The Asian Plaƞorm for Global Sustainability & Transcultural Studies
Kyoto University

AGST Newsletter

Featured in this issue:‐ International Collaborative Courses at the GSE“Historical Approaches to Business and Economics B” & “International Human Resource Management”‐ Report from the GSL‐ International Collaborative Courses at the GSA“Sustainable Food Systems: a view from Eastern Europe” &“Food Economics and Nutrition Policy in Developing and Transition Countries“‐ AGST Spotlight Interview
Dr. Kjell David Ericson, Program‐Specific Assistant Professor (C‐PiER), Kyoto University, Japan
Published by The Asian Platform for Global Sustainability & Transcultural Studies (AGST)
Edited by AGST Head Oﬃce (Graduate School of Economics)

AGST Newsletter | Autumn/Winter 2021

Graduate School ofEconomics: International Collaborative Courses

Prof. Dan Wadhwani (University of Southern California) andProf. Takafumi Kurosawa (Kyoto University) jointly ran a course
called “Historical Approaches to Business and Economics” inMay 2021. Due to the ongoing pandemic situation, the classes were de‐livered on Zoom.

Historical Approaches to Businessand Economics Bby Prof. Daniel Wadhwani
University of Southern California

The course was divided into four classes. The first class was about themeaning and advantage of historical studies. The second and third clas‐
ses were about microhistory and social science history, respectively.
The latter part of the third class detailed the worldwide historiographical development of business history. In the final class, students pre‐sented their research ideas using insights learned throughout the course.
I found it most interesting to understand the relationship between microhistory and social science histo‐
ry and the diﬀerent scopes in historical studies. While social science history often looks at the bigger pic‐
ture of economic and social developments, microhistory gains insights from smaller case studies, such as
short narratives or biographies. The scholarly focus of microhistory is to provide new insights into broad‐er historical narratives. Thus, scholars in microhistory and social science history can work together toadvance the discipline of business and economic history.
The course provided students with rich perspectives. Although it was oﬀered online, the instructors created an environment where students
could freely discuss a wide range of issues. I would love to join the course again when I have the opportunity.

Shoya Fugetsu
Doctoral Student, Graduate School of Economics

International Human ResourceManagementby Dr. Li Jie
Xi’an Jiaotong‐Liverpool University

Between mid‐May and early June, Dr. Li Jie, associate professor fromXi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University, taught the intensive Internation‐
al Human Resource Management (IHRM) course oﬀered through theGraduate School of Economics, Kyoto University, and sponsored by theAsian Platform for Global Sustainability and Transcultural Studies. Dr. Li Jie
was invited by Prof. Sekiguchi Tomoki, of the Graduate School of Econom‐ics, under the International Collaborative Courses for the 2021 Spring/
Summer program. This course aimed to present key concepts concerning
human resource management in an international context.

This year, we had five graduate students coming from various cultural and academic backgrounds, including three master students and two
doctoral students. Because we had participating students from quite diﬀerent research fields, Dr. Li Jie used simple language to explain
IHRM concepts and theories. Using a seminar format, Dr. Li Jie covered a wide range of topics, including national and organizational cul‐ture, cross‐cultural IHRM, international talent acquisition and management, diversity and multiculturalism, language in MNCs, expatriateassignments, performance management and rewards, learning and training, and global IHRM practices integration. In every seminar, Dr. Li
Jie addressed each topic from both theoretical and practical approaches so that students could have a more comprehensive understandingof the selected topics. In addition, research articles, and case studies were provided for each topic, and students were encouraged to raise
their questions and share their critics during the discussion.
Dr. Li Jie obtained his Ph.D. from Osaka University in 2015. So throughout the course, he also provided students with interesting observa‐
tions and insights about job hunting and career development in Japan, which was very helpful to participating students who inspire to getjobs in Japan after graduation. Apart from lectures, as a young professor, Dr. Li Jie shared many stories, such as how he created ideas to con‐duct academic research or how his papers got into publications. Students who are in the early stage of their Ph.D. journey or those who planfor doctoral studies particularly found Dr. Li Jie’s behind‐the‐scenes stories valuable.
In the final session, students were invited to give presentations on their research proposals. Students gained
constructive feedback from Dr. Li Jie and their peers. It is noteworthy that each student indicated that how
the IHRM course contents and Dr. Li Jie’s sharing of his experience helped to narrow down their research
topic or refine their research proposals. Even students who are not studying IHRM successfully incorporated
certain perspectives obtained from this course to enrich their research contents further or strengthen the re‐search methodology.
Overall, students learned how external and internal environments influence human resource management
and its impact on organizational performance through this intensive IHRM course over seven weeks. The small‐size class has provided each
student with plenty of opportunities to interact with Dr. Li Jie and thus receive useful feedback on their proposed research.

