ITALIAN SCHOOL OF
EAST ASIAN STUDIESSupported by

UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDIDI NAPOLI “L’ORIENTALE”

COMITATO UNIVERSITARIOREGIONALE CAMPANIA

Ageing Society in Italy and JapanA Multidisciplinary Workshop

IN THE COVID-19 ERA
ONLiNE EVENTNOVEMBER 13-14, 2020

Photo by Laura Liverani

DISCUSSANTS

Andrea De Antoni
Faculty of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto
Paola Cavaliere
School of Human Sciences, Osaka University

CONCEPT

In the past decade, the crucial issue of the dynamic social andeconomic impact of an aging society (namely, the increase inlongevity versus the fall in fertility in a population) has been theso-called digital divide, or the uneven distribution in the access to,use of, or impact of Information and Communication Technologies(ICT) . Most research on this topic has addressed reducing theintergenerational gap, inﬂuencing the growth of educational
programs for the elderly and the production of dedicated userinterfaces. However, the recent global Covid-19 pandemic has
shown an acceleration in the reduction of the digital divide, allowing
for the mitigation of imposed physical distances through anincrease in the use of ICT. Within this scenario, the dynamic
interplay between physical and virtual distances has assumed newforms, forcing innovative cross-disciplinary attitudes to develop as
well as the design of new perspectives for the future of research.
This workshop, which focuses on Japan and Italy, the two countries
that top the list of aging populations, combines multidisciplinary
research to discuss the notion of distance due to the recent
experience of the pandemic. The workshop gathers scholars andexperts from diﬀerent disciplines and aims to converge theirknowledge on the common discussion platform of how theperception of distance is addressing new research trends inscientiﬁc and humanistic studies.

TO JOIN

To join on Zoom please check the following web page for the
meeting links
https://iseas-kyoto.org/eventi/workshops
You are kindly requested to make sure your name appears in yourZoom account. Please, note that the meeting will be recorded.

IN THE COVID-19 ERA

Stefania Bandini
University di Milano-Bicocca and RCAST – The University of Tokyo
Paolo Calvetti
Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Tokyo
Silvio Vita
Kyoto University of Foreign Studies and Italian School of East Asian Studies

COMMITTEE

Ageing Society in Italy and Japan: A Multidisciplinary Workshop

STEERINGNOVEMBER

For any questions feel free to contact us at the e-mail address
below
29 Bettō-chō, Kitashirakawa
Sakyō-ku, Kyoto
JAPANhttps://iseas-kyoto.org
Phone +81-(0)75-703- 3015
Emailinfo.iseas@iseas-kyoto.org

2020

PROGRAMME
18:00-18:10 (Japan time)

NOV

Giorgio Starace

Opening Address

Ambassador of Italy to Japan

18:10-18:20
Giorgio Amitrano

Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’ Orientale”,
ITALY

Paolo Calvetti

Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Tokyo, JAPAN

Greetings and Opening Remarks

Silvio Vita

Kyoto University of Foreign Studies and Italian
School of East Asian Studies, JAPAN

18:20-18:30
Stefania Bandini

Università di Milano-Bicocca, ITALY and RCAST –The University of Tokyo, JAPANIntroduction

18:30-18:45
Florian Coulmas

Institute for East Asian Studies, University ofDuisburg-Essen, GERMANY

18:45-19:00
Katsuhiro Nishinari

Research Center for Advanced Science andTechnology, The University of Tokyo, JAPAN

19:00-19:15
Laura Liverani

Viral

Crowd Management for Keeping Distancewith a Focus on the Elderly

Distant Proximities: Representations of
the Elderly in Photography

Documentary Photographer, Milan, ITALY

18:15-19:30
Yukio Ohsawa

Stay with Your Community by Designing
Preliminary Encounters

Department of Systems Innovation, The Universityof Tokyo, JAPAN

19:30-19:45
Alberto Borghese

Dipartimento di Informatica “Giovanni Degli
Antoni”, Università degli Studi di Milano, ITALY

Integrating Service Robots and Virtual
Communities to Reduce the Distance
between Caregivers and Independently
Living Seniors
GENERAL DISCUSSION

Discussant Andrea De Antoni
Faculty of International Relations
Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto

PROGRAMME
17:00-17:15 (Japan time)

NOVTomoo Matsuda

How are Japanese Elderly Lifestyles
Changing in the Covid-19 Era?

