Yuki Masami
Aoyama Gakuin University
日本青山學院大學 美國研究教授
『The Environmental Humanities in Japan: A Status Report』
Abstract
For the past decade, I have been sowing seeds of Environmental Humanities which, in Japan, is not as active as it is in western countries. I will introduce three major projects that I initiated: the AGU Environmental Humanities Forum launched in April 2021, the on-campus collaborative research on the topic of “more-than-human stories” in 2022-2024, and Japan’s first EH certificate program for MA students, launched in April 2024, which is based on a credit transfer system among three Tokyo-based universities including AGU. Sharing some of the obstacles that I have experienced in proceeding with these projects, I will discuss commonly seen hesitation, if not skepticism, about one’s involvement in environment-related projects in Japan’s higher education and research.