6 June 2023
On 6 June 2023, Gregory Doran, Director Emeritus of the Royal Shakespeare Company, spoke on “My Shakespeare: A Director’s Journey through the First Folio” at the residence of Britain’s Ambassador to Japan, Julia Longbottom CMG. This was the fifth lecture in the ongoing Daiwa Ichiban Lecture Series in collaboration with the British Embassy in Tokyo.
1 June 2023
The semiconductor industry is at the centre of the geopolitical dispute between the US and China, given its importance to the development of future technologies. The production of advanced semiconductors is concentrated in Asia, with Taiwan producing around 90% of the world’s most advanced chips. Tensions in this area have the potential to affect the global supply chain, affecting countries around the world. In this webinar, the panellists discussed the current status of the global competition over microchips, the challenges we face, and the implications for the global economy and future relations between countries.
25 May 2023
Priorities in international development are evolving rapidly with humanitarian issues, climate change and security issues inter alia becoming much more important. What is the view from Japan and the UK on these priorities? Also, the UK is ever more budget constrained with an arguably receding profile in international development, while Japan is increasingly proactive, and expected to spend more on ODA. In practical terms, how will these evolving priorities, and changes in expenditure and proactivity, affect how the UK and Japan deliver Official Development Assistance (ODA)? Are there opportunities for coordinating and collaborating in the area of ODA? In this seminar Dr Carl Aaron and Professor Kuniaki Amatsu analysed these issues from a Japanese, UK and international perspective.
23 May 2023
With the Paris Olympics 2024 approaching, around 45,000 volunteers are expected to be hired to support the organisation of the games. The role of volunteers is not only critical to the success of the Games, but also has a great social impact in strengthening and promoting volunteering infrastructure. In this event, moderated by Noel Thatcher MBE, Charles Nishikawa spoke about the role of volunteers in the Olympics. Mr Nishikawa has over 10 years of experience participating as a volunteer in past Olympic Games. He shared his perspectives on the differences between the UK and Japan regarding the collective experience, motivation, and social impact of volunteers.
16 May 2023
More than a year into Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, there is no clear sign yet of the end of the conflict. The war has led to a series of far-reaching consequences, including escalating nuclear threats, increasing tensions between the US and China, and a rethink of the security strategy for the Indo-Pacific region. In this webinar, Dr Michito Tsuruoka analysed the war in Ukraine from a Japanese perspective. He explored what the war means for Japan, the Japanese government’s response, its commitment to the rules-based international order with Japan holding the G7 Presidency this year, and the potential impact on Japan’s relations with the US and Europe.
10 May 2023
Johnny Kitagawa’s legendary male-only talent agency trained young boys to become superstars. But for over 50 years, Japan has kept Kitagawa’s dark secret – a long history of allegations of sexual abuse, made by boys in his agency. Even after the music mogul’s death in 2019, the Japanese media remained largely silent. Why? Journalist Mobeen Azhar explores the suffocating reality of being a J-pop idol and the influence that Kitagawa had on the media, and exposes the brutal consequences of turning a blind eye.
26 April 2023
David F. Martin discussed the work and international achievements of Issei photographers active in Seattle, Washington, in the early 20th century. He will focus primarily on Soichi Sunami, whose main interest was dance photography, and became the chief photographer for the Museum of Modern Art (New York). The Seattle Camera Club was founded in 1924 and held their first exhibition the following year. The key members were Hiromu Kira, Dr. Kyo Koike, Frank Asakichi Kunishige, and Yukio Morinaga. With the exception of Sunami, the Seattle Issei photographers were interned at the Minidoka relocation centre (concentration camp) which collectively ended their artistic careers.
3 April 2023
Emigration by Japanese citizens has increased considerably in recent decades. The number of Japanese nationals living overseas exceeded 1.3 million in 2015, and the number of those holding permanent residency in other countries hit a record high of 557,034 in 2022, despite COVID-related mobility restrictions. In this seminar, Dr Nana Oishi discussed the multi-dimensional factors that drive Japanese young people and mid-career professionals to move overseas. Based on quantitative surveys and in-depth interview data, she elucidated the complexity of the contemporary Japanese diaspora. She also advocates for the establishment of policies to facilitate ‘brain circulation’ and ‘human resources circulation’ more broadly.
22 March 2023
For this special event, we screened the compelling short documentary about award-winning blind Japanese viola player Takashi Kikuchi, as he overcomes his fear of movement through dance and imagination. This special screening was accompanied by a solo performance on viola by Takashi and the opportunity to ask Takashi and film director Cécile any questions in the Q&A chaired by Jason James, Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. Takashi was commissioned by the Baluji Music Foundation, and is part of a triptych of films about blind musicians in the Inner Vision Orchestra.
21 March 2023
Handbook of the Ainu Language is the first book in English to describe the Ainu language fully and systematically. It aims to preserve invaluable knowledge about Ainu, a language-isolate previously spoken in Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and Kurils, which is now on the verge of extinction. Ainu was not a written language, but despite the existence of a huge documented stock of oral literature, it is significantly under-described in terms of grammar. It is the only non-Japonic language of Japan and is typologically different not only from Japanese but also from other Northeast Asian languages. In this book launch, the author of the book explained the Ainu Language and its main features.
16 March 2023
Film has always been a key technology for producing and disseminating attachments to ‘the social.’ Making Audiences explores the century-old relationships between Japanese media and social subjects, analyzing the connections between cinema audiences and five significant discursive terms: minshu (the people), kokumin (the national populace), toa minzoku (the East Asian race), taishu (the masses), and shimin (citizens). Fujiki narrates the history of Japan’s transmedia ecology, illuminating cinema’s enmeshment with other forms of media, from vaudeville to the internet, so that cinema audiences emerge as simultaneously shaped by and shaping social history.
9 March 2023
This event provided the opportunity to have a first look at the work of AKI INOMATA and hear her discuss with Dr Lena Fritsch the ideas and inspiration behind her work. The show will centre around one of INOMATA’s most recent projects, Memory of Currency (2018-2021) and introduce her practice, which for many years has involved collaboration with non-human creatures such as hermit crabs, bagworms, octopuses and ammonites. Memory of Currency is a project in which INOMATA collaborated with pearl oysters to create currency ‘fossils’. INOMATA implanted artificial nuclei into the tissues of the pearl oysters, with the shape of each nucleus modelled on the portrait of a figure depicted on one of today’s major currencies.