Platinum Society Center, Mitsubishi ResearchInstitute, Tokyo, JAPAN

17:15-17:30
Atsushi Sugano

Kodo Cultural Foundation, Sado, Niigata, JAPAN

17:30-17:45
Patrick Heinrich

Università degli Studi di Venezia “Ca’ Foscari”,
ITALY

17:45-18:00
Paolo Heritier

Università del Piemonte Orientale, ITALYThe Exadon Project: Blending Taiko with
Medical Care to Beneﬁt an Ageing
Society

Is There a 'Young Generation' in Japan,
and If So, what Sets Them Apart from
Others?

The Paradox of Distance and Closeness inthe Law: Independent Living for Older
People and “Thirdness”

18:00-18:15
Daniela Caso, Marcella Bianchi

Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”,
ITALY

Distance Teaching: The Role of Age on
Italian Teachers’ Computer Anxiety andAttitudes toward ICT

18:15-18:30
Vincenzo Paolo Senese

Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi
Vanvitelli”, ITALYHow Remembrances of Parental
Rejection and genetic characteristics
weigh on depression: A Cross-Cultural
Study
GENERAL DISCUSSION

Discussant Paola Cavaliere

Supported by

Under the Patronage of

School of Human Sciences
Osaka University

ALBERTO BORGHESE

A novel platform will be presented that
integrates a service robot with an IoT(Internet of Things) network, smart objects,
an activity center, and a virtual community, allorchestrated by an intelligent virtual
caregiver. In a robust and redundant way, theplatform provides monitoring, assistance, andstimulation at the point of need. The system ismainly targeted at seniors who live alone andare at risk of becoming frail. Its key
characteristics are that the senior neither has
to wear anything, nor is intervention at his/herhome required. Monitoring is carried out by
combining the data from all components, and
it is totally transparent and unobtrusive to theuser. Preliminary results from home use will
be reported and discussed.

N. Alberto Borghese is full
professor and head of the
Applied Intelligent Systems
Laboratory at the Departmentof Computer Science,
Università degli Studi di Milano.
His research is based on
designing, developing, andtesting real-world problems,
methods, and algorithms,
based on computational
intelligence, paying particularattention to limited processing
time. He has developed a novel
methodology and technology
in the fields of motion capture,
unobtrusive tracking, sensor
integration, and e-health. He is
co-author of more thanseventy peer-reviewed journal
papers and one hundredconference papers, and heholds sixteen international
patents. His research has been
financed significantly byindustry and by national andEuropean grants and projects
such as CNR Robocare, MIUR
SI_Robotics, EU-FITREHAB,EU-REWIRE, EU-MOVECARE,
and EU-ESSENCE.

I N V I T E D

Integrating Service Robots
and Virtual Communities to
Reduce the Distance Between
Caregivers and Independently
Living Seniors

L E C T U R E R S

Dipartimento di Informatica “Giovanni Degli Antoni”, Università degli Studi di Milano, ITALYDANIELA CASO - MARCELLA BIANCHIThe study of the integration of Information
and Communication Technologies (ICT) in theprofessional practice of teachers is an
important field in the growing diffusion of new
digital technologies. While there is muchevidence that ICT can represent a usefuleducational tool, for instance helping students
visualize abstract ideas and simplify thecollection of reliable information, researchers
have found that in practice teachers can often
be reluctant to actually integrate ICT. Theinternational emergency caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic has proved challenging
for teachers from different countries who
must now rely only on the use of ICT but
without having received any training. Previous
research investigating the impact of age onteachers’ attitudes toward ICT showed
contrasting findings, suggesting theimportance of further studies in this field. We
examine the attitudes of a group of Italianteachers toward ICT during the period of
imposed distance teaching, and consider the
impact of age.

