Tokyo Humanities Cafe is featured on Asahi Shimbun (November 6, 2024).
Online version is available on Asahi Shimbun Digital. The full article is availble for free with this link until 4:54 pm, November 7.
---
Gathering together: A series of meetings to stimulate intellectual curiosity in English.
Alex Watson, Professor, Meiji University, Japan.
It is a weekday evening, between 7.30pm and just after 9pm. After work, people gather in one restaurant to listen to presentations on the humanities and arts in English and answer questions.
We spoke to Alex Watson, a professor at Meiji University, who has been leading such an event on a volunteer basis since 2017.
Born in 1980, British. After receiving his PhD in his native country, he taught at Nagoya University and other universities before assuming his current position as a full Professor at Meiji University in 2024. He specialises in Romanticism and Gothic literature.
He organizes an event called ‘Tokyo Humanities Cafe’ at a restaurant in Tokyo. Around four experts talk about humanities and art-related topics for the general public, and people engage in a dialogue on the topic over drinks.
There is basically no admission or participation fee. People who gather only pay for their drinks and food at the shop. However, the language is English. There are no interpreters.
“Like me, many members are foreign university teachers in Japan, but they are not the only ones. People from Japan and from other countries, people working in companies and other organisations, students and postgraduate students also participate”.
”In 2017, I set up this café with Lawrence Williams, who now teaches at Sophia University. We have opened 17 times so far, although the Corona disaster forced us to interrupt”.
“It makes sense to talk to the public, not just experts. In the UK and the USA, there is a growing movement called ‘public humanities’, which emphasises exchanges about the humanities with the general public beyond the boundaries of universities and research institutions. It is an attempt to open professional knowledge to the public”.
• “There is a lot of information on the internet, but there is something to be said for face-to-face meetings”.
• “As I have experienced, researchers also find it valuable to talk to the public about their research and hear questions and opinions from people who are not experts in the same field. Sometimes they get useful hints for their research”.
“In addition to our café, a number of networks and gatherings have already sprung up in Tokyo. I think it is very important that these gatherings grow in this country, not only for those involved in intellectual work and the arts”.
---
Comments