“Genealogies of White Deviance” Special Lecture

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IE Program Plenary Talk: The Mind-Body Continuum

We are pleased to welcome Maggie Reagh Sensei for a special talk open to all IE Program students and teachers.

EVENT: “The Mind-Body Continuum Underlying Experience, Learning, and Healing”
WHEN: June 12, 2025 (Thursday), 3rd period — 13:20-14:50
WHO: Ms. Maggie Reagh (from Capilano University in Vancouver, Canada)
WHERE:
AGU Campus (Shibuya); Room TL402 (in former Junior College)
LANGUAGE: English
TARGET AUDIENCE: All IE Program students and teachers (and any other interested parties)

Description of Talk:

Western Philosophy, Psychology, Linguistics, and Religion have long considered the mind as separate from the body in terms of how it is experienced, controlled, researched, and measured. This disembodied dualistic perspective was most famously put forth by René Descartes in the 17th Century with I think; therefore, I am. Embodied Cognition in the West has a relatively short history with 20th century philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and John Dewey. It has also been greatly influenced by one of the founders of Cognitive Linguistics, George Lakoff from the 1960s. Experiential and Place-Based Learning as contemporary pedagogies have also grown out of our culture’s embrace of the body as way of experiencing and learning about the world and ourselves. Physicians like Dan Siegel and Gabor Maté have also recently shown us how we can even heal our deepest emotional wounding by developing a felt sense of body and attuning to the wisdom of both our hearts and guts.

In this lecture, we will briefly examine how many contemporary thinkers now view the body as a continuum of the mind’s capacity to experience the world around us and even deeply connect to our most authentic selves. The speaker will then guide the audience through an applied experience of Embodied Cognition. Be ready to experience your mind as not only located in your head, but also in your whole body.

Biography:

Maggie Reagh, MA in Teaching (TESOL/Applied Linguistics) and BA (Honours) in Classics and Philosophy has been teaching and coordinating English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programs for over 30 years across Canada, including 29 years at Capilano University. Throughout her career, Maggie has regularly presented on innovative programming ideas with colleagues around BC at conferences for BC TEAL, TESL Canada, BCCIE, and BCCAT. Parallel to her career in Applied Linguistics, Maggie worked first as a performing dance artist/teacher in her 20s and later as a yoga therapist/trainer for over 20 years to present.

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Filmmaker Linda Ohama speaks on the immigrant experience

Speaker: Ms. Linda Ohama

Topic: “An Alien’s Dream: Immigrants’ Struggle for Acceptance and Belonging”

Location: Aoyama Campus, Room TL301 (In the former AGU Junior College)

Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2025 (Tuesday)

Time: 1:20 PM to 2:50 PM (3rd period) [Come to the classroom early as the talk will start on time!)

We are pleased to bring back to AGU a dynamic speaker we have hosted several times in the past and whose message could not be more relevant than in today’s social and pollical climate. A third generation (Sansei) Japanese Canadian artist and filmmaker, Linda Ohama has worked as an exhibiting visual artist and as a documentary filmmaker. She produced and directed the award-winning film “Obachan’s Garden” (http://culturevulture.net/film/obachans-garden/) and the documentary “Tohoku no Shingetsu”–“New Moon Over Tohoku”–which concerns the experiences of people in Tohoku during, and after, the earthquake/ tsunami/ nuclear disaster of March 11, 2011.


Linda Ohama writes:

My father was a 25-year-old student at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) with a dream to become a lawyer one day. He was a ‘nisei’ (second generation) born in Canada. His father and mother were both born in Japan. Like any university student, he worked hard to earn his tuition and studied hard to get good grades. He was also an officer in the Royal Military Cadets for Canada.

In the spring of 1942, his dreams became a nightmare the day he was ‘kicked out’ of university and lost his right to earn a degree. Why?

The government imposed the War Measures Act to intern 21,000 Canadians of Japanese ancestry and he became an ‘enemy alien’. (The U.S. government also used a similar Alien Enemies Act in their 1942 forced internment of 120,000 American Japanese.)

Recently, the American government has used the Alien Enemies Act once again and the dreams of families, university students, and people who fled violence in their country of origin, like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, are broken.

Through my work as a documentary filmmaker, I have explored the loss of dreams caused by social and political injustices, hoping to inspire deeper understanding, advocacy for change and the hope for a better way of being. I will share some of my personal experiences and research in my presentation.

