This talk in the DIJ Environmental Humanities in East Asia lecture series considers the role of non-humans in the intellectual history of modern Japan through the case study of the Buddhist naturalist-polymath Minakata Kumagusu. Building on Kumagusu’s fascination over the microbe slime mold, Eiko Honda delineates the ways in which a parallel paradigm of interdisciplinary knowledge production emerges when the historian places microbes as the basis for the historical actor’s truths (‘queer nature’). The paper reveals a novel account of civilization theory and evolutionism that eventually formulated what she calls the ‘microbial paradigm’ that existed in history, but not in historiography. The talk reflects on what’s at stake when one does or does not decentre the focal point of knowledge production in history, and what kind of implications it may have on present-day research and teaching in area studies. Details and registration here

Compared to other liberal democracies, Japan’s political system has a few rare characteristics, including the dominance of a single political party and the absence of an electorally relevant green party. But what about populism? Are there populist parties or populist politicians? The few studies that deal with this question have identified Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party), Tomin Fāsuto (Citizens of Tokyo First), Koizumi Jun’ichirō, Hashimoto Tōru, Koike Yuriko, and Yamamoto Tarō (Reiwa Shinsengumi) as the usual suspects. This presentation will introduce the Japan track of a larger project presently underway at the University of Duisburg-Essen entitled “Populism in East Asian Democracies”. DIJ alumnus Axel Klein will address the questions above and explain his view on why there may be smoke without a fire when it comes to populism in Japan. Details and registration here

The future of work has emerged as a prominent topic for research and policy debate. In this session of the DIJ Method Talk series, Lulu Shi and Nobuko Nagase will discuss and present results from their Delphi survey to predict how technology may transform unpaid domestic work. On average, 65 AI experts from the UK and Japan predicted that 39 percent of the time spent on 17 housework and care work tasks will be automatable within ten years. The survey provides the first quantitative estimates concerning the future of unpaid work and demonstrates how such predictions are socially contingent, with implications to forecasting methodology. It also investigates how willingness to use smart technologies varies across gender, household income, time pressure, type of domestic work, and its price. Details and registration here