TOPICS

Visiting Professor Yukio Takasu, appointed as UN Under-Secretary-General for Management.
Mr. Takasu has been teaching in the Graduate School of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University from 2011. From Summer 2012, he will teach the courses, “United Nations”　and “Peace Building and Preventive Diplomacy”.

Announcement from UN News Center 

Kazuo Ogura, former president of the Japan Foundation, unraveled anti-globalism in a Special Seminar called “Genealogy of Anti-Globalism,” held by the Graduate School of International Relations.　

The seminar was held on Wednesday, January 11^th. Aside from students and faculty members, approximately 150 Japan Foundation fellows from all over the world participated.

 Against a backdrop of conspicuous crises rocking the global capitalism system such as the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and European Sovereignty Crisis, anti-globalism movements like OWS (Occupy Wall Street) are becoming more conspicuous. This trend of movements, ones with strong anti-global capitalism sentiment, diverse contexts/persons affected(participants), and complicated connections with past social movements is attracting much attention.

In this seminar, former president of the Japan Foundation and expert on anti-globalism movements and trends, visiting professor Kazuo Ogura discussed the movements’ cultural characteristics, potentials and limitations. At the keynote lecture, Professor Ogura introduced a wealth of examples on anti-globalism as something embedded in the process of globalization.

In the discussion that followed, Professor Norihisa Yamashita (College of International Relations) tossed questions concerning the movements’ relationship with reflexive modernization and comparativeness to the Global Revolution of 1986. Professor GyonSu Mun (College of International Relations) also raised issues in the context of anti-globalism and anti-American movements in Korea about the pathway of East Asia in a neoliberal world.

Profile/ Kazuo Ogura

Visiting Professor of Ritsumeikan University, Graduate School of International Relations. Graduate of Tokyo University Japan and the University of Cambridge. Former president of the Japan　Foundation(2003~2011), deputy foreign minister, ambassador to Vietnam, South Korea and France, and director-general of the Economic Affairs Bureau. Professor Ogura is also the author of many books including “Globalism he no Hangyaku” (Revolt against Globalism).

Graduate School of International Relations Special Lecture

On Tuesday, June 7, the Graduate School of International Relations (GSIR) held a special seminar on development studies. Dr. Howard Nicholas from the International Institute of Social Studies, (IISS)* Erasmus University Rotterdam, gave a lecture entitled “Contrasting Development Perspectives: The North vs. the South.”

Many students as well as professors from the College of International Relations and GSIR attended the lecture and were deeply impressed by the eloquence and humor of Dr. Nicholas. Dr. Nicholas discussed the conflicting interests of advanced countries versus developing countries in the field of economic development and the shifting balance of power from West to East using Sri Lanka and China as case studies.

*IISS is a leading academic institute of development studies and one of the DMDP partner universities in the GSIR.