Why Ghosts Matter: An Underground History of Japan

For non-Columbia affiliates, registration is required to access the Morningside campus. After registering you will receive an email with a QR code that must be presented along with a government-issued ID (your name must match exactly the name registered for the event) at either the 116th Street & Broadway or 116th Street & Amsterdam gates for entry. Please register using a unique email address (one email address per registrant) by 4:00 pm on May 4 for campus access.

Names will be submitted for QR codes 1-2 days prior to the event. Registrants will receive an email from CU Guest Access with the QR code before or on the day of the event. NOTE: You cannot access campus using the QR code from Eventbrite.

Speaker: Haruo Shirane, Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture, EALAC, Columbia University

Respondent: Robert Hymes, Carpentier Professor of Chinese History, EALAC, Columbia University

Moderator: Takuya Tsunoda, Assistant Professor of Japanese Film and Media, EALAC, Columbia University

Ghosts are a key to understanding anxieties about family, social injustice, and political violence in Japan. Unpacking four types of ghosts in Japan—political ghosts, homeless ghosts, ancestral ghosts, and vengeful spirits—this talk will show how these ghost lineages interlink, how they transform over time, and what they tell us about notions of personhood, community, power, and the non-human in Japanese history.

This event is hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and co-sponsored by EALA and the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture.

Registration: To attend this event in-person, please register HERE (with one unique email address per registrant).