All are welcome to zoom in for this next batch of public lectures through my Anthropology of Japan class at the University of Colorado Boulder. Please register in advance!

Best,

Kate

Public lecture: Mon, Feb 27

11:15am-12:05pm MT, on Zoom

Register in advance: https://cuboulder.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJElceiuqTgoH9Up-zYgtCI8e9pOPZ3NxHfN

 

"Disclosing Food Allergies in Japan: Reading the Air, Imagination, and Trouble"

Dr. Emma Cook

Associate Professor, Modern Japanese Studies Program, Hokkaido University, Japan

Toyota Visiting Professor, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan (2022-2023)

 

In this talk I explore how young adults with food allergies in Japan "read the air" and try to avoid creating trouble for others and themselves in their practices of allergy disclosure. I trace how their experiences of reading the air and their engagement with feelings of trouble (meiwaku) emerge out of - and become - an imaginative practice that is embodied, intersubjective, and built on feelings of how people might respond to their disclosures, as well as the social risks that they feel food allergies present.

 

For further information, email: kathryn.goldfarb@colorado.edu

This event is free and open to the public

Sponsored by the Center for Asian Studies, University of Colorado Boulder

 

 

Public lecture: Wed, Mar 8

11:15am-12:05pm MT, on Zoom

Register in advance: https://cuboulder.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUqd-Ctqj8oHtGyftjtXdpquyHVIBhab40s

 

"Automating Affect"

Dr. Daniel White

Senior Research Associate, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge

 

What is an affect automated? This lecture situates discussions on affect, emotion, and technology in anthropology in the context of contemporary Japan. It asks what happens to the culturally specific dimensions of affective experience when it is 1) formulated as a theory, 2) modeled in a machine, and 3) used as a technological tool to collect data and interpret human behavior. The lecture will explore this question through examples of social robots in Japan with so-called artificial emotional intelligence. It will then use these examples to examine how hierarchies of state power and gender are reproduced through algorithmic embodiments.

 

For further information, email: kathryn.goldfarb@colorado.edu

This event is free and open to the public

Supported by the Center for Asian Studies, University of Colorado

 

 

Public lecture: Wed, Mar 15

11:15am-12:05pm MT, on Zoom

Register in advance: https://cuboulder.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUkc-6tqjkvEtEArBiOrC2Bj06qYzRjNyO1

 

"It's Not Enough to be Cool: Why Interactive TV Didn't Take Over Japan"

Dr. Elizabeth Rodwell

Assistant Professor, University of Houston Department of Information & Logistics Technology  

 

Following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, some within the Japanese TV and journalism industries used the crisis as an opportunity for self-critique; others side-stepped questions of self-censorship and advertiser coercion by focusing on restoring audience engagement through the development of pioneering interactive (social) television. Outside the major broadcast conglomerates, journalists began experimenting with interactivity to try to circumvent the institutions they perceived as working against public interest and safety. Interactive technologies make big promises to Japanese audiences, but do they deliver?

 

For further information, email: kathryn.goldfarb@colorado.edu

This event is free and open to the public

Supported by the Center for Asian Studies, University of Colorado Boulder

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Kathryn E. Goldfarb
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
University of Colorado at Boulder
1350 Pleasant St.
Boulder, CO 80309
Hale Science 350 | Campus Box 233 UCB
Office: Hale Science 466
Office phone: 303.492.1589
kathryn.goldfarb@colorado.edu