Post script:

My father received an honorary degree and formal apology from the University of British Columbia in 2012, seven years after his death. I received the degree on behalf of his dream. Today, my ‘yonsei’ daughter (my father’s granddaughter) is a practising lawyer who has earned respect for her human justice work representing the rights of marginalized women, children and groups in Canada. She also teaches law at the University of British Columbia.

Sometimes, one man’s dream takes several generations to be fulfilled.


To be even better prepared for the lecture, you may wish to download and read an article reviewing “Obachan’s Garden” that Gregory Strong contributed to the Daily Yomiuri. The article appeared on November 14, 2002, as the film was being screened throughout Japan for the first time. The article is followed by some skimming and scanning, and comprehension questions. You can watch “Obachan’s Garden” in its entirety at: https://www.nfb.ca/film/obachans_garden/.

Finally, it would useful for students and teachers who plan to attend the lecture to do some background reading on the internment of Japanese by the Canadian government during the war. You can check out Wikipedia’s page on Japanese internment and an entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia about the history of the Japanese in Canada

Other articles that will help you to prepare for the talk:

‘Very dangerous’: Japanese Americans warn of Trump’s use of Alien Enemies Act

The Alien Enemies Act Paved the Way for Japanese American Incarceration. Let’s Keep It in the Past.

4 things to know about the Alien Enemies Act and Trump’s efforts to use it

Photograph showing the Murakami Visitor center in Steveston, a small community near Vancouver, the former home of Asayo Murakami (Linda Ohama’s Obachan).

 

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Emeritus Professor of Second Language Acquisition Peter Robinson becomes Editor in Chief of the Journal of Asia TEFL

We are thrilled to announce that Emeritus Professor of Second Language Acquisition Peter Robinson has been appointed the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Asia TEFL

He cordially invites AGU faculty and doctoral students to submit manuscripts of papers that fall under the purview of the journal: http://journal.asiatefl.org/main/main.php .

The organization holds an annual conference, and here is a link to their upcoming conference: https://www.asiatefl2025.org/ .

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Special Lecture: Peace for Our Planet

 

EVENT: Open Lecture; “Peace for Our Planet”
WHEN: October 24, 2024 (Thursday), 3rd Period (13:20~14:50)
WHERE: Aoyama Campus; Classroom 940 (4th floor of Building 9)
SPEAKER: Dr. Roya Akhavan (Professor of Mass Communication at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota [USA])

The guest speaker, Dr. Roya Akhavan, who has lived and worked in four different cultures—Persian, American, Japanese, and Chinese—frequently speaks at international forums on peace, gender equality, and spirituality in the 21st century. Her talk for students and teachers in the IE Program will focus on these key points:

  • During the last two centuries, human history has not been linear. Rather, history has moved forward in two parallel processes: one constructive, and the other destructive.
  • The forward movement of the constructive collective consciousness has never stopped, nor can it be turned back.
  • Racism, nationalism, religious strife, gender inequality, and extremes of wealth and poverty have comprised the major root causes of war throughout history. Humanity has made consistent constructive progress in these areas during the last two centuries, but the destructive backlash continues.
  • Gender inequality perpetuates a hypermasculine leadership culture in communities, organizations, businesses, and nations, and functions as one of the most insidious root causes of war.
  • Elevating the traits traditionally associated with the feminine aspects of humanity – empathy, emotional intelligence, open communication, and moral courage – in how leadership is defined and enacted by all leaders regardless of gender, is vital to building a more just and peaceful world.

BIO:

Dr. Roya Akhavan is a professor, author/speaker, and consultant, with a record of award-winning leadership in academic and corporate settings and widely cited research published in top refereed journals. Her recent work includes two books, Peace for Our Planet: A New Approach (2017), and The Trumpet Blast: Removing the Veil from the Advent of the Promised One (2022).

