[Feature: Toward a Campus of Mutual Support] Michio Arimitsu: The Birth of "Being Human" — A New Initiative at the Faculty of Law, Hiyoshi Campus

2023/03/06

In recent years, unfortunately, there has been a succession of crimes and nuisance behaviors involving Keio students. Various initiatives have been undertaken within the Faculty of Law to improve this situation. For example, in crisis management guidance for new students, we have used original booklets and videos to raise awareness about the dangers of underage drinking and prohibited drugs, and provided instruction to prevent students from becoming victims or perpetrators of sexual violence, multi-level marketing, aggressive solicitation, and fraud. Then, in 2019, led by then-Hiyoshi Director Akiyoshi Okuda and then-Academic Advisory Board Director Mitsutoshi Kyo, a search began to see if there was anything more that could be done at the Hiyoshi Campus to encourage the maturity of Faculty of Law students as human beings. As a result, with the hope that students would not only follow the rules of civil society but also gain hints for actively participating in building a more tolerant and inclusive future while critically questioning the "common sense" and "normalcy" of a modern society that is diverse, complex, and fraught with major contradictions, challenges, and conflicts, three new courses to promote diversity were promptly established the following year.

These courses were named "Being Human I," "Being Human II," and "Sexuality in Society I & II," respectively. Although their themes and formats differ, they all provide important perspectives for students to learn about, expand, and reconstruct the modern world through approaches different from the courses already offered at the Faculty of Law, Hiyoshi Campus. I am directly involved only in "Being Human I," and while I will discuss this class in detail later, I would first like to briefly introduce the other two classes.

"Being Human II" is taught by philosopher Professor Ken Nishi for one semester. As the subtitle "Philosophical Dialogue for Deepening Understanding of Self and Others" suggests, students engage in philosophical dialogues in small groups on four themes: "Happiness, Anxiety, Freedom, and Justice." The goals are to: "(1) Become able to sense the thoughts (emotions and thinking) behind the words of others. (2) Reflect on that and become able to sense one's own thoughts. (3) Deepen sensitivity toward both what is common to humans in general and the differences in the 'conditions' under which people live" (quoted directly from the 2022 syllabus). Next, "Sexuality in Society," taught year-round by Professor Mariko Otsubo, is subtitled "Introduction to Gender and Sexuality Studies." After learning the basic knowledge of gender and sexuality studies, students aim to "look at issues of 'sexuality' in the society surrounding them and become able to explain those issues using the concepts and ideas learned in the lectures" (also quoted from the syllabus). As is well known, Japan continues to stagnate in the Gender Gap Index published by the World Economic Forum, occupying the dishonorable position of 116th out of 146 countries last year. Since there are still few classes at Hiyoshi where one can systematically learn about gender disparities, inequality, and the discrimination and prejudice faced by sexual minorities, this approach of merging theory and practice regarding gender and sexuality is extremely valuable. Both "Being Human II" and "Sexuality in Society" have received positive responses from students and are scheduled to continue being offered from the 2023 academic year onward.

Now, I would like to introduce "Being Human I," in which I am involved as one of the coordinators. In this class, the three full-time faculty members serving as coordinators first provide guidance, during which students take a test on unconscious bias to question their own "common sense" and "normalcy." From then on, four guest speakers each give a series of three lectures. The class proceeds in a format where the coordinators respond to the content each time while also engaging in dialogue with the students.

The following is an outline of the guests invited so far and the content of their lectures. First, Professor Junko Mitsuhashi, a researcher of socio-cultural history of sexuality who is famous as one of the first university faculty members in Japan to come out as transgender, spoke for two consecutive years. Her lectures were titled: (1) What is Transgender?, (2) Transgender and the Law: Living in the Interstices of the Law, and (3) Transgender Today: Regarding the "Gender Identity Disorder Act." While looking back at the diverse and rich world of transgender people—which is far too vast to cover in three weeks—within the flow of human history, she explained the existence and roles of gender-crossers in ancient, early modern, and modern Japan (as well as other regions and eras), contrasting them with modern Western sexual discourse that sought to police the boundaries of gender and sexuality. From these three lectures, which crossed multiple fields such as law, art, and medical sciences in an interdisciplinary manner, the diversity of "being human" was felt with a real sense of immediacy.

