Faculty

Western History
Religious, Cultural, and Intellectual History of Medieval Europe

Dr. Akae is a historian of medieval Europe and has studied the preaching of mendicant friars from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries as mass medium before print was introduced by Johannes Gutenberg. Dr. Akae trained as a medievalist at Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds, and his recent publications include a monograph, A Mendicant Sermon Collection from Composition to Reception: The ‘Novum opus dominicale’ of John Waldeby, OESA (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015).

Library and Information Science
Bibliography, Book History, Library and Information Science

I'm interested in the history of printing in Europe, namely the Gutenberg Bible and subsequent incunabula, the transition from manuscripts to printed books, and changes in the perception of books and styles of reading. My special focus has been on the Gutenberg Bible, and I have studied it using digital images. Other research interests include preservation and digitization of books, digital archives, and digital humanities.

Chinese Literature
Chinese Language

I primarily conduct research on modern Chinese vocabulary and grammar. More recently, I have also been involved in the development of dictionaries and teaching materials. I am also involved in research that deals with the instruction of vocabulary.

Japanese History
History of Japan's Christian Century, Chinese Rites Controversy

I research the history of the Christian era in Japan that begins in the middle of 16th century and ends the middle of the 17th century. To research the theme, I treat the letters and reports that the European Catholic missionaries, including the Jesuits and the Franciscans, wrote to their own head offices in Europe. I am interested in the ethical issues of the era concerning worships of God of the Christianity in East Asia, and I am comparing the ethical issues of Japan with those of China.

French Literature
Enunciative Semantics, Lexical Semantics (French, Japanese)

My research field is lexical semantics in French and Japanese. I am especially interested in unified approaches to polysemous items (verb, adjective, prefix, preposition, case particle) and semantic approaches to discourse markers.

Education Studies
History of Education in France, History of Educational Thoughts

My central research is on the history of education in Modern France, especially from the Enlightenment era to the end of 19th century, clarifying the meanings of educational thoughts in the intellectual, social, cultural contexts. Among the educational systems, my study traces changes in the French secondary education focusing on teaching and learning of humanities, and of philosophy. I'm also interested in considering contemporary issues of knowledge and education in the light of philosophical studies and social history of knowledge.

Philosophy
Modern German Philosophy, Philosophical Logic

The main aims of my research are twofold: 1) to compare and connect G. Frege's philosophy of logic, Wittgenstein's early philosophy and Heidegger's hermeneutical phenomenology to each other over the problems of the so-called "metaphysical internalism" and the possibility of philosophical languages, and 2) to depict the thoughts of Aristoteles, Kant (Kritik der Urteilskraft), Heidegger, Gadamer, Wittgenstein, Ryle, Anscombe, McDowell, and M. Thompson as a tradition in the philosophy of knowledge, language and action, which might be called "the tradition of Phronesis."

Ethics
Philosophy, Ethics

I have been conducting research to explore in depth the ideological potential of modern and contemporary French philosophy, especially the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan. Lacan's psychoanalysis reveals the logic behind the emergence of a framework of perception that we call "the world" in the midst of the interplay of various people's desires, and it provides us to rethink the structure of the "world" we now take "for granted". In my books such as "Is There a Way Out for Capitalism?" and "A Usable Philosophy," I have attempted to reveal the framework of thought that defines us at the level of the unconscious various discourses accumulated historically. Since such unconscious structures also define our "body" in a literal sense, I have also been involved in creating works in the field of contemporary dance as a practice of philosophy.

Archaeology and Ethnology
Japanese Archaeology, Museology

My basic concept toward research is to study nearby archaeological and material cultural objects and then to interpret the results in terms of wider historical contexts. At Keio University, and especially on Mita and Hiyoshi Campuses, there are many multifarious artifacts that range from the prehistoric to modern period. I have researched all of the objects I thought meaningful to research regardless of the period. Recently I have primarily studied the later modern period structures and remains at Mita and Hiyoshi, especially those related to the Asia-Pacific War. I would like to conduct 'public history' activities by linking the results of my studies with discourses and narratives told from the various standpoints of many people related to Mita and Hiyoshi.

English and American Literature
Middle English Literature (Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Religious Prose in English and Latin)

The main focus of my research is on religious literature written in fourteenth- to fifteenth-century England. I'm particularly interested in how Latin devotional treatises were translated into the vernacular language, i.e. English, as well as what kind of theological discussion might have been received by vernacular readers and audiences.

