Wei Wang

Wei Wang is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and the Lead Researcher for the Value-based Leadership for International Development project, developing an online course focused on character-based leadership training for a global audience. This endeavour is a collaborative effort with the Legatum Foundation and the Human Flourishing Program at the Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences at Harvard University.

Joelle Tasker

I am a Research Assistant on the project Voter ID in the UK, which aims to analyse the impact of the introduction of Voter ID in the UK. Outside of my work on this project, I am completing a PhD at the University of Essex which explores ideology in the UK. I investigate how political attitudes are related to self-placement in the left-right space, and how this has changed during the turbulent last decade of British politics. My research interests include public opinion, political behaviour and political psychology.

A Preview Test Screening of a New Documentary Film - The Squid and the Pine by John Williams

Kitaushima is a small fishing village on the very northern tip of Sado Island. Until the 1960’s it was only accessible by boat. Hundreds of people used to live there, fishing and planting rice, burning charcoal, and raising cows. Most of the residents are now in their eighties but they continue to farm, to fish, to forage the sea and the land and to perform the annual rituals and festivals that hold the community together.

This Monk Wears Heels – Buddhism and Sexuality

Kodo Nishimura, Artist, Buddhist monk, and LGBTQ+ activist will share his personal story and his view on the evolution of Buddhism in Japan. He will focus on how diversity and inclusion are considered in the Japanese Buddhist context, and elaborate on how religious teachings can liberate people to live as who they are. Join us and learn how he heals the world with Buddhist teachings in makeup and heels.

To register for this event please use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0ocuirrToqHNEY72lHxTgK0UimYfOd8hWw

Eleven Winters of Discontent: The Siberian Internment and the Making of a New Japan

In this presentation, Sherzod Muminov will talk about the odyssey of 600,000 imperial Japanese soldiers incarcerated in Soviet labour camps after World War II and their fraught repatriation to postwar Japan.

In August 1945 the Soviet Union seized the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo and the colony of Southern Sakhalin, capturing more than 600,000 Japanese soldiers, who were transported to labour camps across the Soviet Union but primarily concentrated in Siberia and the Far East. Imprisonment came as a surprise to the soldiers, who thought they were being shipped home.

Language as a Technology for Shaping Professional Identity: Translating ‘A Manual of the Steam Engine’ in Mid-Nineteenth Century Japan

Jōki kikai sho (A Manual of the Steam Engine, 1869) was one of the first comprehensive textbooks for a first generation of Japanese marine engineers, and in it many new technical terms appear in print for the first time. In this talk, I examine the logic behind the creation of this new technical lexicon, asking how language was mobilized as a technology for shaping a new professional identity.

Affect, Emotion and Sensibility in Modern Japanese Literature

Drawing on recent research on affect and emotion, the book focuses on entanglements of various kinds, exploring ways in which we are embedded in intersubjective networks of relational forces beyond our control. After introducing the overall theoretical framework, I will discuss the last chapter on Ishimure Michiko’s The Sea of Sorrow trilogy to tie together different strands of ethical concerns informing the book, from queer ethics, ecocriticism to Buddhist compassion.


Sensory Perception: Cultural Exchange, Development and Understanding

Nicole Vivien Watson has over fifteen years of experience working in the arts and holds the position of Executive Director and Founder of Surface Area Dance Theatre – which she established as a Community Interest Company in 2007; under Nicole’s Direction, Surface Area Dance Theatre has joined Arts Council England’s 2023-26 National Portfolio.
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