Daniela Caso is associate
professor in social psychology
in the Department of
Humanities at the University of
Naples Federico II. She iscurrently Vice President of the
Italian Association of Health
Psychology (SIPSA). Her
academic interests concern the
study of socio-cognitive models
for changing health,pro-environmental, andpurchasing behaviors, mainly
through Ajzen’s Theory ofPlanned Behavior (1991);
communication studies, withparticular reference to theevaluation of the effectivenessof persuasive messages aimed
at behavioral change; and thestudy of personal and social
identity, enhancing research inonline identity construction. Her
main field is social healthpsychology, mainly applying
quantitative methodologies andemploying
research-intervention in theschool, health, and community
contexts.

Marcella Bianchi is currently a
trainee in social psychology in
the Department of Humanities
at the University of Naples
Federico II, and is aiming tocontinue her research by
pursuing a PhD. Her researchinterests concern the study ofthe impact of digital technology
on human wellbeing through a
psychosocial lens, withparticular reference to aspectsof risk and opportunity.

I N V I T E D

Distance Teaching: The Roleof Age on Italian Teachers’
Computer Anxiety andAttitudes toward ICT

L E C T U R E R S

Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”, ITALYFLORIAN COULMAS
Institute for East Asian Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen, GERMANY

Florian Coulmas is seniorprofessor of Japanese society
and sociolinguistics in the
Faculty of Social Sciences at
Duisburg-Essen University. As
Director of the German
Institute of Japanese Studies inTokyo (2004–2014), he
conducted research on the
aging population andhappiness/life satisfaction. He
is currently heading a research
project about migration,
language, and happiness. His
recent publications include
Identity: A Very ShortIntroduction (Oxford University
Press, 2019); An Introduction
to Multilingualism: Language ina Changing World (Oxford
University Press, 2017);
Guardians of Language: Twenty
Voices Through History (Oxford
University Press, 2016); Tokio.
Vom Glück urbanen Lebens (C.
H. Beck, 2014); and Writing
and Society (Cambridge
University Press, 2013;
Chinese translation: 文字与社会导论 外语教学与研究出版,2019).

I N V I T E D

Even before the pandemic, we were out ofbreath and chained to the Internet. COVID-19
has amplified that many times over, forcing us
into everyday contradictions. I hate toconverse with my friends and colleagues
online; yet, I do it, faute de mieux. I know thatproviders of online conference tools abuse
their customers by exploiting the data theycannot but make accessible to them; yet, I
take part in online conferences like this one.
How do others think about this dilemma? Do
they think about it at all? When the pandemic
could no longer be played down I decided toask people around the world to answer somequestions—online, of course. The resultant
survey is in no way representative, but theanswers that participants from all inhabited
continents offered are interesting
nonetheless. In this paper, I will report onsome of the findings.

L E C T U R E R S

Viral

PATRICK HEINRICH“Generation” or “youth” are concepts that areoften discussed, albeit not always in strict
academic terms. I will first introduce asociological definition of “generation” andthen apply this concept to a discussion ofyouth in contemporary Japan. I argue that
there is a young generation in Japan that isfundamentally different from previous
generations in postwar Japan. The defining
event for this young generation in Japan is not
Fukushima but the bursting of the economic
bubble. The subsequent economic stagnation,and the change in opportunities for young
people, caused a dénouement of thecontradictions in how Japan has been
popularly imagined and the actual lives ofyoung people in the Heisei period. The way inwhich the young generation makes sense ofcontemporary Japan does not mean that
there is a conflict or opposition with older
generations. Young people in Japan today areat pains to make the transition into adulthood.
The classic pathway into adulthood, gaining
independence and responsibility, is blocked
for an increasing number of young Japanese.
As a result, a number of ambitions, lifestyles,
partnership patterns, and so on, are changing.
This is often held against the young
generation, but I want to show that many
have had no choice. They have been born into
this. They were raised in a society that isfundamentally different to that of their parents
when they were young.

Patrick Heinrich is associate
professor in the Department of
Asian and Mediterranean
African Studies at Ca’ Foscari
University of Venice. Before
joining Ca’ Foscari, he taught
at universities in Germany(Duisburg-Essen University)
and Japan (Dokkyo University).
His present research interests
focus on sociolinguistics, inparticular on language
endangerment and oncommunication in the city. His
recent publications (as editor)
include The Routledge
Handbook of JapaneseSociolinguistics (Routledge,2019), Being Young inSuper-aging Japan (Taylor &Francis, 2018), Urban
Sociolinguistics: The City as a
Linguistic Process andExperience (Routledge, 2017),
and the Handbook of the
Ryukyuan Languages (DeGruyter Mouton, 2015). He iscurrently working on alanguage documentation
project on Yonaguni Island in
Okinawa and is editing a bookon language and happiness.

