Short Report of Open Seminar (12/23/2016):

Speaker: Dr. Shogo Suzuki, Senior Lecturer, the Department of Politics, the University of Manchester. UK.

This seminar highlighted the politics of history regarding comfort women. As what the country should remember and forget is a political issue, this seminar discussed the dynamics of the Taiwan ‘Comfort Women’ Case, focused especially on the competition to attain justice for the past wrongs in Taiwan. 

Departing from the arguments that identity politics in Taiwan have overshadowed the campaign to achieve justice for the comfort women, the comfort women issue gets rejected as the drive to construct the Taiwanese's identity separate from China has led to the crime committed by mainlander Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT). In conclusion, the comfort women issue turned into inward-looking debates over national identity, distracting the political momentum necessary to bring about justice successfully. National politicians in Taiwan, in fact, tend to politize the comfort woman issue in the national political game rather than attaining the justice for the victims.

This seminar was held in Ritsumeikan University - Kinugasa Campus, on December 23, 2016, hosted by College of International Relations Ritsumeikan University and Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization (R-GIRO). Approximately 30 participants attended the seminar.

国際関係学部事務室一斉閉室のお知らせ(2016年度冬季）

去る12月9日（金）に立命館大学衣笠キャンパスにおいて、「転換期の北東アジアと日本の針路」をテーマに東京大学大学院法学政治学研究科　教授　小原　雅博 氏（元　在上海総領事）にお越し頂き、ワークショップを開催しました。

本ワークショップでは国際関係研究科　文　京洙　教授がコーディネーターをつとめ、北東アジア地域を研究テーマに扱う、国際関係研究科の大学院生や国際関係学部生が参加し、当日は活発な議論がおこなわれました。

ワークショップでは、まず，小原教授より米国の次期政権のアジア太平洋政策、とりわけ対中政策と対日政策とその対応についてパワーポイントを用いて解説され、これについて活発な質疑がなされました。ついで、小原教授より学生への問いかけとして、将来、中国が米国を上回る大国として台頭する可能性と現実性、さらにはこれに対する日本や韓国の対応について提起されたのに対して学生から積極的な応答があり、活発な質疑が実現した。総じて、小原教授は、国際社会の構造変動にかかわる、きわめてマクロな問題提起を学生にされ、平素の研究ではとかく狭く限定された課題に埋没しがちな学生たちにとってきわめて刺激的で有意義な機会となりました。

ワークショップ後には小原教授から、大変多様で鋭い視点から意見を述べる大学院生も多く、大変有意義な機会となったとのコメントを頂きました。

大学院生からも今回のような機会を今後も多く望む、といった声が多く聞かれました。

Short Report of Open Seminar (12/9/2016):

Speaker:

Dr. Marcus Mietzner. Associate Professor at the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University.

This seminar discussed the changing dynamic of contemporary Indonesian politics. The seminar focused on how Indonesian President Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, turned from a seemingly unassailable into a vulnerable president. Previously, President Jokowi appeared to have consolidated his power in the arenas of elite contestation, public opinion, and a sizeable majority in parliament.  However, hundreds of thousands of Muslim protesters demonstrated against Jokowi's ally in the Jakarta governor election, Basuki Tjahja Purnama in November and December 2016 shook Jokowi's presidency to its core. The outcome of the conflicts emerging from it remains uncertain, and it seems likely means for the 2019 elections.

This seminar was held in Ritsumeikan University - Kinugasa Campus, on December 9, 2016, hosted by College of International Relations Ritsumeikan University and Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization (R-GIRO) and Institute of International Relations and Area Studies.  Approximately 40 participants attended the seminar.

Open Lecture

Guest Speaker:

Dr. Yusuke　Takagi

Assistant Professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS)

In this seminar, the speaker, Dr. Yusuke Takagi presented on how to make a research paper. In his lecture, he introduced his experience of literature review and fieldworks in Philippine. Most of audience is graduate students who will write master thesis. They eagerly listen to the seminar which is useful for their academic achievements.

This Open Lecture was held at Ritsumeikan University Kinugasa Campus, on November 25, 2016, hosted by Ritsumeikan University's Graduate School of International Relations and the Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization (R-GIRO). Approximately 20 participants attended the seminar.

Open Lecture

Guest Speaker: Tsuneko Ipp. A Certified Tourist Guide, Austria.

