TOKAI UNIVERSITY Researchers Guide 2020

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My research subject is the relationship between the politics and culture in Japan and the United Sates. My main concern is how the social and cultural change have been reected in the policies and how the dierent groups such as gender, race, age, etc. have inuenced policy making. For example, I am researching the historical process to acquire the equality of LGBT overcoming the political and cultural confrontation. I analyze federal-state relations, the Supreme Court decisions, presidents’ statements, legislatures, public opinions, etc. In global era, Japan is also becoming more diversied society, and it is necessary to nd out new ways of thinking to respect diversity and equality at the same time. ResearchAreasHumanities/Social sciencesKeyword■Gender■Equality■LGBT■the United States Politics■Multi Cultural SocietyRelatedresearchSDGNational Identity and Politicized Gender in Japan and the United StatesProfessorKeiko IshiharaCenter / Research Institute, etc.Center for Liberal ArtsMy primary interest is to lay a theoretical foundation for psychological sciences based on the paradigm of the embodied mind. In recent years I have been tackling the problem of self-awareness by focusing on the pre-reective bodily senses of agency and ownership, which accompany embodied actions. As the research theme needs to be explicated philosophically as well as scientifically, I collaborate with scientists of diverse fields including neuroscience, developmental psychology, psychiatry, and robotics. The topics of my published papers encompass a broad range of issues such as body schema, body image, skill acquisition, embodied self, social cognition, and intercorporeality.ResearchAreasHumanitiesKeyword■Embodied cognition■Body image■Motor skill■Self-awareness■Social cognitionRelatedresearchSDGToward an Embodied Science of SubjectivityProfessorShogo TanakaCenter / Research Institute, etc.Center for Liberal ArtsI am pursuing the theme of how far we can apply evolutionary explanations to understanding life phenomena, especially those involving humans, from a viewpoint of philosophy of biology, at the same time referring to recent developments of life sciences such as evolutionary biology, molecular genetics, or epigenetics. My current focus is on the extent to which adaptationist explanations based on the transmission of genetic variation selected for or against by natural selection can account for prima facie distinctively human phenomena such as culture, language, and the mind.ResearchAreasComplex systemsKeyword■Evolution■Natural selection■Adaptationism■Evolutionary psychology■Philosophy of scienceRelatedresearchSDGHow far can evolutionary explanations be applied to understanding life and humans?ProfessorShunkichi MatsumotoCenter / Research Institute, etc.Center for Liberal Arts134