I N V I T E D

Is There a 'Young Generation'
in Japan, and If So, what Sets
Them Apart from Others?

L E C T U R E R S

Dipartimento di Studi sull'Asia e sull'Africa Mediterranea, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, ITALYPAOLO HERITIERThe UN Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities (CRPD) aims to remove
barriers to promote full inclusion andparticipation in society for disabled people.
That shift could be equally warranted
concerning older persons, especially when
considering disability and aging. The absenceof an international convention on the rights ofolder persons indicates that countries lackspecific guidance and obligations to address
older people’s human rights: we need a newunderstanding of “elder law” within a
proposed human rights framework. From alegal perspective, the paradoxical and partly
fictional feature of the approach of
independent living appears familiar to boththe situation of disability and aging. Even if theideal of living independently seems, in fact,
impossible in some cases, if taken literally, it
appears to be the only approach capable ofsupporting legal and social practices ofinclusion and the promotion of active aging.
We need to believe that every disabled andolder person can be independent to promote
active aging and avoid abuse. The legal notionof “thirdness” could help to solve the paradox
between distance and closeness, fiction andreality, moving from Sugimoto Hiroshi’s
series, “Theaters.”

Paolo Heritier is full professor
in the Department of Law,
Political, Economic and Social
Sciences at the University ofEastern Piedmont. His present
research interests focus on
visual legal studies,intercultural studies anddisability, and newtechnologies law. He is theauthor of eighty journal papers
and several books. His
forthcoming publications
include “The Reasonable
Interpreter: Perspective on
Legal and Not-Legal Semiotics”
for the International Journal for
the Semiotics of Law; and“Italian Law and Humanities”
for Law and Literature. He has
also been a visiting professor
at the Cardozo Law School of
New York, the Institute ofAdvanced Studies of Nantes,
and Kyoto University.

I N V I T E D

The Paradox of Distance andCloseness in the Law:
Independent Living for Older
People and “Thirdness”

L E C T U R E R S

Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza e Scienze Politiche, Economiche e Sociali
Università del Piemonte Orientale, ITALYLAURA LIVERANIThis paper examines the representation of theelderly in photography in relation to the
distance, both physical and virtual, between
photographer and subject, as an encounter
between who is looking and who is looked at.
Inscribed in a relationship of power that isoften non-symmetrical, the photographic
portrait can be problematic; thephotographer’s gaze, directed at the subject,
can reaffirm stereotypical representations of
the Other. Is it possible to reduce or efface thedistance between observer and observed, toachieve a collaborative/participatory mode ofrepresentation that is able to breakstereotypes? Within this framework, twobodies of photographic works portraying theelderly in Japan will be presented: Japan Pom
Pom (2014), focusing on a team of seniorcheerleaders in Tokyo, and The Sugamo
Lookbooks (2018), focusing on a group ofelderly models from Sugamo, the iconic Tokyoneighborhood that caters to the
fashion-conscious senior.

Laura Liverani is adocumentary photographer
and lecturer based in Japanand Italy. Her work focuses onsocio-anthropological issues
and has been published andexhibited internationally. She
has published in the Guardian,
the Washington Post, and New
Scientist. She has held
exhibitions at the Singapore
International Photo Festival,
the Italian Cultural Institute inTokyo, and the JapanFoundation in Sydney. She has
been commissioned by
Benetton, the Whitechapel
Gallery, and Iperborea; for an
Italian publisher she was
assigned the photography for
The Passenger: Japan, amonograph on Japaneseculture and society. She has
also lectured on photography
at several universities, both inItaly and abroad. She is part ofthe photojournalism agency
Prospekt Photographers.

