Am 23. und 24. Oktober 2026 findet die internationale Konferenz Severing Ties in Japan - Zetsuen (Disconnection) in Japanese Culture and Literature an der Freien Universität Berlin statt.

Program

23. October 2026 (Day 1)

 

Welcome (9:00 – 9:15)

Elena Giannoulis, Freie Universität Berlin

Keynote (9:15 – 10:15)

Between Disconnection and Belonging: Ibasho as a Spatial Mode of Negotiating Connectedness in Contemporary Japan

Evelyn Schulz, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

 

 

Panel 1: Coping with disconnectivity (10:15 – 11:45)

Disconnecting through Connection: AI Companionship and Mediated Zetsuen in Contemporary Japan

Vuslat Nur Şahin-Temel, Social Sciences University of Ankara

 

‘Cozy eateries’ in contemporary Japanese narratives in the context of disconnection: Imagining communities and gentle connections

Laura Emily Clark, University of New England (Australia)

 

 

Coffee Break (11:45-12:00)

 

 

Panel 2: Zetsuen as social regime (12:00 – 13:30)

Algorithmic Zetsuen: Platform Capitalism and Disconnection in Sunakawa Bunji’s Black Box and Ueda Takahiro’s K+ICO (online)

Edwin Michielsen, The University of Hong Kong

 

Cut-Point Politics of Zetsuen: From Maihime to Golden Kamuy and PSYCHO-PASS

Tetsuro Tanojiri, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

 

 

Lunch (13:30 – 14:30)

 

 

Panel 3: Theoretical impulses (14:30 - 15:15)

Undoing Networks: How culture shapes practices of disconnection

Urs Stäheli, Universität Hamburg

 

 

Panel 4: Zetsuen in the domestic space (15:15 - 16:45)

The Work of Letting Go: Objects and Moral Discourses of Detachment in the Japanese House

Chiara Rita Napolitano, Kyoto University

 

Tasting Isolation: Food and Disconnection in Contemporary Japanese Crime Fiction

Sachi Komai, National Institutes for the Humanities (NIHU)

 

Coffee Break 16:45 -17:00

 

Reading by Yoko Tawada (17:00)

Disconnecting Japan. From “The Emissary” to “Scattered All Over the Earth” (in Japanese language with English subtitles)

 

24. October 2026 (Day 2)

 

Panel 5: Hikikomori (social withdrawal) (9:30 – 11:00)

Situating the Psychological Pain of Disconnection: Hikikomori in Hayashi Mariko’s Shōsetsu 8050

Jeffrey Angles, Western Michigan University

 

Hikikomori novels: Tales of Social Withdrawal, Emotional Neglect and Identity Reaffirmation

Veronica De Pieri, University of Bologna

 

Panel 6: Rites of social disconnection (11:00 – 12:30)

Parental Estrangement and Anti-Social Behaviours in the Lives of Cross-Dressing Girls and Young Women from 1880s-1930s Japan

Daniele Durante, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

 

Cutting Topknots, Severing Ties: The Liminality of the danpatsushiki and its Meanings

Christoph Reichenbächer, Aichi Prefecture University

 

 

Lunch 12:30 – 13:00

 

 

Panel 7: Social forms of distancing (13:00 – 14:30)

Avoid causing Meiwaku: Consideration that distances care

Yota Watanabe, The University of Tokyo

 

Disconnection through Arrogance and Virtue

Michaela Oberwinkler, University of Düsseldorf

 

Panel 8: Discourses of disconnection in Japanese media (14:30 – 16:00)

Japanese TV Commercials: A History of Selling Zetsuen

Alisa Freedman, University of Oregon

 

Modern Loneliness and Zetsuen: Intermedial Approaches to Disconnection in

Japanese and Western Discourses

Denis Newiak, Brandenburgische Technische Universität

 

Coffee Break 16:00 – 16:15

 

 

Panel 9: Disability and care (16:15 – 17:45)

 

Invisible Disability and Imposed Disconnection in Kochira Amiko (online)

Sarah Sherweedy, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

 

Talk. To. Me. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Imamura Natsuko’s Kochira Amiko (2011)

Carolin Fleischer-Heininger, German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) Tokyo

 

 

Closing Remarks(17:45 – 18:00)

 

 

Venue: Freie Universität Berlin, Holzlaube, Fabeckstr. 23-25, 14195 Berlin

Room: 2.2051

Organizer and Convener: Elena Giannoulis, Freie Universität Berlin