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This year we will celebrate the 10th anniversary of exchange between Nanjing University and the University of Tokyo. As the first destination for UT's dissemination efforts of liberal arts education, the TODAI Liberal Arts Program (LAP) has been carrying out Intensive Lectures every year at Nanjing University. In addition, student exchange program began 2 years ago, furthering interactions between the two schools.

This year, in celebrating our 10 years of exchange, we will invite Associate Professor He Xiaoxing, a sociologist, from Nanjing University. He will be joined by Professor Satoshi Fukushima, who himself is deaf and blind, in a symposium consisting of a dialogue between the two and will be held at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo. You are all cordially invited.

Date and Time
November 10, 2011 (Thu) 18:00 - 19:30
18:00 - 18:45 Lecture by Professor He
18:45 - 19:30 Discussion between Professors He and Fukushima, followed by a Q&A session open to the floor.

Place

Hall, 18 Building

■　Overview
It demands our attention that deaf teachers are marginalized and excluded in the field of education for deaf people. The field of deaf education is monopolized by hearing people, and has been no more than an enterprise where able-bodied people assist deaf people to correct their condition. Research has revealed that deaf people, while living in the same environment as their hearing counterparts, inhabit a kind of a distinct culture. This cultural sphere, relying heavily on the visual, has been producing something "akin" to principles of logic and guarantee of order. What we see in this sphere is that words and things, or the signifier and the signified, are inseparable from one another. Hearing replaces seeing as a principal means of recognizing things. Without an understanding of Deaf Culture, "help" and "correction" out of good intentions end up forcing certain people a certain sort of culture. There is a need for awareness-raising on this issue within Sociology. In the present day and age where vision gains increasing importance, by reforming education in ways that rely more on vision and inviting more deaf teachers to participate, Deaf education will be able to better serve deaf individuals.

DOWNLOAD Poster for the Symposium

[Instructor]

He Xiaoxing

I was born in Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province, in 1962. I graduated from the Faculty of Education, Hiroshima University in 1986. In 1991, I obtained my doctoral degree in Education from the Department of Education at Hiroshima University. My area of specialty is Sociology of Education. I currently serve as Professor at the School of Social and Behavioral Science, Nanjing University, as well as Vice Director of Chinese Association for Sociology of Education. Among others, I have written a book Children, Parents, Education: A Case Study of Culture and Education in Contemporary Society in China and Japan (co-authored, Gansu Education Press(甘肃教育出版社), 1998), a paper "Education for and Crimes by Deaf Individuals in China" (Nanjing: Chinese Studies(《中国研究》), 2008), and I have translated a book Against the Japanese Language.

Fukushima Satoshi