I N V I T E D

Distant Proximities:
Representations of the Elderly
in Photography

L E C T U R E R S

Documentary Photographer, Milano, ITALYTOMOO MATSUDA

Many people worldwide have experienced
huge changes in their lifestyles due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. This presentation will
focus on the changing lifestyles of elderly
Japanese, and on how big data and AI willcontribute to this change. With the elderly
population making up 28 percent of the
population in Japan and 23 percent in Italy,
both countries are facing a super-aging
society, something that has recently posed a
serious risk. Social distancing has had a huge
impact on the elderly in Japan as they havelost direct and real communication withfriends, neighbors, and acquaintances. On theother hand, online communications are
rapidly increasing through the newly coined
term “IoS,” or “Internet of Seniors.” Newsurvey data on the elderly in Japan showing
lifestyle, behavior, communication, andconsumption will be discussed. A comparative
analysis will be shown between men andwomen, physical and psychological, urban
and rural, positive and negative. Some bestpractices of multidisciplinary views of big data
and AI will be introduced that could stimulate
the future of social living for an aging society
and longevity.

Tomoo Matsuda is Research
Director at the Mitsubishi
Research Institute (MRI) in
Tokyo and specializes in therevitalization of communities
and an active, aging society. He
is also a visiting professor at
Kochi University. He founded
MRI’s new policy project"Platinum Society Association”
in 2010 and almost five
hundred people from industry,
government, and academia
across Japan have joined thisassociation. He has conductedmany research projects withpublic and private clients. He
has served as a committee
member and advisor of theAging Society Forum
Committee of the Cabinet
Office; on the Advisory Councilof Community Planning for All
Generations Cabinet
Secretariat; as lead speaker ofthe roundtable on resilient
cities in aging societies in 2014
at the OECD; on the local
vitalization promotion council
in Kochi Prefecture; and on theniche and top company
evaluation committee in
Ishikawa Prefecture. He is theauthor (in Japanese) of Market
Trends in Japan From
Interviews With Thirty
Thousand People (2014);
Japan-Style CCRC (2017); andBright Reverse Shift: FromTokyo to Rural Areas (2020).

I N V I T E D

How are Japanese Elderly
Lifestyles Changing in theCovid-19 Era?

L E C T U R E R S

Platinum Society Center, Mitsubishi Research Institute, Tokyo, JAPANKATSUHIRO NISHINARI

The modeling of the dynamic distances of
crowds of pedestrians is a crucial issue in ascientific and applied approach for supporting
crowd management activities. The global
emergency due to COVID-19 requires a
renewed focus on dynamic distancing, withfurther studies and computer-based
simulations, and also a consideration ofhuman behavior. When organizing large
events, in order to avoid the spread of
infection, it is important for individuals to keep
their distance in crowded places. This is a newchallenge for crowd management in order tosuccessfully hold large events such as the
Olympics and expos. Some ideas for this are
given in this talk, such as when queuing or theboarding process for public transport, whichcome from advanced studies in the modelingand simulation of crowds and pedestrians.

Katsuhiro Nishinari is a
professor at the ResearchCenter of Advanced Scienceand Technology (RCAST), theUniversity of Tokyo. His
research elucidates the
emergent behavior of complex
systems in terms ofmathematical physics, andconsiders real applications ofemergent systems. He is
especially interested in theinterdisciplinary study of thecollective dynamics ofself-driven particles and its
jamming phenomena, which
we call “jamology,” including
vehicles, pedestrians, ants,
packets in logistics and theinternet, and proteins inorganisms. The jamming
phenomenon in this study is
considered as a kind of
dynamical phase transition
from a free to a congested
state due to instability of flow.
Our research is based onmathematical and physicalanalysis, followed by computer
simulations and experiments inorder to create better models
that show emergent
properties. The research
includes the reduction of traffic
jams on highways, the smoothevacuation of pedestrians,social animals and theiremergent behaviors, andsupply chain networks andgranular flow.

I N V I T E D

Crowd Management for
Keeping Distancewith a Focus on the Elderly

L E C T U R E R S

Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, JAPANYUKIO OHSAWA

According to the speaker’s recent simulations
with a modified scale-free network, it has beenshown that the risk of an infection spreadingis amplified via the bridges between
communities defined by clusters of people
who meet each other by choice. This meansintercommunity face-to-face collaborations
may potentially bring substantial risk. In thistalk, the concept of preliminary encounters is
introduced as an approach toward innovation
under these circumstances in which we livewith COVID-19. As a method fordata-interactive innovation, the speaker
introduces data jackets (DJs) as metadata
representing the subjective or potential
interests of the participants in the data
market. By visualizing the connectivity
between DJs and deepening communication,
people can co-create knowledge and plans inbusiness and the sciences by combining dataand externalized tacit knowledge in their daily
activities.

