2026 November 6 (Fri) 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm | (In-Person) | Kang Room Room (S050), Japan Friends of Harvard Concourse, CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge Street
Picturing Otherwise: Alternate views of History and Futurity, Religion and Literature
Speaker: HEATHER BLAIR, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Indiana University at Bloomington
Moderator: PAULINA KOLATA, Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University
Building on the speaker’s new book, The Gods Make You Giggle, this talk seeks to reimagine what it might mean—and how it might feel—to conduct research on religion, the recent past, and possible futures. It does so by working with and through a surprising archive: mainstream Japanese picturebooks. In addition to discussing provocative examples of picturebooks and their reception, the talk sketches out promising areas for future research in both the humanities and the social sciences.
Reischauer Institute Japan Forum
LOCATION:Kang Room (S050), Concourse Level, CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20261106T210000Z DTEND:20261106T223000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR