Special summer event!
Our next cafe will take place on Thursday, August 24th, 2023 (19:30 - 21:15) at Ryozan Park Lounge, near Sugamo Station on the JR Yamanote line.
Our next cafe will take place on Thursday, August 24th, 2023 (19:30 - 21:15) at Ryozan Park Lounge, near Sugamo Station on the JR Yamanote line.
Bringing arts and humanities research to a broader audience.
Artists, authors, activists and academics giving free, lively, and accessible talks in English.
Artists, authors, activists and academics giving free, lively, and accessible talks in English.
Join our mailing list below for more details about future cafes!
Speakers at THC 14
(Thursday, August 24th, 2023)
Catherine Harrington
(Tokyo University of the Arts)
"Dream Machines: Dreams, Art, and Thinking the Impossible"
about CATHERINE
Catherine Harrington was trained as an artist and art historian at Goldsmiths College and Leeds University in the UK, and now lives and works in Japan while teaching at Tokyo University of the Arts. Working across various mediums including writing, curation, performance, drawing, and photography; Harrington’s practice treads at the perimeters of myth, science, ritual and art-politics. Harrington has exhibited and curated in the UK and internationally: at FA projects, London, UK (artist); the Cattle Depot Gallery, Hong Kong (artist, curator); NW Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark (curator); Halle 14, Leipzig, Germany (curator); Datsuijo, Tokyo, Japan (curator); Launch Pad Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (artist); BUoY, Tokyo, Japan (curator); among others. In current research, Harrington is walking through the symbols, cultural imaginings and monuments of the Anthropocene to ask questions about how the character of life, culture and contemporary art may be transforming under capitalism; through new technologies; and in confrontation with the urgent human and nonhuman crises of the present moment.
Dream Machines: Dreams, Art and Thinking the Impossible
Dreaming is often seen as a space of individual liberation, and artists across time from Leonora Carrington, and Claude Cahun to Carolee Schneeman and Pauline Oliveros have mediated the act of dreaming, dream-states and personal dreamscapes into the sculptural, performative and the sonic. Works within this domain such as Susan Hiller’s “Dream Mapping”, Mia Imani Harrison’s “Soil is an inscribed body”, and Refik Anadol’s “Dream Machine” also offer access-points into possibilities of shared dreaming through border-crossings of self and other, self and AI machine; or collective re-imaginings to counter everyday oppressions.
In this talk, I will navigate selected artistic practices on dreaming from individual dreamscapes, and communal dreaming; to the blurring of dream life and waking life. In the process, I will also introduce my own artistic and curatorial practices in this area, including the recent project, “Atlas of a Dream Volcano” that platforms the contemporary practices of Alexandra Ruppert upon whose book the show is based, and emerging artists Hyejung Jo, Jean Lemonnier and Qiu-cheng Xu.
While journeying from the artistic, to the curatorial, I will delve into theories around dreaming, art practice and the unconscious. This ranges from ruminations on how art-mediated dreams may actually change the un/consciousness of art viewers, to the work of Carl Jung and the useful thread that Simon O’Sullivan weaves from Jung to Justin Barton’s work to suggest how a dream itself might operate as an art “object” and a technology to think the impossible; grasping visions (though, perhaps brief) of alternate socio-political lifeworlds.
Dream Machines: Dreams, Art and Thinking the Impossible
Dreaming is often seen as a space of individual liberation, and artists across time from Leonora Carrington, and Claude Cahun to Carolee Schneeman and Pauline Oliveros have mediated the act of dreaming, dream-states and personal dreamscapes into the sculptural, performative and the sonic. Works within this domain such as Susan Hiller’s “Dream Mapping”, Mia Imani Harrison’s “Soil is an inscribed body”, and Refik Anadol’s “Dream Machine” also offer access-points into possibilities of shared dreaming through border-crossings of self and other, self and AI machine; or collective re-imaginings to counter everyday oppressions.
In this talk, I will navigate selected artistic practices on dreaming from individual dreamscapes, and communal dreaming; to the blurring of dream life and waking life. In the process, I will also introduce my own artistic and curatorial practices in this area, including the recent project, “Atlas of a Dream Volcano” that platforms the contemporary practices of Alexandra Ruppert upon whose book the show is based, and emerging artists Hyejung Jo, Jean Lemonnier and Qiu-cheng Xu.
While journeying from the artistic, to the curatorial, I will delve into theories around dreaming, art practice and the unconscious. This ranges from ruminations on how art-mediated dreams may actually change the un/consciousness of art viewers, to the work of Carl Jung and the useful thread that Simon O’Sullivan weaves from Jung to Justin Barton’s work to suggest how a dream itself might operate as an art “object” and a technology to think the impossible; grasping visions (though, perhaps brief) of alternate socio-political lifeworlds.
Graham Law
(Waseda University)
"What is Book History?"
about GRAHAM
Born and educated in Britain, for most of his adult life Graham Law has lived and worked in Japan. After teaching initially in national universities, notably the University of Tokyo, since 1992 he has been a professor at Waseda University, where he has helped to set up two new international departments, SILS (School of International Liberal Studies, 2004-) and GSICCS (Graduate School of International Culture and Communication Studies, 2013-). After completing a doctorate in comparative literature, he has contributed widely to the fields of Victorian Studies and Book History, with a particular focus on serial fiction and periodicals research. Among his many books, collection contributions, and journal articles, perhaps the best known is the monograph, Serializing Fiction in the Victorian Press (Palgrave, 2000), while, amongst Victorian authors, his critical work on Wilkie Collins stands out. He has also put in a good deal of effort as editor of novel editions and literary correspondence, and as compiler of periodical indices and author bibliographies. Most recently, in connection with his graduate teaching at Waseda, much of his writing has engaged with negotiating the position of periodicals research within the broader field of Media History. His latest book, The Periodical Press Revolution: Analysing the 19th-Century British Media System, will be published by Routledge early in 2024.