Yukio Ohsawa is a professor
and the department chair ofSystems Innovation in the
School of Engineering at the
University of Tokyo. He
received BE, ME, and Ph.D.
from the The University ofTokyo (1995). Then worked for
the School of Engineering
Science at Osaka University(research associate,
1995-1999), Graduate Schoolof Business Sciences atUniversity of Tsukuba(research associate,
1999-2005), and moved backto The University of Tokyo in
2005. In the year 2000, hecreated a new domain, chance
discovery, meaning to discover
events that have a significant
impact on decision making. He
has given keynote talks at
conferences and publishedbooks on the extensions ofchance discovery, including theinnovator’s marketplace ondata jackets.

I N V I T E D

Stay with Your Community
with Designing Preliminary
Encounters

L E C T U R E R S

Department of Systems Innovation, The University of Tokyo, JAPANVINCENZO PAOLO SENESE

The perception of interpersonal rejection, thatis of physically and psychologically hurtfulbehaviors and emotions, has consistently
been empirically implicated in a wide array ofdevelopmental, behavioral, and psychologicalproblems worldwide. However, therelationship between perceived rejection andgenetic characteristics has yet to beinvestigated. The present study investigates
gene-environment interactions between
parental rejection (maternal and paternal)
and oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene
polymorphisms on depressive symptoms inadults across two different cultural contexts:
Italy and Japan. The results confirmed theimportance of the quality of parental
relationships (of both parents) on depression
and, for the first time, showed that the effectof primary interpersonal relations is also
regulated by genetic characteristics. Lastly, it
has been observed that this latter effect also
depends on the population considered. Thesefindings align with expected relations between
perceived interpersonal rejection and an
individual’ s mental health, as proposed by
the interpersonal acceptance-rejection
theory, and indicate the need for futurestudies adopting a multivariate and epigenetic
perspective to better understand how theeffects of interpersonal rejection extend into
adulthood and old age.

Vincenzo Paolo Senese isassociate professor in
psychometrics at the
University of Campania Luigi
Vanvitelli and head of thePsychometric Laboratory. He isa member of the PhD program“Science of the Mind” at the
University of Campania, of thescientific committee of the
Italian School of East AsianStudies (ISEAS), an
International Affiliate of the
Rohner Center for the Study ofInterpersonal Acceptance andRejection, and serves as
Regional Representative forEurope for the International
Society for Interpersonal
Acceptance-Rejection. His
main research interests are on
the application of
measurement models in thedevelopment of tests andquestionnaires, and on theevaluation of the role ofgenetic, implicit, and automatic
process on caregiving
propensity.

I N V I T E D

How Remembrances of
Parental Rejection and
Genetic Characteristics Weighon Depression: A
Cross-Cultural StudyL E C T U R E R S

Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, ITALYATSUSHI SUGANOExadon is an innovative fitness program withtwo main purposes: health promotion andpreventive healthcare. Launched in 2014, theinitiative is centered around enjoying taiko(traditional Japanese drums), performing arts,and physical activity. The name Exadon
combines three words: “exercise,” “Sado,” anisland in the Sea of Japan, and the sound of
beating a taiko drum, “don.” Taiko is an
instrument that can be enjoyed by young andold, and people of all abilities. Exadon aims tocultivate a new taiko culture that brings inner
peace to people from all walks of life,
connecting traditionally distant generations
and communities. In the talk, the project will
be illustrated, and videos describing the
Exadon method to combat physical andmental impairment in the elderly will beshown.

Born in Tokyo in 1956, Atsushi
Sugano joined Kodo in 1982
after receiving his masters ineconomics at the University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara. He
has spearheaded andorganized projects both
domestic and foreign, and has
traveled with Kodo to overthirty-five nations around theworld. In 1988, he wasinstrumental in the formationof the first “Earth Celebration,”
Kodo’s international arts
festival on Sado Island, now in
its thirty-third year. Currently
he is the Managing Director of
Kodo Cultural Foundation andon the board of Kodo’s
American nonprofit company,
Kodo Arts Sphere America(KASA).

