UTokyo Global Unit Courses

Media in Japan and the World
(online, synchronous)

Hi. My name is Kaori Hayashi, written 林香里 in Chinese characters. After working as a journalist at Reuters in the early 1990s, I began investigating the Japanese media and journalism in a global context. As one of the few female professors on campus (less than 10% of the entire faculty), I belong to the absolute minority group in the UTokyo community. I am a strong advocate for gender justice and am constantly challenging gender biases and stereotypes. In the course I teach, I will focus on both the changing and unchanging aspects of journalism in this volatile digitized age and hope to think together with you about their implications for social justice and democracy from a comparative perspective. I am looking forward to having productive discussions with all of you!

Prof. Kaori Hayashi

Law in Transnational East Asia
(online, synchronous)

If you are interested in East Asian cultures and societies, Tokyo is one of the best places (if not the best place) in the world to build your body of learning.  My area of expertise is in the Legal History and Comparative Law involving East Asian societies. After completing my LL.B. in Tokyo and D.Phil. in Oxford, I have held research and teaching posts in Columbia Law School, Hong Kong University, the National University of Singapore, and Yale University.  I have always enjoyed teaching groups of students with diverse backgrounds, seeing how they learn from each other. I am excited to be part of the first GUC courses in this university, and hope this will, for both teacher and student, the beginning of a long-term exchange of ideas and experiences.

Prof. Kentaro Matsubara

Writings About Japan--Analyzing Cultural Representations, From Orientalism to Artificial Intelligence
(on-demand, nonsynchronous)

I am a cultural studies scholar who focues on United States-Japan relations. As the Director of International Education Support Office, I am also passionate about promoting internatonal student exchanges. My course will focus on how Japan has been portrayed in various media(written texts, films, artificial intelligence) throughout the last 150 years to understand the dynamics of cultural represenations. I also hope to share the wonders and challenges of living  in Tokyo today, based on insights gained from my daily walk in Ueno Park! I am truly excited to teach this course and am looking forward to "meeting" with students from all over the world.

Prof. Yujin Yaguchi

Group Theory and Its Applications--Introduction to Beautiful Modern Mathematics
(online, synchronous)

I am a Professor of Kavli Institute for Mathematics and the Physics of the Universe (IPMU)of UTokyo. I am interested in Algebraic Geometry, which is related to Superstring theory. I am also interested in mathematical education and have organized Exhibitions for "Mathematics Museum" several times. Recently I published a book entitled "Introduction to Beautiful Mathematics" in Japanese. I would like to share with the students in this course a part of the book where I discuss some traditional Japanese culture and mathematics. Moreover, I will introduce recent research on Algebraic Geometry, for example, McKay correspondence, which is studied extensively in UK , Europe and Japan.

Prof. Yukari Ito

Early Language Acquisition--How Human Infants Learn Language Within Their Social Environment
(online, synchronous)

My research investigates the mechanisms behind young children’s amazing capacity to acquire language fast and efficiently in diverse environments.
Language acquisition is both potent and fragile: Normally developing babies learn language at a speed unrivaled by machines, but early adversity can dramatically affect early acquisition. Understanding the mechanisms behind their learning is of high societal relevance, since  early language skills are the single best predictor for later academic success.Drawing on observational, experimental, and interventional methods, I focus on the role of the linguistic environment and social context for advancing learning.

Asst. Prof. Sho Tsuji