The lecture introduced the life of Bertha von Suttner, the first woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905. The presenter explained Suttner’s eventful life with pictures, which includes an episode meeting Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Prize. Thanks to the detailed explanation and plenty of pictures which trace the life of Suttner, the audience came to a deep understanding how Suttner became a peace activist and why she wrote her famous novel, Lay Down Your Arms (Die Waffen Nieder). In the end, the presenter introduced the hundredth anniversary of the Peace Palace in Hague in 2013 and emphasized that Suttner’s wish has been inherited by peace activists in the world

This Open Lecture was held at Ritsumeikan University Kinugasa Campus, on November 18, 2016, hosted by Ritsumeikan University's Graduate School of International Relations and the Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization (R-GIRO). Approximately 20 participants attended the training.

Open Lecture

Guest Speaker: Slavica Ninic. Ph.D. Student in Graduate School of Law, Kobe University, Japan.

The lecture figured out the big picture of methodological aspects in conducting a research. In particular, the presenter underlined steps and challenges mainly faced by many researchers from the scratch to the publication process. Based on the experiences in doing the research about Gender Policies in the Japanese Armed Forces, the audiences may learn not only the content of the research but also the lessons from all the steps of the research process. In the end, the participants were expected to grasp the whole picture of the research route in Social Sciences.

This Open Lecture was held at Ritsumeikan University Kinugasa Campus, on November 11, 2016, hosted by Ritsumeikan University's Graduate School of International Relations and the Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization (R-GIRO). Approximately 20 participants attended the training.

Short Report of Open Seminar (11/4/2016):

Speaker:

Dr. Nino Viartasiwi

This seminar identified notorious communal violence taking form in tribal wars in some areas of West Papua region of Indonesia.

Although the long going communal violence has taken casualties both in the kind of loss of lives and properties, however, the government has been unenthusiastic to tame the violence under the pretext that tribal war is a conflict settlement mechanism inherent in the West Papua's aboriginal culture. This presentation answers questions as follows: in a democratic country what is the border of indigenous rights to exercise the customary practices? What is the obligation of the government toward aboriginal communities? The presentation concludes that the government choice of action to allow tribal wars is equal with state violence by manipulating the native customary to commit violence against the tribal communities.

This seminar was held in Ritsumeikan University - Kinugasa Campus, on November 4, 2016, hosted by College of International Relations Ritsumeikan University and Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization (R-GIRO). Approximately 20 participants attended the seminar.

●ダブルディグリー・プログラムとは

修士におけるダブルディグリー・プログラムを共同修士学位プログラム（DMDP: Dual Master's Degree Program）と呼び、立命館大学大学院に所属しながら提携する海外の大学院に1年間留学することにより、最短2年間で2つの大学院の修士号を同時に取得できる制度です。グローバル化する国際社会で活躍する人材を育てる仕組みを持ったプログラムです。

この度、立命館大学大学院　国際関係研究科は、台湾の有力大学の一つである国立政治大学（以下、NCUU）とダブルディグリー・プログラム（DMDP）の推進に関する協定を締結いたしました。

これは、修士課程の学生を対象としたプログラムであり、本学の学生は主に、修士1年生の春セメスター1学期を立命館大学で過ごした後、秋セメスターよりNCUU（新入学学期）に入学し、約１年間かけ留学をおこない、台湾現地で勉学に励みます。その後、本学に戻り、最短のケースでは翌年3月には2年間で両大学において、それぞれの修士論文執筆などの修了要件を充たし、修士学位が授与されることとなっています。

なお、NCUUとの同プログラムでは今回協定に基づき、立命館大学への学費納入のみでNCUUの学位取得が可能であり、NCUUへ別途学費納入*が不要です。

*学費以外の渡航や寮費含む滞在にかかる費用等は留学する大学院生自身の負担となります。

詳しくは、お問い合わせください。

Short Report of Open Seminar (10/21/2016):

Guest Speakers:

Dr. Ryan Manuel, a postdoctoral fellow at the Australian Centre on China in the World, The Australian National University; and Shu Cheng (Will) Zou, currently a Monbukagakusho scholarship research student studying in the Department of Area Studies (China) at the University of Tokyo.

This seminar highlights how the Xi Jinping administration has changed China’s foreign policy rhetoric and focus. The seminar critically examines the idea that Xi’s foreign policy is more “Confucian” than previous administrations, as well as commenting on the geographic direction, ideology, and policy implications of Xi’s foreign policy shift.

This seminar was held in Ritsumeikan University - Kinugasa Campus, on October 21, 2016, hosted by Graduate School of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University, and Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization (R-GIRO). Co-Hosts: The China Diplomacy Research Group “Aspects of the Strengthening of China” Research Project, Institute of International Relations and Area Studies, Ritsumeikan University; Asia-Japan Research Institute. University’ and the Australian Centre on China in the World, the Australian National University.

Approximately 45 participants attended the seminar.