This lecture explores the emergence of the Indo-Pacific as a geopolitical concept within Indian anticolonial thought from the interwar period through the early 1940s, rather than treating the Indo-Pacific as a Cold War or post-Cold War invention. While the contemporary usages of the Indo-Pacific in South, South-East and East Asia are well-researched, its entangled and granular historical genealogy in Indian anticolonial political formulations have remained less explored beyond the obvious references to early twentieth-century Pan-Asianism and Indian entanglements in the Indian Ocean World. By following exchanges among the stakeholders and early International Relations scholars emerging from such epistemic networks centred around the domain of Pacific Affairs, this lecture reconstructs an integrated history of the Indo-Pacific as a site of geopolitical knowledge production in the first half of the twentieth century. Details and registration here

In recent decades, right-wing movements have gained renewed visibility across the globe, and East Asia is no exception to this global trend. Right-wing movements in Japan and South Korea are deeply embedded in disputes over the colonial past and postwar memory. In these debates, right-wing discourses of “historical truth” have become influential frameworks for interpreting and contesting the colonial past and collective memory within each national context. What is notable is that right-wing actors in these two countries have increasingly engaged in cross-border interactions around historical revisionism since the 2000s. This raises the question: how do right-wing discourses of “historical truth” circulate across Japan and South Korea, and through which networks, practices, and media are they produced and reinforced across national borders? Based on fieldwork and archival research, this talk will share preliminary findings and discuss the transnational circulation of revisionist narratives. Details and registration here

Die Jause geht weiter! In Frankreich ist das café philosophique eine Veranstaltung zum Philosophieren, an der jede Person teilnehmen kann. Auch in Japan gibt es bereits ähnliche Programme auf dem Land. The University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy (UTCP) und das Deutsche Institut für Japanstudien (DIJ) organisieren gemeinsam ein philosophisches Café auch in Tokyo, allerdings mit einer kleinen Besonderheit: Wir möchten deutschsprachigen Personen die Möglichkeit des Austauschs bieten und daher das Café auf Deutsch abhalten. Das Organisationsteam (Yukiko Kuwayama, UTCP und Sebastian Polak-Rottmann, DIJ) freut sich, Sie dieses Mal auf den Campus Komaba der Universität Tokyo einzuladen, um gemeinsam in entspannter Atmosphäre über ein Thema zu diskutieren. Fachliche Vorkenntnisse benötigen Sie nicht. Bei Interesse melden Sie sich bitte bis zum 3. Juli an. Weitere Informationen hier

Popular imaginations of Japanese society are deeply intertwined with work, often oscillating between stereotypes of the exhausted salary man and idealized concepts of optimization (kaizen) or life purpose (ikigai). While work has been a celebrated pillar of Japan’s postwar identity, it has also faced scrutiny for fostering inequality and precarity. Beyond the familiar tropes, our keynote speakers unpack the complexities of Japanese labor history and corporate culture. Chelsea S. Schieder will present her research on the 1971 Mitsui Miike coal mine lawsuit following Japan’s largest postwar industrial accident. Shifting the focus to the everyday intersection of corporate life and culture, Hiromichi Hasebe explores how Hitachi corporation shaped organizational identity through its in-house magazine. Together, these presentations provide a re-evaluation of how Japan’s labor landscape from postwar factories to today’s AI-powered workplaces, continuously negotiates the meaning of work. Details and registration here