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