Japan is enthusiastic about developing and applying innovative technology in the context of health- and elderly care. Research and development in care robotics, sensor technology (mimamori sensā), or ICT applications are widely promoted by the government. Despite these manifold efforts and activities, many devices fall short of meeting the needs expressed by users. Therefore, this DIJ Forum raises the question, what is necessary to fulfil user’s needs in healthcare? What needs to be done to improve user acceptance and usability of technology regarding innovation in health- and elderly care? Our two speakers are best suited to discuss these questions from a cross-disciplinary perspective.

Speakers:
Sarah Cosentino, Waseda University
Nobu Ishiguro, Osaka University

Institutions are the foundations of our society. They help to coordinate individual actions and they are also needed to integrate various social, economic and political subsystems. But institutions cannot not be fully understood by their functional contribution alone. There is also an important normative part. It is too often forgotten, that institutions have normative foundations. In the face of current challenges like the digital transformation, the avance of AI, climate change and new geopolitical power relations, the normative qualities of our social institutions are being challenged with far reaching consequences for social cohesion.

Professor Udo Di Fabio, former judge of the German Federal Constitutional Court, has recently published two books on the foundations of modern society, combining historical, legal and sociological perspectives. He will present his main arguments in a keynote adress. His ideas will by commented on by Japanese and German scholars before the general discussion is opened to the floor.

Even though the first publications of Natsume Sōseki’s (1867–1916) works were illustrated and had visual elements, the research on Sōseki focuses mostly just on the text. Nevertheless, Sōseki’s entire oeuvre shows from the beginning to the end a deep but shifting image-text relation that has to be introduced and placed into the historical context, taking the artists (Natori Shunsen, Noda Kyūho, Asai Chū, Hashiguchi Goyō, Nakamura Fusetsu, and Tsuda Seifū), publication type (newspaper, book, pocketbook) and genre into consideration. This approach can thereby identify a network of artists and intellectuals, as well as places and visual ideas.

My presentation aims to give an overview of the material and the illustrations, while also analyzing particular image and text examples, thereby giving Sōseki also a visual standing in the discourse about Modernity and the Fin de Siècle.

Speaker:
Kevin Schumacher, University of Munich / DIJ

The notion «mobility regimes» is helpful in order to study the differential regulations of mobilities. It allows us answering the question of unequal power relations that structure the different modes of mobilities, some being encouraged and others forbidden, regulated, criminalised. It inserts itself in the domain of « legal geography » on the one hand, and, on the other, in the « spatial turn » of legal studies. From a contemporary geographical perspective, the geographicity of law is at stake. My lecture will evolve around three elements. First, I will present legal geography as a missing link in theoretical geography. Then, the concept of mobility regime is developed as a regulation that articulates multiple scales and domains. Finally, the example of the 2018 Berlin mobility law is employed to show how law operates a «mobilities turn». The detailed analysis is based on the hypothesis of a radical change in the politics of mobilities allowing for new modes of inhabiting the city.
This seminar is meant to bring a perspective on tourism, mobility and migration policies at a global level, and it will thus try to draw lessons for Japan, a country that is bound to receive more foreign visitors and foreign workers in the near future.

Speaker:
Mathis Stock, University of Lausanne

The rise of populist politicians has significantly influenced political communication and public discourse around the world. In the light of the ongoing mediatization of politics, populist politicians have been found to manage new media as alternative platforms for political communication particularly effectively.

The study combines quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the reception of right-wing populist communication in the Japanese blog scene using the digital analysis tool TopicExplorer. Besides introducing this tool, the presentation will show how digital methods such as topic modeling can be used to determine relevant discourses and narratives in a Japanese blog corpus regarding the topic of migration.

Speaker:
Katharina Dalko, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

2019年はノーベル文学賞受賞作家、川端康成（1899-1972）の生誕120年に当たります。

国際文化会館、ドイツ日本研究所、日仏会館の各図書室では、川端康成の著作の翻訳書や研究書を展示します。この機会に、英語版、ドイツ語版、フランス語版の資料をぜひご覧ください。