Professor, Ryukoku University
Date & Time: Thursday, May 22, 7:00 pm
Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: 1,500 yen (Students: 1,000 yen / I-House Members: Free)
Language: English / Japanese (simultaneous interpretation provided)
Prof. Skinner, a leading authority in Asian Studies in postwar America, argues that the prevailing conceptualization of China’s spatial structure—accepted, almost without dissent, in the vast literature on China’s uneven development—is inadequate and misleading. That model treats the level of development as a gradient from advanced coastal provinces to backward provinces in the western interior, reifying this gradient as three belts or zones: coastal, central and western. Using the Geographic Information System (GIS), Prof. Skinner has for the past decade researched and developed an alternative paradigm, viewing the fundamental error in the coast-to-interior developmental gradient to be the assumption that the arena for developmental processes is the country as a whole. In this lecture, Prof. Skinner proposes a new spatial logic of economic development in contemporary China, which could overturn the established theory and give us new clues to understanding a modern China with high economic growth and income disparity.
G. William Skinner
With the employment of an anthropological research method, Prof. Skinner has made an in-depth and groundbreaking study of Chinese society in Southeast Asia and of rural Chinese economic systems, thereby spearheading the advancement of Asian Studies in postwar America. Currently, he is engaged in interdisciplinary research on spatial analyses of regional systems in Asia. Before taking his current post, Prof. Skinner taught at Cornell University, Stanford University and other universities. His major publications include Chinese Society in Thailand: Analytical History (Cornell University Press, 1957)
Intellectuals Nowadays
Mr. Negri's visit to Japan has unfortunately been cancelled. Please refer to the following page for details of the cancellation of his trip to Japan (we are sorry the page is available only in Japanese). We sincerely apologize for any inconveniences this last-minute cancellation may cause you.
On the cancellation of Mr. Negri's visit to Japan (Japanese)
Lecturer: Antonio Negri, Philosopher
Date & Time: Saturday, March 22, 2008, 6:00 pm- 9:00 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
Language: Italian/Japanese consecutive interpretation provided (for lecture) French/Japanese consecutive interpretation provided (for Q & A session)
Admission: 1,500 yen (1,000 yen for students, free for I-House members)
Photo Copyright: David Balicki
Mr. Balicki's copyright is represented by Le Bureau des Copyrights Français
What kind of image does the word <Intellectual> evoke today? In the bi-polar world structure during the cold war era, eminent intellectuals explored the implications of their public role and responsibility in pursuit of embodying an alternative world. Standing at the threshold of the twenty-first century in a turbulent world facing complex and interdisciplinary issues after the collapse of the cold war system, how will public intellectuals interpret the contemporary world and what kind of questions will they raise as their main agenda? Focusing on how we should regard their existence in an age of "Empire" and "Multitude," Mr. Antonio Negri will talk on intellectuals nowadays.
Moderator: Kang Sangjung, Professor, University of Tokyo
Commentator: Yoshihiko Ichida, Professor, Kobe University
Date & Time: Saturday, March 22, 2008, 6:00 pm- 9:00 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
Language: Italian/Japanese consecutive interpretation provided (for lecture)
French/Japanese consecutive interpretation provided (for Q & A session)
Admission: 1,500 yen (1,000 yen for students, free for I-House members)
Reservation: Please make reservations by telephone, facsimile or e-mail as listed below.
Antonio Negri: Born in Padua, Italy, 1933. Starting off his academic career as a scholar of political philosophy centering on Marx, Mr.Negri shaped the theoretical foundation for a new social movement known as “Autonomia” supported by the socially disadvantaged. The movement jolted all parts of Italy. When it was in a stage of further development, however, he was accused of masterminding the kidnapping and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro by the militant organization “the Red Brigades” and plotting to overthrow the government. Shortly afterward, although no link was established between Negri and the Red Brigades, he was convicted for his political activities and critical discourse against the government. During his imprisonment awaiting trial, he announced his candidacy for and was elected to the Italian legislature. Owing to parliamentary privilege, he was permitted to leave prison, but this was abrogated a few months later. Before being arrested, he sought for political asylum in Paris. During his exile in Paris, he became acquainted with such French intellectuals as Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, was engaged in global intellectual movements and prolific political writings, and developed a new theory of human emancipation in a rapidly globalized world. Later, he voluntarily returned to Italy to serve his remaining sentences and was released from prison in 2003 after serving his full sentence of 17 years.