Jiayin Qin
Doctoral Student, Graduate School of Economics

AGST Newsletter | Autumn/Winter 2021

Graduate School ofLetters: Workshop ReportsOn 25‐26 September 2021, the Kyoto University Asian Studies Unit(KUASU) held the 14th Next‐Generation Global Workshop(NGGW), themed “New Normal Lifestyles during/post‐COVID‐19:
from Crisis to Opportunity”. The workshop was held online due to
COVID‐19 consecutively for two years, followed by the previous one hostedby Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.

The 14th Next‐GenerationGlobal Workshop(2021/9/25‐26)

The welcome speech was given by Prof. Ochiai Emiko, the director ofKUASU and Dr. Kono Yasuyuki, Vice President of Kyoto University. The Vice‐President encouraged that this is a valuable initiative under COVID‐19 and that it would be an important opportunity for international ex‐change for the participating early scholars as they have limited face‐to‐face academic occasions.
Out of a total of 55 applications, 38 were selected from 17 universities in 11 countries and regions
including India, Indonesia, Italy, China, UK, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Hungary. The workshop
started from the afternoon considering participants’ time diﬀerence so that those from the EU
can participate as long as possible. Ten sessions were set up, which included “Governance andPublic Policy”, “Inequality and Poverty”, “Gender”, “Education”, “Urban and Rural Develop‐ment”, “Post‐COVID 19 World”, “Social Media and Communication”, “Family and Intimacy”.
Many participants left positive feedback such as: “The workshop served as a good venue to re‐motivate scholars to engaging in research despite the diﬃculties posed by the pandemic”, “I
learned about the current political economy and areas of concern from listening to presenta‐
tions from other scholars from around the world. Emerging controversies and debates in theAsian region were extremely interesting – e.g. experiences of mothers in China, and the impactof COVID on communities in India”.
Submitted full papers will be registered in KURENAI, which is an open access platform to Kyoto University's research and educational
achievements, as proceedings of the workshop.
In order to improve the quality of the workshop, participants pointed out a number of online challenges. These include: “I suggest to include
regular break‐out sessions for the participants to mingle and talk to one another. Networking and collaboration are some of the latent goals
participants would want to achieve and I am hoping the online mode can facilitate such agenda”, “I would like to suggest considering a hy‐
brid format in the future, also in light of accessibility. Beyond Zoom, spatial chat allow for a more “natural” interaction and very helpful withdiscussions and continued networking”.
Since its inauguration in 2008, NGGW has annually provided generations of young
scholars with a series of skill development opportunities, from preparing presenta‐
tions, participating in international conferences, to submitting papers to English‐
language journals. The organizers hope that these experiences help participants learn
to harness their full potential and build successful academic careers.
In the future, the organizers plan to encourage participation from the German‐
Japanese University Network (HeKKSaGOn), established in 2010, which includes Hei‐delberg University, University of Göttingen, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Toho‐
ku University, Osaka University and Kyoto University. This is to deepen academic andeducational activities of Joint Degree program between Graduate School of Letters,
Kyoto University and Heidelberg University in Germany.

Wako Asato
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Letters

AGST Top Global Course
It is a pleasure to announce that six students completed the AGST Top Global Course on September 24, 2021.
They come from the Graduate School of Economics, Graduate School of Letters and the Graduate School ofAgriculture. This brings the total number of students that have completed the programme to 46 since it waslaunched in March 2017. More information about this programme can be found here.

AGST Newsletter | Autumn/Winter 2021

Graduate School ofAgriculture: International Collaborative Courses

From June 3rd to June 11th, 2021, the intensive lecture course‘Sustainable Food Systems: a view from Eastern Europe’ wastaught by Dr. Bálint Balázs, who is the Managing Director anda Senior Research Fellow of the Environmental Social Science Re‐
search Group (ESSRG) in Hungary. Due to Covid‐19, the course washeld online through Zoom, which might bring challenges to theteacher and students, but the result turned out that all of us enjoyedthis course.

