{"id":2756,"date":"2021-12-20T13:40:16","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T04:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/?p=2756"},"modified":"2022-04-14T11:58:12","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T02:58:12","slug":"event-report-humanities-in-the-anthropocene-part-1-open-lecture-the-history-of-the-earth-a-circular-system-of-water-soil-and-human-beings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/news-en\/2756","title":{"rendered":"Event report \u201cHumanities in the Anthropocene\u201d Part 1 Open Lecture \u2013 The History of the Earth: A Circular System of Water, Soil and Human Beings"},"content":{"rendered":"

This lecture was planned as the first open lecture in the seminar series “Humanities in the Anthropocene,” a research project of the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, and was held online with participants from Europe and the United States.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the lecture, Satomi Yamamoto, Professor of the Faculty of Arts, Letters and Science and Deputy Director of the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, gave an explanation of the project’s aim, followed by a speech by Yukio Lippitt, Professor of Japanese Art History at Harvard University, on research trends and future possibilities in the United States regarding the Anthropocene, ecocriticism, and environmental art history. After his speech, \u00a0\u00d4nishi Takeo, a hydrology and agro-environmental sciences specialist took the stage.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

Prof. Onishi specializes in hydrology, soil physics, biogeochemistry, irrigation and drainage. In contrast, the 40 or so participants consisted mainly of researchers and students specializing in the humanities (art history, literature, history, architectural history, philosophy, etc.), making this an interdisciplinary open lecture fusing the humanities and sciences. In his lecture, Prof. Onishi introduced recent research trends related to the Anthropocene from the perspective that environmental changes based on the dynamism of the circulation of water, soil, and people have been occurring long before the Industrial Revolution (18th century), which is generally regarded as the beginning of the Anthropocene.<\/p>\n

Prof. Onishi is also involved in the publication of books explaining his research results in an easy-to-understand manner, such as “Chiky\u00fb wo tabi suru mizu no hanashi” and “Chiky\u00fb ga umidasu tsuchi no hanashi” (both published by Fukuinkan Shoten Publishers, the former of which was awarded a scholarly publications prize by the Japan Society of Hydrology and Water Resources). In his lecture, he also presented ingenious attempts such as an explanation of complex system science and nonlinear dynamics by using the example of convection of miso soup in a bowl. The comprehensible and stimulating lecture consisted of the following six parts:<\/p>\n

\"\"1. How to understand the Anthropocene
\n2. The nature of complex systems in terms of convection (circulation) phenomena
\n3. Overview of Earth’s history: Autonomous regulation of CO2 concentration
\n4. Life activity is a flow of electrons
\n5. Water and humans in Earth history
\n6. Soil and humans in Earth history<\/p>\n

The discussion part after the lecture was initially scheduled for 30 minutes, but was extended to allow for more active questions. In particular, the ideas of the humanities participants were enriched and expanded by two topics: recent research on rice field power generation, in which “electricity” was harvested from paddy fields, and topics related to the characteristics of Japanese soil with traces of intentional burn since the Jomon period, relevant to the subjects of ancient mythology, literature, and art in Japan and China. Participants also commented on the importance of “non-linear thinking” in understanding history, which provided an opportunity to reaffirm that models of thinking in the natural sciences can be applied in various ways to the humanities.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\n\"\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

The second lecture in this seminar series, “Foundations of Classical Paintings: Techniques, Materials, Distribution, and Use” (tentative title) by specially appointed associate professor Kayoko Karino of Dokkyo University’s Faculty of International Liberal Studies, is scheduled for Saturday, February 5, 2022. In the lecture, the environment surrounding Japanese classical paintings will be discussed.<\/p>\n

Below are the event details for the previously held event, the History of the Earth: A Circular System of Water, Soil and Human Beings:<\/h5>\n

Date:<\/strong> December 4, 2021 (Sat.), starts at 10:00 (JST)<\/p>\n

Venue:<\/strong> Online meeting via Zoom (prior registration required)<\/p>\n

Program:<\/strong><\/p>\n

10:00 \u2013 10:10\u3000Opening Address
\n10:10 \u2013 11:10\u3000History of the Earth: A Circular System of Water, Soil and Human Beings (Takeo Onishi, Associate Professor, Faculty of Applied Biological Sciences, Gifu) University
\n11:10 \u2013 11:15\u3000Break
\n11:15 \u2013 11:55\u3000Speaker-Participants Discussion<\/p>\n

Moderator:<\/strong> Satomi Yamamoto (Professor of the Faculty of Arts, Letters and Science and Deputy Director of the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study)<\/p>\n

Organizer:<\/strong> Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS)<\/p>\n

Co-Organizers:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Waseda Global Japanese Studies
\nRyusaku Tsunoda Center of Japanese Culture
\nWaseda Society of Art History<\/p>\n

Supported by:<\/strong> The Mitsubishi Foundation, Research Grants in the Humanities<\/p>\n

Poster\/Flyer: Click\u00a0here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This lecture was planned as the first open lecture in the seminar series “Humanities in the Anthropocene […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2757,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[113],"class_list":["post-2756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-event_report-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2756"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2807,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756\/revisions\/2807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/flas\/gjs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}