As an eminent scholar, he has held teaching positions at the University of Padua, the Ecole Normale Supérieure, the Universities de Paris Ⅶ,Ⅷ, and College International de Philosophy. In the widely acclaimed works of “Empire” and “Multitude” under his co-authorship with Michael Hart, Negri grasped the new political global order, which emerged with the acceleration of “Globalization,” as “Empire,” and reconfigured it as de-centralized network system of domination, which differs from a sovereignty of traditional “nation-states” presupposing physical territory and which accepts no boundaries or limits. In so doing, Negri conceptualized “Multitude” as the democratic forces and alternative paradigm to resist against a new imperial order and the power of “Empire.”
His major publications include Political Descartes: Reason, Ideology and the Bourgeois Project (New York: Verso, 2007), Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (co-authored with Michael Hardt, New York: Penguin Press, 2004), Time for Revolution (New York: Continuum, 2003), Empire (co-authored with Michael Hardt, Harvard University Press, 2000), The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics (University of Minnesota Press, 1991), Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse (New York: Autonomedia, 1991) and The Politics of Subversion: A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989).
Auschwitz and Hiroshima: What Can the Jews and the Japanese Do for World Peace?
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.27, No.2, 2007.]
Speaker: Professor Ben-Ami Shillony, Emeritus Professor of East
Asian History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Moderator: Susumu Shimazono, Professor, University of Tokyo
Date & Time: Thursday, October 4, 2007, 7:00 pm
Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
Admission Fee: Free for I-House members, 1,000 yen for Students,
and 1,500 yen for Non-members
Language: English/Japanese (with simultaneous translation)
If we look back at the issue of peace and security in the 20th century, Auschwitz and Hiroshima were the momentous events for the Jews and the Japanese respectively. Beyond their geographical scope, even at the dawn of the 21st century, Auschwitz and Hiroshima have symbolic implications for peace-making in the world. It is interesting, however, to note that Israel and Japan took totally different paths in pursuing peace after the Second World War. The Jews choose to be militarily strong for their national security, whereas the Japanese stand with a pacifist constitution renouncing war. Now, Japan domestically faces an intensifying debate over revising its ”Peace Constitution,” in particular article 9, in parallel with the rise of nationalism and the problematic Prime Minister’s visits to Yasukuni Shrine; and in the international arena it is being pressured to become “a normal” nation, making a military contribution to the maintenance of peace and security in the world. In comparing their paths up to now, Prof. Shillony will talk on whether these two different peoples with many similarities can learn from each other’s past and what they can do in contributing to world peace.
Dr. Shillony: Born in Poland in 1937 and an immigrant to Israel in 1948, Prof. Shillony is a noted scholar of East Asian and Japanese studies in the Middle East. After receiving his Master’s degree in history from Hebrew University, he spent 2 years studying the Japanese language at International Christian University in Tokyo, and then earned his Ph.D. in Japanese history at Princeton University under the supervision of Professor Marius B. Jansen. His writings on the Japanese monarchy and emperor system as well as on the cultural traits of the Jews and the
Japanese from a comparative point of view are widely recognized as groundbreaking studies. In 2000, the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star (Kun-nitō Zuihōshō) was bestowed on him for his longtime dedication to promoting Japanese studies abroad. His major publications
include Enigma of the Emperors: Sacred Subservience in Japanese History (Global Oriental, 2003), The Jews and the Japanese: The Successful Outsiders (Charles E. Tuttle, 1992), Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan (Oxford University Press, 1981), and Revolt in Japan: The Young
Officers and the February 26 Incident (Princeton University Press, 1973). These books have also appeared in Japanese translation.
Dr. Shimazono: Teaching at the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo, Prof. Shimazono specializes mainly in religious studies, ranging from comparative studies of new religious and spiritual movements to bio-ethics and the meaning of life and death for human beings. His publications in English include “From Salvation to Spirituality: Popular Religious Movements in Modern Japan” (Trans Pacific Press, 2004) and “Religion and Society in Modern Japan,” (ed. with Mark Mullins and Paul Swanson, Asian Humanities Press, 1993).
I-House Academy / I-House Ushiba Fellowship Public Lecture
Other Asias
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.28, No.1, 2008.]