Sustainable Food Systems: a view fromEastern Europeby Dr. Bálint Balázs
Environmental Social Science ResearchGroup in Budapest

In this intensive course, Dr. Balázs introduced the concepts andresearch perspectives of sustainable food systems and varied concepts, research agendas, analytical tools for understanding the emergenceand dynamics of sustainable local food. Some evidence of sustainable food systems from Eastern Europe was explored to challenge somenormative assumptions and explanatory models underlying food system scholarship. In this course, Dr. Balázs provided conceptual frames
and videos to explain new concepts and their relations, and organized discussions and assigned homework to students to record the fooditems that we consume every day and reveal how food advertisement influence us. What’s more, at the beginning of each day’s class, we had
two breakout questions to discuss, which really warmed up the atmosphere and helped students get involved in the class quickly.
In the first and second classes, Dr. Balázs explained the components of food systems and taught us agri‐food systems and equity. We
learned three options, ‘exchange’, ‘transfer’ and ‘production’, which could be combined for obtaining food. In the third and fourth classes,
we compared the diﬀerence of traditional, modern and mixed food systems and we focused on the seeds and plant varieties and learned
about the agrobiodiversity governance. Some videos about Hungarian cattle were shown to teach the importance of local food production
and consumption. In the fifth and sixth classes, through the case of seed exchange and seed sovereignty, we learned agri‐food systems andtransformative social innovation. Through the case of legumes in Europe, we discussed the transition towards sustainable food. In the final
two classes, we learned about the food and participatory research, including co‐creation, cooperative research and Citizen Science. And stu‐dents also did presentations about how Maslow’s hierarchical theory of needs was presented in the food advertisements and journals, andthen gave our feedback to Dr. Balázs.
Through this intensive course, students learned to be able to explain the diﬀerences of theoretical and conceptual approaches to food sys‐tems and capture the key issues in the sociology of food. And students also could find and present our own cases to illustrate food systemtransitions. So, students really benefit from this intensive course.

Huang Wenbo
Master’s Student, Graduate School of Agriculture

On July 8, 15, 22 and 29, 2021, Prof. Xiaohua Yu, the Chair ofAgricultural Economics in Developing and Transition Coun‐
tries at the Department of Agricultural Economics and RuralDevelopment, the University of Göttingen (Germany), provided animpressive and interesting lecture course entitled “Food Economicsand Nutrition Policy in Developing and Transition Countries”. The
objective of this course was to understand the research frontier, in‐by Prof. Xiaohua Yu
cluding theories and empirical methods in the literature on food eco‐
University of Göttingen
nomics and nutrition policies mainly concerned with developingcountries. Furthermore, this course aimed to help students to pro‐pose nutrition‐relevant food policies that contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The class was especially interactive,
allowing us space to discuss and learn about other students’ opinions. Therefore, it was not only educational but also engaging.

Food Economics and Nutrition
Policy in Developing and Tran‐sition Countries

Firstly, Professor Yu introduced the main problems related to agriculture such as hunger, low farmer income, poverty and the challenge of“high quality development”. Related to this, he explained the SDGs in detail, providing space to discuss the advantages and disadvantages ofvarious SDGs, such as the feasibility of Goal 1 (No Poverty), including how information technologies and Artificial Intelligence might play arole, and Goal 2 (Zero Hunger), debating whether we should utilize GM crops to achieve the Goal.
Secondly, Prof. Yu taught us the relationships between nutrition and the SDGs. He showed each country’s nutrition status such as stunting,wasting, overweight, obesity, diabetes, breastfeeding for children and anemia for women. After that, Prof. Yu elaborated on the backgroundof hunger, malnutrition and poverty in developing countries.
Thirdly, Prof. Yu taught several methods that can be utilized to evaluate nutrition demands. For example, he taught us how to calculate
calorie intake from food consumption data. In order to deepen our understanding on this topic, we were assigned to make a final presenta‐tion on the final day, in which we introduced previous research related to nutrition.
This intensive and interactive course was educational for us students. Through this course, we not only cultivated critical thinking skills
about key issues but also improved their understanding of the research frontier and main methodologies utilized in the literature on food,nutrition and poverty.

