The first full season of u:japan lectures (Autumn-Winter 2020/21) started in October 2020 and featured prominent names like William W. Kelly (Yale University), Daniel White (Cambridge University), Yoshiyuki Asahi (NINJAL) and many more. We heard about the Japanese gendered job market, homosocial desires in Abe Kazushige’s fiction, revisited the ethnographic primal scene of Suye Mura and explored medieval concepts of menstruation and time. One lecture focused on android perspectives on affect, another on creativity in rural Japan, and a third one on the role of Buddhist temples as storehouses in a literal and emotional sense. We learned about seed laws and taijinkyōfu – the fear of others – but also about the Japanese language in the age of post-standardization, and concluded our first season with an excursion into all-female worlds in Japanese speculative fiction.
At that time, other universities and institutions also started Japanese studies online lectures. The example of the Viennese endeavour has inspired and transcended through the academic sphere; proof of concept accomplished. However, the u:japan lectures evolved and introduced a format called LUNCH LECTURE that enabled Japanese presenters and audience to join at a more convenient timeslot and lead to even more international participation.
In the second season (Spring 2021) innovative researcher such as Anne Aronsson (University of Zurich), Jasmin Rückert (HHU Düsseldorf) and Edward Mack (University of Washington) presented their latest findings. We heard about gender and fascism in Manchuria, love in times of COVID, robotic agency in elderly care, dōjinshi culture, local governance in Okinawa, the packaging revolution of postwar Japan, Japanese literature in Brazil and how science was used to govern the pre- and post-war population. We also learned about recent findings regarding the connection of values and well-being, private and public actors in Kyoto’s townscape councils, Zen Buddhism in prewar Japan as an enabling mechanism for terrorist acts, the role of “traditional” crafts in revitalizing rural areas and finally how everyday practices of waste sorting and disposal actualize the social order in Japan.
While nearly all lectures took place virtually and attracted visitors from different institutions and continents, our last lecture in season two was a special occasion which, due to low COVID case numbers and strict safety precautions, happened in a hybrid format with live and international online audience.
Die u:japan lectures gehen in die fünfte Saison. Nach vier erfolgreichen Semestern, in denen die Vortragsreihe ein Fixpunkt für alle nationalen und internationalen Japan-Interessierten geworden ist, wurden wir sogar für den International Award der univie awards 2022 nominiert .
Leider ist Japan für Reisende, Studierende und Forschende immer noch geschlossen, weshalb die digitalen und hybriden u:japan lectures eine der wenigen Möglichkeiten sind, um ein österreichisches Publikum mit aktuellen japanischen Wissenschaftler*innen zu vernetzen und europäischen Wissenschaftler*innen mit Japanbezug ein internationales Auftreten zu ermöglichen. Deshalb wird die Japanologie (Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften) auch im Wintersemester 2022/23 die hybride Vortragsreihe u:japan lectures im Rahmen von Campus Aktuell anbieten. Immer donnerstags referieren dann wieder Expert*innen zu aktuellen Themen aus Gesellschaft und Kultur Japans für ein lokales Publikum vor Ort und eine interessierte (Online-) Zuhörerschaft weltweit.