Lecturer: Gayatri Chakravorty SpivakAvalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities, Director, the Center for Comparative Literature and Society, Columbia University; The First Fellow of the I-House Ushiba Fellowship
Moderator: Satoshi Ukai, Professor, Hitotsubashi University
Date & Time: Wed, July 18, 2007, 7:00 pm-8:30 pm
Venue: Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan
Admission: I-House Members: Free/ Non-members: 1,500 yen/ Students: 1,000 yen
Language: English/Japanese simultaneous interpretation provided
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Born in Calcutta, India, in 1942. Received a B.A. in English (Honors) from Presidency College, Calcutta, and a Ph.D. from Cornell University for her dissertation on W. B. Yeats, under the supervision of Paul de Man, cultural critic. Critically intervening the politics working behind the production of knowledge and the system of representation as discourse in relation to power arrangements, Professor Spivak is regarded as a leading cultural critic and a public intellectual of our times.
Widely cited in a range of disciplines, her major writings and publications include Of Grammatology (translation, with critical introduction, of Derrida's text) (1976), In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (1987), Selected Subaltern Studies (edited with Ranajit Guha) (1988), The Post-Colonial Critic (1990), The Spivak Reader (1995), A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Towards a History of the Vanishing Present (1999), Death of a Discipline (2005),and Other Asias (2007).
In this lecture, she will address re-thinking the concept of “Asia” as an idea that reflects Europe’s “eastward” trajectory and encompasses geopolitical/ cultural complexity, based on her upcoming publication of Other Asias.
Satoshi Ukai Specializes in French Literature and Philosophy; currently teaching at the Graduate School of Language and Society, Hitotsubashi University. His major publications include Teiko e no shotai［An Invitation to Resistance; in Japanese］(Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 1997), Politics of Amity (Jacques Derrida, Co-translator, Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 2003).
Japan and China: Toward Asia- Pacific Cooperation
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.27, No.1, 2007.]
Stable and cooperative relations of Japan and China, the two giants in East Asia, are increasingly seen as a central element in regional affairs as well as important to global arrangements. This lecture will examine the role of Japan and China in the Asia-Pacific region and how Japan-China relations might contribute to regional political, economic and social development. Prof. Peter Drysdale, the pre-eminent scholar on regional cooperation and integration in East Asia and the Pacific, will explore the future of Japan-China relations as the two countries search for common ground and shared interests in a multilateral framework, beyond bilateralism.
Lecturer: Peter Drysdale, Professor, Emeritus Professor of Economics and Visiting Fellow in Public Policy in the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University; and former Executive Director of the Australia-Japan Research Centre.
Moderator & Commentator: Eiichi Katahara, Chief,
First Research Office, Research Department, National Institute for Defense
Studies (NIDS).
Date & Time: Tuesday, May 22, 2007, 7:00 pm
Venue:Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
Admission Fee: Free for I-House members, 1,000 yen for
Students, and 1,500 yen for Non-members
Language:: English/Japanese (with simultaneous translation)
Dr Drysdale received his Ph.D. from the Australian National University and is a well-known scholar of East Asian and Japanese economic policies. His main work has focused on the development of Asia Pacific economic cooperation and was instrumental in the establishment of APEC. Until 2002 he served as Executive Director of the Australia-Japan Research Centre, greatly contributing to the promotion of friendly and cooperative relations between Australia and Japan. He has written numerous papers and books including International Economic Pluralism: Economic Policy in East Asia and the Pacific (Columbia and Allen and Unwin,1988) for which he was the first recipient of the Asia Pacific Awards in 1989, co-organized by the Asian Affairs Research Council and the Mainichi Newspapers. He is a Member of the Order of Australia, was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, with Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, received the Weary Dunlop Award for contributions to Australia’s relations with Asia and was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal for his work on East Asian and Pacific economic relations.
Dr. Katahara received his Ph.D. in International Studies from Griffith University. His research interests are mainly in international relations in Asia and the Pacific. His publications include “Japan: From Containment to Normalization,” in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.) Coercion and Governance (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001) and a chapter on the USA in East Asian Strategic Review 2007 (Tokyo: NIDS, 2007).
Traditional Futures: New Indigenous Politics and the Problem of Global History
The below lecture by Prof. James Clifford, scheduled on Wednesday, December 13, was cancelled due to sudden illness in the lecturer's family (Prof. Clifford's trip to Japan itself has been cancelled). We sincerely apologize for any inconveniences this last-minute cancellation may cause you.
