Oct 9, 2024

Adapting to the Effects of Climate Change on Quality of Life

As stated in the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report, human activities are causing global warming, primarily through greenhouse gas emissions, and the Earth's surface temperature is rising. Climate change affects people's lives in many ways, including health, crop damage, and disasters. To cope with global climate change, mitigation and adaptation must be pursued simultaneously. In this course, participants will gain an understanding of the global and Japanese context of climate change, and learn about the impact of climate change on the quality of life of local people and adaptation measures, using Japanese case studies. The course, which consists of four modules, introduces the global and Japanese situation regarding climate change, basic information on the impacts on people's quality of life, impacts and responses in fruit tree production sites, adaptation measures in the field of urban planning and design, impacts on urban infrastructure and assets and their management Mitigation and adaptation through the management of urban infrastructure and assets, and understanding the impacts and risks of climate change on transport systems, through case studies.

Kiyo KURISU (Associate Professor, Dr. (Eng.), Department of Urban Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo) Akito Murayama (Professor, Ph.D. in Urban Engineering, Department of Urban Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo) Junya Yamasaki (Assistant Professor, Department of Urban Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo)

Sep 18, 2017

Words Spun Out of Images: Visual and Literary Culture in Nineteenth Century Japan

In their ambition to capture “real life,” Japanese painters, poets, novelists and photographers of the nineteenth century collaborated in ways seldom explored by their European contemporaries. This course offers learners the chance to encounter and appreciate behavior, moral standards and some of the material conditions surrounding Japanese artists in the nineteenth century, in order to renew our assumptions about what artistic “realism” is and what it meant. Learners will walk away with a clear understanding of how society and the individual were conceived of and represented in early modern Japan. Unlike contemporary western art forms, which acknowledge their common debt as “sister arts” but remain divided by genre and discourse, Japanese visual and literary culture tended to combine, producing literary texts inspired by visual images, and visual images which would then be inscribed with poems and prose. Noticing and being able to interpret this indivisibility of visual/literary cultures is essential in understanding the social and psychological values embedded within the beauty of Japanese art.

Robert CAMPBELL (Emeritus Professor)

Feb 5, 2026

Visual and auditory perception - How we see and hear the external world

In this course, we will explore the mechanisms of sensory information processing and the distinctive features of vision and hearing from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience. Light from the external world enters the eyes and becomes a mental experience of “seeing,” and sound entering the ears becomes the experience of hearing. These processes involve converting physical stimuli into neural activity in the brain. The course features video materials such as a dissection experiment using a pig’s eyeball, EEG recordings with human participants, and a field experiment demonstrating the mosquito sound phenomenon. Each sensory organ will also be explained three-dimensionally using 3D computer graphics. Please note: The lecture includes footage of a pig’s eyeball dissection, which may be uncomfortable for some viewers.

Mar 30, 2018

Basic Analytical Chemistry

Analytical chemistry takes a prominent position among all fields of experimental sciences, ranging from fundamental studies of Nature to industrial or clinical applications.Analytical chemistry covers the fundamentals of experimental and analytical methods and the role of chemistry around us. This course introduces the principles of analytical chemistry and provides how these principles are applied in chemistry and related disciplines - especially in life sciences, environmental sciences and geochemistry. This course, regardless of your background, will teach you fundamental analytical concepts and their practical applications. By the end of the course, you will deeply understand analytical methodologies in a systematic manner. Finally, this course will help you develop critical, independent reasoning that you can apply to new problems in chemistry and its related fields. This course is for anyone interested in analytical sciences.

OZAWA Takeaki (Professor, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo) CHIU Liang-da (Project Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo)