Jennifer Robertson, professor emerita of anthropology, activated her pending visiting professorship from the University of Tokyo in September, and is currently in Japan through October 2022, and again for several months after the new year. (Although the Japanese government only recently opened the country's borders after nearly three years, sponsored visas remain necessary for entry.) In Japan she is continuing archival work for a book on popular eugenics in early 20th century Japan, and various projects related to human-robot dynamics.
Robertson's 2018 book, Robo Sapiens Japanicus: Robots, Gender, Family and the Japanese Nation (Univ. of California Press), will be published in Korea early next year by Nulmin Books Publishers. A Japanese translation is pending.
Robertson's key articles published this year include:
- 2022 "Technologies of Kokoro (heartmind): Imagineering Human-Robot Coexistence. Perspectives from apan.” ICON: Journal of the International Committee on the History of Technology 27(1): 53-80.
- 2022 “Glamorized Exploitation: Visual Images of Meiji-period “Factory Girls” (jokō).” Cover design and cover essay. Technology and Culture 63(2): 450-457.
- 2022 “Imagineerism: Kinship, Robots, and Techno-Nationalism. Perspectives from Japan,” pp. 449-466. In Handbook of the Anthropology of Technology, Maja Hojer Bruun, Ayo Wahlberg, Rachel Douglas-Jones, Cathrine Hasse, Klaus Hoeyer, Dorthe Brogård Kristensen and Brit Ross Winthereikeds., New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
- 2022 “From Tiramisù to #MeToo: Triangulations of Sex, Gender and Sexuality in Heisei Japan,” Chp. 14, pp.180-192. In Heisei Japan in Retrospect (1989-2019), Noriko Murai, Jeff Kingston, Tina Burrett, eds., New York: Routledge.
In addition to several media interviews, Robertson gave nine invited lectures in 2022, four of which were annual named/keynote lectures:
1) Inaugural Lecture for a new lecture series on theatre at the Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies, UCLA (7 February, Zoom), “Robot Theatre (robotto engeki) in Japan: Staging Techno-Futures, 1920s to 2020s”;
2) Keynote Lecture, Asian and Pacific Island Graduate Student Conference, University of Hawai’i at Manoa (6 April, Zoom), “Robots, Religion, and Techno-Spirituality in Japan";
3) Marius B. Jansen Lecture in Japanese Studies, Princeton University (13 April, in person), “Digital Hormones: Robotics, Emotions, and Techno-Spirituality in Japan”;
4) University Lecture, Cornell University (22, April in person); “Robo-sexism: Gendering AI and Robots in Japan and the United States (and Elsewhere). Vimeo of the talk here.
Robertson's paper collages have also won top prizes in several nationwide and international juried art exhibitions.