Speaker: James Clifford, Professor, University of California,
Santa Cruz
Moderator: Yoshinobu Ota, Professor, University of Kyushu
Date & Time: Wednesday, December 13th, 2006, 7:00 - 8:30
p.m
Venue: Lecture Hall, International House of Japan
Admission Fee: Free for I-House Members, Non-members: 1,500 yen,
Students: 1,000 yen (please show your student ID card at reception)
Language: English/Japanese (with simultaneous translation)
Dr. Clifford is a professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, a program known as a center for critical interdisciplinary analysis in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The founding director of the university's Center for Cultural Studies, Dr. Clifford is a world-renowned "post-modern" anthropologist who has challenged conventional disciplinary norms and methods, contributing to postcolonial critiques of Euro-centric epistemologies. He is currently engaged in comparative studies of contemporary "indigenous" societies and cultures. In his lecture he will discuss the dialectic of global forces and local agencies, and the challenge these processes offer to unified visions of history.
Trained and beginning his scholastic career as a historian, James Clifford received his M.A. from Stanford University and obtained his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. Prior to his current position, he has served as a visiting professor of anthropology at University College of London and Yale University. Throughout his professional career, he has published many books and writings which have been translated into many different languages and are very frequently cited in various areas of arts and cultures. They include On the Edges of Anthropology (Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003), Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Harvard University Press, 1997), The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and Art (Harvard University Press, 1988), and Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Co-edited with George Marcus, University of California Press, 1986. New Edition: Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1990).
Yoshinobu Ota has an M.A. from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Teaching at the Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies, University of Kyushu, he specializes in anthropology, cultural studies and postcolonial criticism. His major publications include Jinruigaku to datsu shokuminchika [Anthropology and decolonization; in Japanese] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2003), and The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and Art, (Co-translator, Kyoto: Jimbun Shoin, 2003).
* In cooperation with Jimbun Shoin, Japanese translations of Dr. Clifford's books published by Jimbun Shoin can be purchased at a special discount at his lecture, commemorating his first visit to Japan
The Koizumi Legacy and the Future of Japan: A View from Europe
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.27, No.1, 2007.]
Arthur Stockwin
Emeritus Director, Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies; Emeritus Fellow,
St. Antony's College, University of Oxford
Date & Time: November 16 (Thu.), 2006, 1:30-3:00 pm
Venue: New Hall
Professor Arthur Stockwin is a renowned professor of modern Japanese studies, who clearly interprets the dynamics of Japanese politics and makes them comprehensible to the non-Japanese. After receiving his bachelor's degree from the University of Oxford, Professor Stockwin taught at the Department of Political Science of the Australian National University, where he was awarded his Ph.D. From 1982 until his retirement in 2003, he was a Fellow of St. Antony's College and became the Director of the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford. He has published many books, including The Japanese Socialist Party and Neutralism (1968), Dynamic and Immobilist Politics in Japan (1988), and Governing Japan-Divided Politics in a Major Economy (3rd ed., 1999). In this lecture, Professor Stockwin will evaluate Japanese politics from an European perspective and discuss foreign policy during the past decade, comparing Tony Blair and Junichiro Koizumi as political leaders. He will also provide insights into the direction to which Japan might be heading with the change of administration. Dr. Koichi Nakano, associate professor of Sophia University and an up-and-coming political scientist, who has just published Yasukuni to mukiau (Facing up to Yasukuni, Mekong Publishing, 2006), will preside and comment.
Commemorating The 50th Anniversary of the International
House of Japan & The First I-House Academy
Japan's Gateway to the World: What the I-House Can Do
[An edited version of this lecture is available in the IHJ Bulletin, Vol.26, No.2, 2007.]
Sadako Ogata
President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
Former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Date&Time: July 7 (Fri.), 2006, 11:00 -12:00 a.m.
Venue: New Hall
Mrs. Ogata served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Independent Expert of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on the Human Rights Situation in Myanmar, Representative of Japan on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations, where she previously served as Minister. She also served as Special Representative of Prime Minister of Japan on Afghanistan Assistance. Her wide-ranging activities, which she has elaborated upon in her most recent book, Sadako Ogata--The Turbulent Decade Confronting the Refugee Crisis of the 1990s (Norton, 2005), have been highly acclaimed not only within Japan but throughout the world. This lecture will be in Japanese with Japanese-English simultaneous translation.
