As part of the ongoing celebration of the III/GSII’s twentieth anniversary, an online homecoming event was held in the evening of October 17th. The event’s title was “‘Interdisciplinarity’ in the Age of Distance”. It featured a panel discussion with two guests, Yoichi Ochiai (Associate Professor at the University of Tsukuba and 2015 graduate of the GSII Ph.D. program) and Ri Izen (Research Fellow at the Institute of Medical Science, the University of Tokyo) chaired by Professor Hidenori Watanave.

The prospectus of the event reads as follows:
Instead of being the year of the Tokyo Olympics, 2020 has turned out to be the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have become accustomed to the concept of social distancing, and the shape of research and education at the university has changed radically. With the demise of face-to-face interaction, much has been lost. However, the situation is not entirely negative. For example, online classes and remote work have given us a degree of freedom from the constraints of physical distance. It is likely that such changes will continue even after the pandemic subsides.

Following the panel discussion, the online participants (as many as 250) engaged in lively discussion on the topic of “interdisciplinarity in the age of distance” from diverse perspectives including those of media art, medicine, and information design.

Text: Hidenori Watanave (Professor)
Photo: Koya Narumi (Assistant professor)
English translation: David Buist (Project senior specialist)