I N V I T E D

The Exadon Project: Blending
Taiko with Medical Care to
Benefit an Ageing Society

L E C T U R E R S

Kodo Cultural Foundation, Sado, Niigata, JAPANANDREA DE ANTONIAndrea De Antoni is associate professor of anthropology and religious
studies at Ritsumeikan University. He specializes in the anthropology ofJapan and, more recently, has carried out ethnographic research in Italy.
His fields of research include the anthropology of space and place, death,experiences with spirits, spirit possession, and religious healing, with afocus on perception and affect. He has published extensively on these
topics, in English and Japanese. He is the author of Going to Hell inContemporary Japan: Feeling Landscapes of the Afterlife, Othering, Memory
and Materiality (Routledge, forthcoming 2021), and the editor of several
books and special issues of academic journals. He is also the coordinator of
the international research network “Skills of Feeling with the World:
Anthropological Research on the Senses, Affect and Materiality,” based at
Ritsumeikan University.

PAOLA CAVALIERESchool of Human Sciences, Osaka University, JAPAN
Paola Cavaliere is an associate professor of Japanese studies at the Schoolof Human Sciences, Osaka University, and the Associate Director of the
Human Sciences International Undergraduate Program. Her researchinterests are in the areas of gender in the context of disasters, religion, andcivil society in Japan. She is currently investigating gender and religious
dimensions of vulnerability and resilience through an analysis of women’ s
roles in faith-based volunteer groups contributing to post-disaster activities.
She holds a PhD in East Asian Studies from the University of Sheffield, and a
PhD in Law from Tohoku University. She has published several works on agendered approach to Japanese faith-based volunteering and is currently
editing the Handbook of Disaster Studies in Japan (forthcoming 2022).

D I S C U S S A N T S

Faculty of International Relations Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, JAPANSTEFANIA BANDINIPAOLO CALVETTI
Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Tokyo, JAPAN
Paolo Calvetti is currently Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Tokyo.
He has taught widely in Italy and abroad. In 2009 he became professor ofJapanese language and linguistics at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, andhas held many institutional roles since then: directing the former School of
Asian Studies and Business Administration, a member of the Academic
Senate, and then director of the Department of Asian and North African
Studies. From 2003 to 2007 he was cultural counsellor for the Embassy of
Italy in Tokyo. His main research interests are the history of the Japanese
language, Japanese sociolinguistics, and Japanese lexicography.

SILVIO VITA
Kyoto University of Foreign Studies and the Italian School of East Asian Studies,JAPAN
Silvio Vita is a professor at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, teachingcourses on comparative cultural history, Japanese history, and Italianstudies. Prior to 2012 he taught East Asian Religions and Intellectual History
at the Università di Napoli “L’ Orientale” and the Sapienza Università di Roma.
He was appointed Director of the Italian School of East Asian Studies in Kyoto
for two terms (2001–2005; 2008–2012). He has worked on Chinese andJapanese Buddhism, and edited volumes I and II of Buddhist Asia, before
turning to the cultural history of modern and early modern Japan. He has
recently been researching the Marega collection in the Vatican Library within
the frame of a project by the National Institutes for the Humanities of Japan.

S T E E R I N G

Stefania Bandini is a full professor of computer science at the University of
Milano-Bicocca and Fellow at the Research Center for Advanced Science andTechnology (RCAST) at the University of Tokyo. She is Director of theComplex Systems & Artificial Intelligence Research Center and of the
Artificial Intelligence Lab of the Department of Informatics, Systems andCommunication. She is also Director of the Milano-Bicocca Cini Node
“Artificial Intelligence & Intelligent Systems.” Her research focuses on
artificial intelligence and complex discrete dynamical systems. Since 2004
her research has focused on the field of crowds and pedestrians, inparticular modeling and simulation to support crowd management. From2009 she extended her research in the field of mobility in an ageing society.
She co-chairs the working group “Ageing Society” for the Italian Association
for Artificial Intelligence.

C O M M I T T E E

Università di Milano-Bicocca, ITALY and RCAST – The University of Tokyo, JAPAN