Alex MacFarlane
(Tokyo Metropolitan University)
"Reading Medieval Stories Between Europe and Asia"
about ALEX
Alex MacFarlane is a JSPS Postdoctoral Scholar at Tokyo Metropolitan University, currently researching cosmopolitan literatures in the 19th-century Caucasus. This follows postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Oxford and the University of Michigan. Alex is interested not only in how medieval literature continued to circulate across the early modern world, but in its local encounters: how different communities used and changed the same books.
Hanabi Ryusuitei
"Rakugo Performance"
about HanaBI
Born in Japan.
Kanto International high school “Major: Russian language”
Musashino University “Major: British and American literature”
CUNY Laguardia Community College “Major: Hip-Hop of Language”
San Francisco City College “Major: Broadcasting”
Minato-City Tourism Ambassador
English Rakugo Performer
Performed at 2020 Tokyo Olympic Pre-Events, Yokohama International
Festival, Various events in Hawaii, Tokyo Tower, Roppongi-Hills etc
Radio DJ broadcast in Tokyo, Nagoya, NewYork, SanFrancisco”
MC・TV Reporter・Magazine Column
＊ Regular Radio Program
Every Sunday 6 hours live show “Sunday Happy Colors” on ZIP-FM
Every Wednesday 3 hours live show “Reggae Revolution” on ZIP-FM
Every Friday “Hands Up!” on ZIP-FM
Every Saturday Open live show “101 Live @Apple store” on Shibuya-FM
Every Thursday “Miss Shibu” on Shibuya-FM
Radio DJ “ SanFrancisco Radio Mainichi, San Francisco City College
Laguardia Community College New York”
＊ Radio Special Program
Open Live Show with Three Big Screen on Shibuya Crossing
6 hours Open Live Show with Big Screen on Shibuya 109
Joint One on Inter-FM etc.
＊ Works in MC・Paper Medium・TV
MC a Million Audiences Music Festival“Itadaki” / ELLE Japon 30 th Anniversary
party / Uminohi Festival by Tokyo / Honey Beauty magazine 1st Issue party
Column “Love Channel” on Saizen-sen Hip-Hop magazine
TV Reporter in Gunma-TV, Web-TV”
Kanto International high school “Major: Russian language”
Musashino University “Major: British and American literature”
CUNY Laguardia Community College “Major: Hip-Hop of Language”
San Francisco City College “Major: Broadcasting”
Minato-City Tourism Ambassador
English Rakugo Performer
Performed at 2020 Tokyo Olympic Pre-Events, Yokohama International
Festival, Various events in Hawaii, Tokyo Tower, Roppongi-Hills etc
Radio DJ broadcast in Tokyo, Nagoya, NewYork, SanFrancisco”
MC・TV Reporter・Magazine Column
＊ Regular Radio Program
Every Sunday 6 hours live show “Sunday Happy Colors” on ZIP-FM
Every Wednesday 3 hours live show “Reggae Revolution” on ZIP-FM
Every Friday “Hands Up!” on ZIP-FM
Every Saturday Open live show “101 Live @Apple store” on Shibuya-FM
Every Thursday “Miss Shibu” on Shibuya-FM
Radio DJ “ SanFrancisco Radio Mainichi, San Francisco City College
Laguardia Community College New York”
＊ Radio Special Program
Open Live Show with Three Big Screen on Shibuya Crossing
6 hours Open Live Show with Big Screen on Shibuya 109
Joint One on Inter-FM etc.
＊ Works in MC・Paper Medium・TV
MC a Million Audiences Music Festival“Itadaki” / ELLE Japon 30 th Anniversary
party / Uminohi Festival by Tokyo / Honey Beauty magazine 1st Issue party
Column “Love Channel” on Saizen-sen Hip-Hop magazine
TV Reporter in Gunma-TV, Web-TV”
Location
RYOZAN PARK LOUNGE
〒170-0002 東京都豊島区巣鴨1-6-6 東邦ホワイトテラス1F
2 minutes' walk from JR Sugamo Station (Yamanote line)
5 minutes' walk from Komagome Metro (Namboku line)
〒170-0002 東京都豊島区巣鴨1-6-6 東邦ホワイトテラス1F
2 minutes' walk from JR Sugamo Station (Yamanote line)
5 minutes' walk from Komagome Metro (Namboku line)
Admission is free!
(However, the bar asks that you buy at least one drink, so please make sure to do that - and maybe more - to thank them for supporting our event)
Admission is free!
(However, the bar asks that you buy at least one drink, so please make sure to do that - and maybe more - to thank them for supporting our event)
Photos (on Facebook) from our last event in June
Photos from previous events (at our old venue in Shimokitazawa)
Photos from previous events (at our old venue in Shimokitazawa)
Any other questions?
Contact the event host, Alex Watson
(Associate Professor, Department of Arts and Letters, Meiji University)
(Associate Professor, Department of Arts and Letters, Meiji University)
Leave your email address and first name (or alias) below and we'll add you to the THC mailing list. We send out reminders a few times a year to let people know about upcoming cafés.
Needless to say, we won't sell, divulge, or mishandle info in any way.
Needless to say, we won't sell, divulge, or mishandle info in any way.
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