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

The fragmentation of the public into separated echo chambers, accelerated by social media, algorithms, and AI swarms, has furthered the polarization of democracies, with a wave of right-wing populist parties worldwide. In the midst of rising hate speech, a new trend towards the rediscovery of analogue places of social exchange has emerged: small bookshops, self-published zines, and festivals of independent literature have been on the rise in Japan, significantly soaring since the corona pandemic. The project explores dokuritsu-shoten, a wave of newly founded independent bookstores since the late 2010s, deeply intertwined with self-published books and zines, under the concept of third places. The presentation introduces preliminary findings from fieldwork in independent bookstores and literature festivals in Japan, drawing on interviews with bookstore owners and self-publishers, as well as independent books and zines found in these spaces. Details and registration here

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

Tokyo continues to attract a disproportionate share of Japan’s university enrollments and corporate headquarters, outpacing comparable European mega-cities in terms of functional concentration. While the overall population has risen modestly over the past five years, but the city is aging; the proportion of residents over 65 is high and continues to increase. Large‑scale infrastructure projects proceed on schedule, and the public‑transport network routinely handles tens of millions of passenger trips daily with high punctuality. Air quality measurements place Tokyo among the cleanest major cities. Resilience strategies encompass the world’s largest underground flood control system and AI‑driven sea level projections that anticipate substantial future impacts. Exploring these themes, this talk demonstrates how hyper‑concentrated mega-cities can sustain functionality and adaptability through coordinated governance, technological innovation, and proactive risk mitigation. But will this be enough, when the next big disaster strikes? Details and registration here

Are human rights a shield to protect victims of human rights violations or are they a sword wielded by human rights lawyers to attack everyone disagreeing with their opinions? Do people in Japan care about human rights or are they just window-dressing for the international community? Language connected to human rights is essentially contested. This talk presents human rights narratives collected from various human rights actors in Japanese society. These narratives form the basis of human rights discourse in Japanese civil society, media, the legal landscape, academia, and politics. The study uses mixed methods to map the political discourse quantitatively and qualitatively to then trace back how discursive shifts occurred. An interdisciplinary approach helps understanding human rights in contemporary Japanese society within in a world which increasingly puts pressure on liberal norms. Details and registration here