Event Calendar
NEWS
ICC Mission
With a motto of "connecting Sophia to the world," the Institute of Comparative Culture (ICC) promotes interdisciplinary studies in social sciences and humanities from a comparative perspective, building the global networks of Sophia's international researchers, and supporting collaboration with world-class researchers outside Japan. The specializations of ICC members include business, economics, history, literature, art history and area studies, focusing on Asia. All research activities and public events are conducted in English. The central activity of the ICC is funding and organizing research projects initiated by ICC members.
Director: Tina Burrett
Ph.D., Professor
Faculty of Liberal Arts,
Sophia University
Vice Director: Takehiro Watanabe (渡邉 剛弘)
Ph.D., Associate Professor
Faculty of Liberal Arts,
Sophia University
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series 2026
Matsumoto Toshio’s Antifascist Queer Becomings
Julia Alekseyeva, Assistant Professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania
May 21, 2026, 17:30-19:00
Sophia University, Building 10, 301
In person only
No registration necessary
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series 2026
Women and Immigrants in Corporate Japan
Hilary J. Holbrow, Assistant Professor of Japanese Politics and Society at Indiana University
May 19, 2026, 18:00-19:30
Sophia University, Building 10, 301
In person only
No registration necessary
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series 2026
Upstream, Downstream, Offshore:
Constancy amidst the flux of supply chains
Julie Y. Chu, Sociocultural Anthropologist at the University of Chicago
May 28, 2026 (Thursday): 17:30-19:00
Sophia University, Building 10, 301
In person only
No registration necessary
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series 2026
Rethinking Buddha’s Life and Legacy
Mario Poceski, Professor and Chair of the Religion Department at the University of Florida
May 7, 2026, 16:00–17:30 (JST)
Sophia University, Building 10, 301
In person only
No registration necessary
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series 2026
Finding Nikkei in Interwar American Art
ShiPu Wang, Professor of Art History/Visual Studies, UC Merced
May 12, 2026, 17:30–19:00
Sophia University, Building 10, 301
In person only
No registration necessary
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series 2026
Refugee support in the heart of Europe’s capital:
Insights from a collective initiative carried out in solidarity with asylum seekers on a university campus in Brussels
Yannick Vanderborght, Professor of Political science at UCLouvain (Belgium)
May 11, 2026, 18:30–20:00
Sophia University, Building 10, 301
In person only
No registration necessary
ICC Sophia Food Studies Unit: Online Lecture Series 2026
Migration, Social Media, and Globalization:
Matcha Latte and Bubble Tea in Toronto, Canada
Jeffrey Pilcher, Professor of Food Studies in the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences and Director of the Culinaria Research Centre at the University of Toronto Scarborough
April 20, 2026
20:30-22:00 (JST) / 07:30-09:00 (US EST) / 12:30-14:00 (GMT)
ZOOM Meeting information
https://sophia-ac-jp.zoom.us/j/95084567453
Meeting ID: 950 8456 7453
Password: sophiafood
No registration necessary
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series 2026
– and some thoughts on the challenges of reporting from war and conflict zones
Gabriele Riedle
April, 20, 2026, 18:00–19:30
Sophia University, Building 10, 301
In person only
No registration necessary
“Contemporary Tokyo Seminar Series” #4
A Section through Tokyo’s Labourscape
Work, Space, and Community in Sumida’s Machikoba Neighbourhoods
Christian Dimmer, Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Transition Design at Waseda University
David H. Slater, Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Sophia University
April, 8, 2026, 18:00–19:30
Sophia University, Building 10, 301
In English without translation
In person only
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series 2026
Deities of Heaven, Deities of Earth, and Foreignness in Japanese Origin Myths
Bernhard Scheid, Austrian Academy of Sciences (Senior Scientist Emeritus)
April, 16, 2026, 18:00–19:30
Sophia University, Building 10, 301
In person only
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture presents a workshop on
Feminism in Japan: Resistance, Complicity, and Gendered Power
Sophia University, Building 10, 301
March 25, 2026 / 16:00-18:30
No registration required / In person only
This workshop is organized by Maiko Kodaka (Assistant Professor, FLA, Sophia University) and Dr. Agnese Dionisio (JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow, ICC Sophia University)
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Collaborative Research Unit “Sophia Food Studies” presents a mini colloquium
Perspectives on Culinary Craft in Japan
Takumi: The Spirit of Perfectionism in Japanese Culinary Craft
Taru Lindblom, University of Helsinki
Craft as Care: Small-Scale Culinary Entrepreneurship in a Tokyo Neighborhood
James Farrer, Sophia University
January 16, 2026
17:30-19:30
Format: Hybrid
Venue: Room 301, 3F, building 10, Sophia University
ZOOM information
https://sophia-ac-jp.zoom.us/j/93475873444
Meeting ID: 934 7587 3444
Passcode: shokunin
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series 2025
Ukiyo-e Painting and the Long Shadow of the Shunpōan Incident
Julie Nelson Davis, the Paul F. Miller, Jr. and E. Warren Shafer Miller Professor of History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania
January 22, 2026
18:00-19:30
Room 301, 3F, building 10, Sophia University
In person / No registration necessary
Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series 2025
Memory, Resistance, and Universal Women’s Rights in Stintino, Sardinia
Dr. Agnese Dionisio, JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow / ICC Visiting Fellow
January 8, 2026
18:00-19:30
10‐301, 3F, Building 10, Sophia University
In person only