Concept

This lecture presents a multi-sited ethnography, with a focus on its China component. The overall project, HealthXCross (funded by the European Research Council, 2021–2026), analyzes and compares how scientists in different parts of the world study microbes as entities that connect humans to their environments. It takes into account variations in technologies, methods, approaches, and socio-political contexts.

Microbiome science is popularizing a symbiotic understanding of health and ecology: between 50% and 90% of the cells in the human body are microbial. The microbiome influences metabolism, weight, immunity, allergies, mood, and personality. It is shaped by factors like diet, birth, antibiotics, and social interactions—just as it, in turn, shapes us. Health emerges from this human-microbial ecosystem, challenging an anthropocentric view. The microbiome reveals how humans, microbes, and environments are deeply interconnected in the processes of life.

While microbiome science has revealed how microbes entangle human and environmental health, what remains unclear is how this process may give rise to new cultural concepts and practices of health. To explore this question, the project examines several case studies from regions such as Europe, the United States, Africa, and the Pacific. Since 2023, these cases have been complemented by a dedicated focus on China and Greater China, made possible by FARE funding (Italian Ministry of Research) through the project Microbiome Technoscience in Shanghai and Hong Kong in Pandemic Times: An Anthropological Study. This lecture will discuss preliminary findings from the HealthXCross/FARE project, with particular attention to the intersections of health governance and biopolitics.

Speaker

Roberta Raffaetà is associate professor of Socio-cultural Anthropology at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and Deputy Director of NICHE (The New Institute: The Centre for Environmental Humanities), where she coordinates the research cluster ‘Technoscience, Health and Justice in an Interdependent Planet’. Since obtaining a PhD at the University of Lausanne, she has worked at various universities in Italy and abroad (US, Australia, Switzerland). Her research has been funded by the European Commission, The Italian Ministry of Research, Fulbright, Wenner Gren and others

This lecture will be held on site and via Zoom.

Registrations are required from here by October 20.

This talk expands on more than three decades of research that began in 1993 with the publication of the American Institute of Architects-Award-winning book Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan. With the goal of better understanding Wrightʻs philosophical priorities and process of design, his interpretations of traditional Japanese forms are re-examined in the context of current notions otherness, appropriation, abstraction, synthesis, translation and myth.

Kevin Nute is a British American architectural theorist based at the University of Hawaiʻi. He is an internationally recognized authority on the transcultural implications of Japanese architecture. He recently published Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan Revisited: Traditional Japanese Culture as a Means to Modern American Architecture (World Scientific Publishing, 2025).

This hybrid lecture will be held on site (registration required in advance from here) and via Zoom.

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83190708879

Meeting ID: 831 9070 8879

From day selection to weather forecasting, divination was widely used in Edo-period society, as evidenced by the variety of printed books and manuscripts produced on the subject. Many of these works include diagrams as well as images depicting the possible fates awaiting clients and readers. This lecture will sketch the history of such images, explore their distinctive features, and consider the role they may have played in shaping and disseminating social norms.

Matthias Hayek is Professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études–PSL. His research focuses on the reception, adaptation, and uses of Chinese correlative cosmology in Japan. He is the author of Les Mutations du Yin et du Yang : divination, société et représentations au Japon, du vie au xixe siècle (Collège de France, 2021).

This hybrid lecture will be held on site (registration required in advance from here) and via Zoom.

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84157148024

Meeting ID: 841 5714 8024

9 luglio 2025    16:30-19:00 JST  (9.30-12.00 CEST)

Concept

Nel centenario della nascita di Italo Calvino, l’ISEAS intende offrire un contributo alla conoscenza del fecondo rapporto intrattenuto dallo scrittore con la cultura del Giappone. La scelta della sede ISEAS, situata a Kyoto, città dove Calvino ha soggiornato e che gli ha ispirato alcuni scritti memorabili, riveste un significato simbolico particolare.

Il workshop si terrà in italiano e in modalità ibrida (in presenza e online).

This workshop will be conducted in Italian.

Zoom Meeting ID: 827 2865 6382

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82728656382

Luogo: 29 Kitashirakawa Bettō-chō, Sakyō-ku, Kyoto 606-8276

Japan’s modern legal system originated with the transplant of Western law in the Meiji period. Within three decades Japan was transformed into a centralised country with a constitution, codes, and a structured system of courts staffed by professional jurists.

This lecture traces the birth and development of Japanese comparative law studies and institutions, showing how comparative law not only paved the way for the reception of Western law, but was also instrumental in the emergence of an original Japanese jurisprudence.

Andrea Ortolani is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Tsukuba. His research focuses on legal transplants, legal evolution, and on Japanese law and its interactions with foreign jurisprudence.

This hybrid lecture will be held on site (registration required in advance from here) and via Zoom.

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84487130281

Meeting ID: 844 8713 0281