Events category: Seminar

23 November 2026

AI Translation between Sign and Spoken Language

AI now translates between many spoken languages, but sign languages have been largely left behind. In this talk, Professor Richard Bowden traces how AI has learnt to recognise, translate and produce sign language from video. He will show how this work is reaching the real world through Signapse, a University of Surrey spin-out whose AI signers are already used in settings such as public transport. The talk will discuss UMCS, a new five-year UK–Japan research project funded by EPSRC and the Japan Science and Technology Agency, which focuses on natural conversations in British Sign Language and Japanese Sign Language.

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17 September 2026

Rare Earths: China’s Dominance and Japan’s Response

China holds a virtual monopoly over the global rare earths market, accounting for nearly 70% of global rare earths output in 2025 and processing almost 90% of them. In this seminar, Takahiro Kamisuna explored the history of China’s weaponisation of their dominance vis-à-vis Japan, Japan’s efforts to secure rare earths, including the recent extraction of rare-earth-rich mud from Minami-Torishima Island, and how it is working with other countries to create alternative rare earths supply chains. He also discussed potential future developments in the area.

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11 November 2026

Japan's Intelligence Reforms

Japan, long known as a ‘spy paradise’, is reconstructing its intelligence capabilities. In a narrow sense, this can be understood as the continuation of a gradual trend of Japan ridding itself of restrictions that limited the state’s role in national security over the post-war era. In a deeper sense, its implications have to do with the measure of the nation’s political health and the expression of its collective subconscious. In this seminar, Dr Philip Shetler-Jones will explain proposed legal and institutional changes, and what this says about the direction of Japanese society, its threat perceptions and the demands the current international environment makes on Japan.

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9 September 2026

US–Japan Relations and the Asia-Pacific

For more than seven decades since 1952, the relationship between the United States and Japan has been one of the world’s strongest alliances. In recent years, the alliance has entered a dynamic new phase. In October 2025, the two countries agreed to take further steps toward realising a new ‘Golden Age’ for the US-Japan alliance, reaffirming their shared commitment to addressing evolving regional and global security challenges. In this seminar, moderated by Dr Bill Hayton, Professor Ken Jimbo examined the future trajectory of the US-Japan relationship and its implications for security in the Asia-Pacific region. The discussion also explored how the alliance is likely to evolve and how it will deal with future conflicts.

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6 May 2026

Shrines, Kami, and the Future: Shinto in the Digital Age

This event explores how Shinto – centred on kami (deities or spirits) and shrines – continues to shape everyday life and imagination in contemporary Japan. Professor Kikuko Hirafuji will introduce the role of shrines as living spaces of practice and community, while also addressing the challenges they face in the digital age and in a rapidly ageing and shrinking society. Particular attention will be given to how forms of belief associated with animism are being reinterpreted and transformed in response to new social and technological conditions, including emerging practices such as rituals for robots.

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8 April 2026

Storytelling in the Age of AI

In this talk moderated by Mattias Frey, the filmmaker and researcher Hikaru Kinouchi explored the theme “Storytelling in the Age of AI: What Changes, What Doesn’t.” Drawing on his multidisciplinary experience as a film producer and his academic background in neuroscience and the social sciences, Hikaru discussed the current state of AI in the film industry, how it is reshaping the filmmaking process, and how it is redefining the role of the creator. He also examined the relationship between storytelling and investment, why stories matter and how their value is assessed, and how AI may reshape the way stories are created and evaluated in the future.

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6 March 2026

Japan’s Lost Decades: A Call for Fundamental Statecraft Reform

The world is gripped by geopolitical crisis, with wars intensifying and tensions in East Asia running high. For Japan, still constrained by its ‘Lost 30 Years’, the central question is how to secure national interests and achieve true renewal. The Committee to Examine Japan’s Lost 30 Years has formulated comprehensive proposals for the fundamental reform of national governance, which were presented at this lecture. The Committee contends that ‘the lost 30 years were in fact ‘the 30 years we lost’, the result of political and bureaucratic inertia. At the heart of the problem lies the absence of statecraft — the strategic, long-term management of the state.

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10 September 2025

Refugee Rescues and Humanitarian Acts during WWII

In this seminar, Professor Inaba of Meijo University talked about the Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara (1900–1986), focusing on his humanitarian efforts to save Jewish refugees by issuing them transit visas to Japan during World War II, despite orders from his government not to do so. In the summer of 1940, Sugihara issued a large number of so-called ‘Visas for Life’ for Jewish refugees, most of whom had fled Poland after its occupation by the Third Reich and the USSR. In the end, with the support of several diplomats from other countries, he rescued approximately 6,000 people from the Holocaust.

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23 June 2025

The Future of Housework: How Robots are Reshaping Family Life

As domestic technologies evolve, their impact reaches far beyond efficiency—shaping how we live, interact, and care within the household. In this joint seminar, Dr Lulu P. Shi, departmental lecturer at the Department of Education of the University of Oxford and a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute and Sociology Department Oxford, and Dr Yumiko Oda, Professor of Marketing at the Faculty of Commerce, Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, explored the social implications of smart domestic technologies from complementary perspectives.

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12 May 2025

Radiation exposure and long-term health effects: Japanese atomic bomb survivors and British veterans

In August 1945, one month after the first nuclear weapons test, the US detonated atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing terrible human devastation. Survivors of these events (hibakusha) continue to suffer long-term physical and psychological effects even today. In this seminar, Masao Tomonaga explained the long-term effects of atomic bombs on human health from a medical perspective. Susie Boniface talked about British veterans exposed to nuclear tests and the physical effects on their health, based on her interviews with them.

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