Hiroto Suzuki
Master’s Student, Graduate School of Agriculture

AGST Newsletter | Autumn/Winter 2021

AGST Spotlight Interview
Dr. Kjell David Ericson
Program‐Specific Assistant Professor (C‐PiER) ,Kyoto University, Japan+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Q1: Please let us know how
you got involved with Kyoto
University. What was yourimpression(s) about Kyoto
and/or Kyoto University?
Dr. Ericson: I came to Kyoto
University in the summer of2017 as a Japan Society for thePromotion of Science postdoc‐
toral researcher and joined C‐
PiER from the 2018 academicyear. Although I’d previously
made shorter visits to see thesights in Kyoto, what continues to impress me as a resident
is the wide variety of neighborhoods and the ease of getting
around the city on foot or by bicycle. Thinking back on it, I
realize that I hadn’t ever visited Kyoto University before I
began working here. Since then, I’ve made it a small personal
goal to visit as many of the university’s more than 40 librar‐ies as possible. There are still quite a few more to go.
Q2: You have been teaching with us in the Joint De‐
gree Master of Arts Program in Transcultural Studies(JDTS) since 2018. What do you like about the program?
Is there any suggestion(s) for its improvement?
Dr. Ericson: The JDTS Program oﬀers a number of pro‐ductive challenges and opportunities to students. In one
sense, there are crucial challenges in the realm of everyday
life: getting used to living, studying, and even doing original
research in multiple environments. In another sense, pre‐cisely because the program is structured around physical andconceptual movements, students have the opportunity (and,in a certain sense, the obligation) to ask questions that one
might not ask if one were based at a single institution. Dueto the ongoing pandemic, we wait to see what the shape of
those pedagogical movements will look like moving forward.
Q3: Please let us know about your future professional
projects and academic perspective/goals.
Dr. Ericson: My future academic goals for teaching andresearching at Kyoto University increasingly involve collabo‐rations with scholars working outside Japan. With the sup‐port of joint project funding, I’ve recently developed a course
in transnational Japanese history together with a colleague
at the University of Zurich. The course will incorporate theo‐
retical and methodological readings along with “hands‐on”
Zoom workshops in which Kyoto‐ and Zurich‐based students
will work together using multilingual primary sources. Since
the start of the pandemic, I’ve also begun a transcultural re‐search project in environmental history with a professor in
the United States. Our project, which we just previewed atthe 2021 East Asian Environmental History Conference(hosted virtually here at Kyoto University), examines thetwentieth‐century transplantation of edible oysters between
Northeastern Japan and the North American Pacific North‐west.
Mitsuyo Wada‐Marciano
Professor, Graduate School of Letters

JOINT DEGREE MASTER IN
TRANSCULTURAL STUDIESTranscultural Studies constitute a new research field in thehumanities and social sciences that seeks to address thechallenges posed by global connectivity to existing disci‐plines and frames of knowledge. In Japan, Kyoto University
has instituted the first and until now only major in the coun‐try for this area of study, which is also the first international
joint degree in the humanities. The Joint Degree Master ofArts in Transcultural Studies (JDTS) is an English language,
research‐oriented master program that combines interdisci‐
plinary education with a transregional focus predominantly
on East, South, and South‐East Asia as well as Europe.
Building on the strengths of both institutions, the Gradu‐
ate School of Letters (GSL) of Kyoto University and the Hei‐delberg Centre for Transcultural Studies (HCTS) of Heidel‐
berg University, this jointly conducted graduate program
oﬀers students access to an interdisciplinary field in the hu‐
manities and social sciences to study and research transcul‐tural dynamics between and within Asia and Europe in a
global context.
After a basic introduction into the theories and concepts ofa transcultural approach, students will choose one of threestudy foci “Knowledge, Belief and Religion” (KBR), “Society,Economy and Governance” (SEG), or “Visual, Media and Ma‐
terial Culture” (VMC). Students enrolled in this program will
spend one year at their home institution, the university
where they enrolled infirst, and one year at thepartner university, while
being supervised by aca‐
demic staﬀ from both in‐stitutions. The program
completes with the suc‐cessful submission of amaster thesis in English inaccordance with interna‐
tional academic standards.

AGST Newsletter | Autumn/Winter 2021