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.

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

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.

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.

From the beginning of the Allied Occupation of Japan (1945-1952), the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP GHQ) identified the cinema as a means to reshape popular attitudes, re-educating Japanese citizens away from the nationalist ideologies that had characterized wartime.

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.

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.

Japan's notorious crime syndicates, the yakuza, have been historically entrenched as extra-legal governors with significant control over areas and markets, but now confront a challenging era. Stringent anti-yakuza regulations, evolving market landscapes, and changing public attitudes have collectively precipitated a decline in their membership base and influence. Amidst these shifts, emergent actors like the 'hangure' and new practices such as 'yamibaito' are allegedly gaining prominence, as highlighted by media and law enforcement narratives.