LANGUAGE: English (without simultaneous interpretation)
TARGET AUDIENCE: IE students and any other interested parties

REFERENCES:

Akhavan, R. (2023, April 25). Feminine Leadership: a new paradigm for the 21st century. Mediumhttps://ebbf.medium.com/feminine-leadership-a-new-paradigm-for-the-21st-century-366c0c0cbb67

Akhavan, R. (2024, January 31). Gender Equality & Peace: Why Leadership Should Embody the Feminine and the Masculine. Global Governance Forum. https://globalgovernanceforum.org/gender-equality-and-peace-why-leadership-should-embody-feminine-masculine/

Akhavan, R. (2017). Peace for our planet: A New Approach. Wisdom Editions. [https://a.co/d/hN9k4Su ]

Pinker, S. (2012). The better angels of our nature : a history of violence and humanity. In Penguin eBooks. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BB10522193

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Turning Japanese: An Editorial and Audiovisual Translator Tells Her Story

EVENT: Open Lecture; “Turning Japanese: From a Small Town in Northern Spain to Working as a Freelance Translator and Interpreter in Japan”
WHEN: June 27, 2024 (Thursday), 3rd Period (13:20~14:50)
WHERE: Aoyama Campus, Tandai Room L-402 [(former) Women’s Junior College]

In a talk intended for IE Program students and any other interested parties, Karla Fuji (富士迦楼羅) will talk about how she carved a career as an editorial and audiovisual translator, working for NHK as a translator and announcer, translating literary works, and doing simultaneous and consecutive interpreting at international congresses. Originally from Spain, Karla Fuji was granted Japanese citizenship by the Japanese Ministry of Justice last year, hence her Japanese family name. What did not change was her desire and enthusiasm to continue building bridges between the country where she was born and the one that has became her home. In addition to speaking about her life as an interpreter and translator, and how one can prepare for such a career, she will touch on the topics of identity, the meaning of “home,” and life as an immigrant and self-employed woman with a strong character in a male-dominated society.

Topics to (potentially) address:

  • What is editorial and audiovisual translation and how does one prepare to work in that area?
  • The day-to-day life of an interpreter/ translator
  • Advantages and disadvantages of working for one company vs. working for various entities on a freelance basis
  • Identity and the meaning of “home”
  • Life as an immigrant and self-employed woman
  • The process and reasons for taking on Japanese citizenship (what is lost and what is gained)
  • Having different CVs and documents with credentials/career information to use in order to connect with different needs that companies or other entities might have
  • Differences between the Japanese and European markets for translation/ interpretation
  • How working as a tour guide fits with working as an interpreter/ translator

BIO:

Karla Fuji (富士迦楼羅) wasn’t always Karla Fuji! Born in Llanes, a small seaside town in Northern Spain, she started showing interest in foreign languages and music when she was just a toddler, which is why her parents didn’t wait too long to encourage her to take English and Music lessons. At the age of 17, she moved to Salamanca to study a four-year degree in Translation and Interpreting. Little did she know that choosing Japanese as one of her free elective subjects would change her life forever: she did fulfill her dream of becoming a translator and interpreter —although not exactly the way she had imagined it when she was in high school— and even became a Japanese citizen after more than a decade living in Japan.

LANGUAGE: English (without simultaneous interpretation)
TARGET AUDIENCE: IE students and any other interested parties

 

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Geometry of a Ghost: Guest Lecture by Artist and scholar Wills Glasspiegel

Artist and scholar Wills Glasspiegel presents “Geometry of a Ghost,” a mixed-media lecture that surveys his films, research and community organizing with dancers and DJs in Chicago. Glasspiegel focuses on the history and future of Chicago footwork, an enduring African American battle dance and electronic music. His talk explores footwork through the art of dance filmmaking. Wills highlights his recent collaboration, Skywalkers, a permanent installation film that juxtaposes footwork and the Native American grass dance for O’hare International Airport. Wills also explores the history of Chicago footwork in Japan.

EVENT: Mixed-media lecture by artist and scholar Wills Glasspiegel 
WHEN: Thursday, June 27th, 2024; 16:50 – 18:20 (5th period)
WHERE: Aoyama Gakuin University Campus, 17511 教室 (5th floor of Building 17)
LANGUAGE: English
TARGET AUDIENCE: Anyone interested in dance, performance, and racial justice.

