The project Serial Solitudes: Audiovisual Cultures of Loneliness and Belonging in Contemporary Japan starts from the assumption that loneliness is not only an individual psychological experience, but also a socially and culturally shaped phenomenon articulated through different forms of knowledge. It therefore combines two forms of discourse analysis: scholarly debates on loneliness and audiovisual representations in films and television series. This presentation introduces the project at an early stage to discuss its methodological design. A key challenge is gaining systematic access to Japanese vocabulary and literature on loneliness without reducing the field to familiar concepts such as hikikomori or kodokushi. To address this, a source-based text-mining workflow supported by language models is being developed around sixty Japanese books, supplemented by Japanese translations of influential Western works. The presentation will outline the workflow, show preliminary examples, and invite discussion of its possibilities and limitations. Details and registration here

This two-day symposium explores the critical transition from the 1930s to the 1960s, a period marked by colonization, war, and postwar reconstruction in East Asia. Focusing on Japan, Korea and Taiwan, the event highlights the intertwined development of medicine, science, and technology across imperial legacies, Cold War geopolitics, and rapid modernization. Bringing together 14 historians of science, technology, and medicine, the conference seeks to uncover how shared histories and divergent paths shaped state-building, institutional reform, and knowledge production in these nations. Through comparative and transnational perspectives, the symposium invites new insights into the collaborative and contested processes that defined, and still define, the region’s future. The symposium takes place on September 17 and 18 online and on-site at the DIJ. It is organized by DIJ’s Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus, Bernhard Leitner (Medical University of Vienna), and Nicolas Schillinger (University of Duisburg-Essen). Details and registration here

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

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