Events

Time & Location

December 17, 8pm EST
Online

 

About

The Japan Foundation/ Center for Global Partnership  presents a webinar series on Mottainai: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  

Mottainai, a Japanese word encompassing the spirit of getting the most out of everything, took root in Edo period Japan (1603-1868). Today, we will explore food culture in the Edo Era through the lens of mottainai and the positive impact it can have our environment, ourselves, and generations to come.

Please tune into the latest of our webinar series on December 17 at 8pm ET. In Part II, Edo period experts Professor Kamatani Kaoru and Professor Azby Brown will delve into more ideas behind mottainai, a grassroots mentality that was pervasive throughout the Edo period, and discuss the inspiration we can take away as today’s global community.

   

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel here.

 

Speakers

Kamatani Kaoru is an Associate Professor in the College of Gastronomy Management at Ritsumeikan University. Her Ph.D. is in Japanese history and her current research interests are the history of Edo period culinary and fishing activities as well as analyzing the relationship between agricultural activity and climate change.

   

Azby Brown is a leading authority on Japanese architecture, design, and environmentalism, and the author of The Genius of Japanese Carpentry (1989/2014), Small Spaces (1993), The Japanese Dream House (2001), The Very Small Home (2005), and Just Enough: Lessons in living green from traditional Japan (2010). He is on the Sculpture Faculty at Musashino Art University. Azby has been lead researcher for Safecast, a highly successful global citizen-science organization devoted to developing new technology platforms for crowdsourced environmental monitoring promoting open-source and open data principles, initiated by Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster in March 2011. He has lived in Japan since 1985.  

Mari Morimoto has been a freelance translator of manga and Japanese subculture content for over 25 years. She has since expanded her resume to include interpreter, lecturer, and international speaker. She also happens to be a small animal primary care veterinarian. Born in Osaka, Japan, but raised in New York City.

 

Previous Sessions

Edo’s Eco Life for Today: Part I

 

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