The human and life sciences developed rapidly in Japan during the Meiji and Taisho eras as the country encountered modern Western scientific ideas. The changes spanned diverse fields ranging from biology to philosophy, psychology, politics, economics, and the study of religion and was integrally tied to Japanese cultural developments. This working group seeks to explore the intersection of Japanese scientific thought in these areas with that of Western countries. We are also interested in the intersection between Japanese science and the scientific developments within the countries it colonized in East Asia.

Please set your timezone

Participants at Consortium activities will treat each other with respect and consideration to create a collegial, inclusive, and professional environment that is free from any form of discrimination, harassment, or retaliation.

Participants will avoid any inappropriate actions or statements based on individual characteristics such as age, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, nationality, political affiliation, ability status, educational background, or any other characteristic protected by law. Disruptive or harassing behavior of any kind will not be tolerated. Harassment includes but is not limited to inappropriate or intimidating behavior and language, unwelcome jokes or comments, unwanted touching or attention, offensive images, photography without permission, and stalking.

Participants may send reports or concerns about violations of this policy to conduct@chstm.org.

Upcoming Meetings

Monday, November 17, 2025, 8:00 - 9:30 pm EST

For this meeting we will read the following articles, all of which I have combined into the PDF at the bottom of this page.

Hung, Kuang‐chi. “Alien Science, Indigenous Thought and Foreign Religion: Reconsidering the Reception of Darwinism in Japan.” Intellectual History Review 19, no. 2 (2009): 231–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496970902981702.

Setoguchi, Akihisa. “Darwin Commemorations and Three Generations of Historians of Biology.” East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal 3, no. 4 (2009): 531–37. https://doi.org/10.1215/s12280-009-9107-4.

Sullivan, Gregory. “Tricks of Transference: Oka Asajiro (1868-1944) on Laissez-Faire Capitalism.” Science in Context (Cambridge, United Kingdom) 23, no. 3 (2010): 367–91. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0269889710000128.

Monday, December 15, 2025, 8:00 - 9:30 pm EST

TBA

Monday, January 19, 2026, 8:00 - 9:30 pm EST

TBA

Monday, February 16, 2026, 8:00 - 9:30 pm EST

TBA

Monday, March 16, 2026, 8:00 - 9:30 pm EDT

TBA

Monday, April 20, 2026, 8:00 - 9:30 pm EDT

TBA

Monday, May 18, 2026, 8:00 - 9:30 pm EDT

TBA

Past Meetings

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For the October meeting of our group, we will be reading the following for essays and discussing them. The PDF containing all four files is posted below.

  • Matsubara, Yoko. “The Reception of Mendelism in Japan, 1900--1920.” Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan 13 (2004): 232-240.
  • Matsunaga, Toshio. “Evolutionism in Early Twentieth Century Japan.” Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan 11 (2002): 218-225.
  • Iida, Kaori. “Practice and Politics in Japanese Science: Hitoshi Kihara and the Formation of a Genetics Discipline.” Journal of the History of Biology 43 (2010): 529-570.
  • Onaga, Lisa A. “Toyama Kametaro and Vernon Kellogg: Silkworm Inheritance Experiments in Japan, Siam, and the United States, 1900--1912.” Journal of the History of Biology 43 (2010): 215-264.

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TBA

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General discussion about the future of the Working Group.

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Jung Lee on 'Questioning Plant Phylogenetic Tree: Dynamic Indra's Nets from Japanese Colonial Fields'

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Longkai Zang on 'Genjin and Enjin in Japan: Culture-laden Terms in Hominin Evolution, 1890-1947'

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Akihisa Setoguchi (Kyoto) on 'Celebrating Darwin in Japan: The “Success” and “Failure” of the Reception of Evolutionary Theory'
 
 
 

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Bernard Lightman  (York) and Ruselle Meade (Cardiff) on 'The American biologist Edward Morse and his introduction of evolution into Japan'. 

Please note that this talk will be at a different time than usual: 9.30am Eastern on Monday January 20. 

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Topic: Jinshu Kairyо̄: The 'Race Improvement' Debate in Japan, 1870-1890
Presenter: Subo Wijeyeratne
Reading: Wijeyeratne, S., 2020. A Race to War: Japanese Public Intellectuals and Racial Explanations of the Russo-Japanese War. Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 18. 
 
 

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Topic: Evolution, Strategy, and Nichiren Buddhism in Modern Japan.
Presenter: Clinton Godart

  • This Tuesday, I will talk about the Nichiren Buddhists, especially Ishiwara Kanji. This builds further on a section of my book in Chapter 4, which I am attaching here. If people still have a chance to read a bit, please take a look at pp. 119-122, 133-147 (Ishiwara appears on pp. 145-147). Apologies for the late posting. Looking forward to discussing this with you all!

 

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Topic: The Jōdo Shinshū Embrace of Science in Late Meiji and Taishō Japan: Science, Secularism, and Buddhism in the Thought of Ishikawa Seishō and Fujikawa Yū
Presenters: Tomoko Yoshida and Stephen Weldon
If you are able, please read the attached article that we will be discussing during this session.

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Meet and greet
This will be an informal meeting. The conveners will explain how this group came together and what their goals are. This will also be a time for the participants to introduce themselves and explain what they would like to get out of these meetings.

Past Meetings

Group Conveners

Arvid Ågren

Arvid Ågren is Assistant Professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University and Affiliated Researcher at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University. His work focuses on the evolution of within-organism conflicts, including selfish genetic elements and cancers. He also works on foundations of selfish gene theory and is the author of The Gene’s-Eye View of Evolution (OUP 2021; paperback 2023). Together with Manus M. Patten, he is the editor of The Paradox of the Organism: Adaptation and Internal Conflict (under contract at Harvard University Press). He is an Associated Editor of Proceedings of the Royal Society B and BioScience.

 

Stephen Weldon

Stephen Weldon is professor and chair of the University of Oklahoma’s Department of History of Science, Technology, and Medicine. He works on the nature of science in modern culture. His recent book The Scientific Spirit of American Humanism (2020) explores the intellectual and cultural shifts in 20th-century America related to science and religion. He is currently interested in the development of evolutionary ideas and theories of nature in modern Japan.He is also bibliographer for the History of Science Society and in that capacity runs the online discovery tool IsisCB Explore, which you can learn more about here. He works on data-focused projects that push the boundaries of how we think about and do history in the digital age.

 

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