The second guest was Professor Yuju On, who was born in Taiwan and publishes novels and essays in Japanese. Professor On writes significant works on themes such as the unconsciousness and prejudice of the majority that make life difficult for minorities in Japan, and the complex relationship between language and identity. She has also been an active voice in the media regarding issues such as Japan's immigration detention facilities. Professor On also spoke for two consecutive years, with lectures titled: (1) Awakening to Language, (2) Imprisoned by Language, and (3) Playing with Language. Having moved from Taipei to Tokyo as a child and grown up in a multilingual environment where Japanese, Taiwanese, and Chinese were spoken, and continuing to question the horizons of Japanese literature based on that experience, she began with questions such as: What exactly is a "novelist"? Why does a novelist become a novelist? She then raised deep questions about the significance of using "language" and spinning worlds of fiction, which can be considered a major condition of "being human"—the overall title of this lecture series. Her words, "The belief that there is a world better than this reality is one motivation for becoming an artist," were particularly impressionable.

Next was Professor Ai Hasegawa. She is a meticulous yet bold artist who uses the methodology of "speculative design" to merge art and technology, presenting the futures that technological innovation might create as thought experiments. Her representative works include a project where, after interviewing experts in various fields and conducting extensive research, she used video and illustrations to embody the seemingly eccentric idea of what would happen if human women could become pregnant with and give birth to dolphin or shark offspring, speculating on how such an act would change the relationship between humans and these creatures and what ethical questions it would pose to human society. Other works include a mixed-media piece showing a family album made of composite photos to help people imagine what kind of family a same-sex couple would have if they could have a child by combining their genes, and a project depicting a future where multiple people provide genes to raise a child jointly like "shareholders," simulating conversations with the people who became parents and the children through role-playing by the artists themselves. While explaining the intentions and reactions to these works, Professor Hasegawa demonstrated the importance of critically re-examining the systems, customs, and values that students consider "common sense" or "normal" in a way unique to an artist. Not a few students were shocked by these works, and lively discussions took place after the lectures.

In the first year, another person in charge of this lecture series was Professor Yutaka Nakamura, who studied the lives of people in Black neighborhoods in New York through participant observation and now practices the fusion of art and cultural anthropology while teaching at Tama Art University. Starting with his own upbringing as a returnee student and incorporating anecdotes that stimulate the five senses, he spoke about the fascination of human society from the perspective of cultural anthropology. He also taught students his own method of note-taking (writing facts on the left page and recording fragments of images, ideas, and memories evoked by hearing those facts on the right page), teaching them that there are diverse ways of perceiving and describing human society.

As a successor to Professor Yutaka Nakamura, who could not be invited again due to scheduling conflicts, we invited Professor Takayuki Nakamura from Waseda University in the second year. A researcher of Francophone Caribbean literature and known for books such as "Discourse of Barbarism: A Mental History of Discrimination and Exclusion" (2020), Professor Nakamura provided a sharp yet easy-to-understand analysis and explanation of the history of discrimination and exclusion repeated by humanity. He particularly emphasized the fact that the "discourse of barbarism" that marginalizes and excludes others is not limited to blatant racism or Nazism abroad, but is also seen daily in modern Japan. His point that this is clearly evident in the welfare system, social norms, and social atmosphere behind the 2016 stabbing incident at the Tsukui Yamayuri-en facility for the intellectually disabled in Sagamihara was persuasive. In another week, using the French singer Colette Magny as a subject, he taught the importance of realizing that although they are almost completely forgotten by the public, there have been countless nameless people in the world who held unique philosophies and made their souls shine. In the reaction papers from students, various opinions such as a lack of self-esteem and indifference or despair toward social change were expressed, but I was deeply impressed by Professor Nakamura's stance as a person, taking the time to respond carefully to each of the students' anxieties and concerns.

"Being Human I," which was born in this way, has guests speak about their upbringing and expertise in their specialized fields, and dialogue is born as coordinators and students throw back questions and impressions, leading to various realizations. I take pride in the fact that we have achieved, to a certain extent, the goal set in the syllabus: "to consider the connection with urgent problems in real society while shedding academic light on the history and reality created by diversity." From the 2023 academic year onward, this attempt to promote diversity will continue while partially rotating coordinators and guests.