BIO: Wills Glasspiegel is an award-winning filmmaker, public artist, scholar, community organizer, and co-founder and executive director of the arts and racial justice nonprofit Open the Circle (https://otcprojects.org). In 2023, he co-directed Skywalkers, a large-scale, permanent installation film. In 2021-22, Wills co-directed two projection films, Footnotes and Billiken, for Art on the Martʼs 2.5 acre projection system in downtown Chicago. The New York Times published a feature story on Footnotes, and Time Out Chicago recognized the film as “public art of the year.” Wills screens his work in a multitude of contexts, from public parks to art galleries and museums. In 2017, he co-founded Open the Circle (OTC) in Chicago. OTC channels resources into grassroots dance education projects in low-income Chicago communities, including funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacArthur Foundation. Wills spent several years working alongside electronic musicians and dancers from Sierra Leone (bubu music) and South Africa (Shangaan electro) in the late 2000s. He was a co-recipient of a Peabody Award for his contributions to the public radio program Afropop Worldwide. Wills has produced public radio segments about arts and culture for National Public Radioʼs All Things Considered and Morning Edition. He completed a PhD at Yale University in African American Studies and American Studies, with his dissertation “Geometry of a Ghost: Chicago Footwork and the Sound System Continuum.” Wills received a master’s degree in Media, Culture and Communication from New York University, and a bachelor’s degree in English from Yale. He grew up in Chicago, where he lives and works today.

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Talk and Workshop on Sexual Violence

This three hour event, sponsored by TELL (an English lifeline and mental health advocacy organization) and hosted at Seisen International School, will consist of a 2-part program. There will be a 90-minute panel discussion with local experts highlighting various aspects of the problem of sexual violence, such as the potential mental health impacts of being subjected to these crimes and the challenges of pursuing a case through the criminal justice system. This discussion will be followed by a Q&A session with the panelists.

The panel will be followed with a 90-minute interactive self-defense exercise where female black belt Aikido practitioners will demonstrate and teach specially developed techniques based on Aikido principles. If you plan to participate in the Aikido exercise, please be aware that you will need to practice barefoot.

Ticket Availability & Pricing:
Purchase tickets here >> https://tellkif.peatix.com. Tickets are available from April 7th.

EVENT: Talk and Workshop on Sexual Violence in Japan
WHEN: Sunday May 12th, 2024; 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM
WHERE: Seisen International School / 1 Chome-12-15 Yoga, Setagaya City, Tokyo 158-0097
LANGUAGE: English
TARGET AUDIENCE: Anyone interested in the issue of sexual assault in Japan and resources available for survivors and for all to be better protected.

HANDOUT: Official Flyer for the Event

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In Praise of Trees

Due to a redevelopment plan for the Jingu Gaien area, thousands of trees, many of them over 100 years old and storing huge amounts of planet-warming carbon, are slated to be cut down. Groups of citizens and ICOMOS (an advisory body to UNESCO) have protested these ill-conceived plans. Various events have been (and are being) held to raise awareness and rally support for the preservation of the trees and this remarkable green space. This is an announcement about one such event that involves music and artistic expression.

EVENT: In Praise of Trees–An Afternoon of Song, Joy & Art

SUGGESTED DONATION: ¥1000~

WHEN: May 19, 2024 (Sunday), 15:30~17:30

WHERE: What the Dickens Pub (Ebisu) [1-13-3 Ebisunishi, Shibuya 150-0021 Tokyo]

TARGET AUDIENCE: Anyone who wants to support the movement to save the many trees threatened by the Jingu Gaien redevelopment project.

— Refer to this PDF for full details.

Articles to help you learn more about the issue:

ICOMOS Heritage Alert Jingu Gaien

UNESCO body calls for halt to Tokyo redevelopment over tree loss (JAPAN TIMES)

Official Site of “Save Jingu Gaien” (non-profit volunteer organization started in 2022 by Tokyo residents dedicated to protecting the area from a redevelopment project)

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A Playful Year-end Gathering

Three of our IE colleagues have generously offered to be part of a panel on possible classroom applications of Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) on December 22nd from 6:30 PM. A chance to try out a variety of TTRPGs will be made available after the brief talks (described below). Please RSVP if you are interested in joining by filling out this Google Form: https://forms.gle/4ux1Cs7SoAbYn8oLA

EVENT: Introducing University Students to TTRPGs (Tabletop role-playing games): The Good Kind of Contagious

GUEST SPEAKERS: Kinsella Valies, Timothy Gutierrez, and Dax Thomas

WHEN: Dec 22, 2023 (Friday), 18:30~21:30 [Must leave the building by 10 PM]

WHERE: Aoyama Gakuin University, Building 15 (Goucher Hall): Room 15-301. [Breakout sessions will take place in neighboring rooms: 15302 & 15304.]

TARGET AUDIENCE: Those interested in the educational applications of Role-playing Games and who would like to experience them for themselves in a relaxed atmosphere.

Refer to this PDF for full details.

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