Library and Information Science
Ethnomethodology, Information Behavior, Knowledge Management, Service Design

My central interest is in examining and understanding the practices of people from their perspective, following the interdisciplinary approach of the Ethnomethodology’s Program. More specifically, I am interested in considering issues such as sharing, creating, and handing down knowledge and expertise in organizational settings and communities by examining and understanding how knowledge and expertise is produced and shared in and through visible practices. This has taken on an increasing importance as this expertise sharing often takes place in technology mediated contexts.I have so far conducted fieldwork in a number of organizational settings, including libraries, hospitals, and corporate organizations. A through understanding of an organization's practices allows for a more nuanced view of the important issues which arise from knowledge management efforts and in my research, has resulted in the co-design of services and technology with stakeholders.

Psychology
Animal Psychology, Ethology, Neuroethology

The ultimate goal of my research is to understand the evolution of animal behavior at the different levels of brain/body anatomy and physiology, and behavioral functions. To achieve this goal we study crows, a highly social bird, as a model for the evolution of sophisticated behavior in comparison to primates by using multidisciplinary approaches (behavioral experiments/observation in the lab and the field station as well as physiological and anatomical experiments).

Japanese Literature
Narrative Literature, Setsuwa Literature

I research how narrative setsuwa literature was developed and enjoyed from the Heian period until the early modern period.

Ethics
German Ethical Thought, Philosophy of Law (esp. Immanuel Kant)

I have an interest in Immanuel Kant’s practical philosophy, mainly his philosophy of law. I study the connection between Kant’s philosophy of law and his theoretical philosophy or ethics and how this connection affects his understanding of law, and attempt to clarify its implications to the current world. I am also interested in Kant’s ethics and thoughts of contemporary political philosophers, such as John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, whose theories are influenced by Kant’s philosophy.

Psychology
Experimental psychology, Cognitive neuropsychology, Computational theory of motor control

I study the brain function subserving the interaction among body, movement, and cognition in stroke patients and healthy adults by using psychological experiments, human movement analysis, and physiological measurements.

French Literature
Modern Literature and Philosophy

My research interests focus on the authors and philosophers, such as Georges Bataille and Jean-Paul Sartre, who tried to redefine subjectivity under the influence of Nietzsche and Heidegger in the 1930s.

English and American Literature
English Renaissance Drama and Culture

I have published articles on Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, and Nathaniel Woodes, and am now working on a book-length study of Marlowe and the religious culture of Renaissance England.

Human Sciences
Quantitative Method, Social Statistics, Social Survey Research Method, Family Sociology, Sociology of Social Welfare and Policy

My research is concerned with methods of data analysis for both quantitative and qualitative data. Using these methods, I have been researching following theme: relationship between social structure and mental health, continuity and change of marital relationship, structure and changes of one's life course, and so on. Recently I have been concerned with intergenerational reproduction of poverty and its effect on one's life course, as well as the effects of social welfare policy on them.

English and American Literature
Sociolinguistics, Discourse Analysis

Specializes in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and sociopragmatics, mainly dealing with English and Japanese, focusing on the globalization and localization of English Languages and English translations of Japanese language products (e.g., anime, news, business documents, etc.). Published in the fields above, proposing a perspective of the Ecology of Communication, which emphasizes the social, economic and technological aspects of language use. A case in point is what is called Global Text (translatable documentation directed to a global market, particularly in English). In this digital era, English is the mediating language for relay translation of business, entertainment, and news discourses.

French Literature
18th-Century French Literature and Thought

The 18th century is that of philosophy and therefore, the French poetry was dying in that epoch. Can we accept this theory as truthful? In order to re-examine this question, I study the development of Descriptive Poesy, a genre that is characteristic of the French literature of the 18th century, in relation to the anthropology or the esthetic of philosophers like Rousseau or Diderot. I'm also interested in the influence of Descriptive Poesy on the evolution of French poetry since the 19th century.

Asian History
Modern East Asian History, History of Food as Cultural Exchange, and Chinese Urban History.

With Shanghai as my main field of research, I have studied social change in modern Chinese cities, particularly the emergence of a new middle class, mass consumption, and mass mobilization. Currently I have been turning my attention to the cultural exchange of food, studying how nationalism changes Chinese cuisine, and researching the effects of imperialism and colonialism on food culture in East Asia since the 20th century. I try to scrutinize and check by comparing magazines, newspapers and corporate and administrative documents of each city and conduct supplementary interviews to verify specific facts as much as I can.

Sociology
Media and Communication Studies, Diffusion Studies, Social Psychology

Why and how do people use various media? And what do they experience in using them? What factors affect the use of media? My major research concerns include social psychological analysis of media use and communication behavior. I am also interested in the change of production, diffusion, and reception processes of news under the transformation of media environments and media use patterns.

Philosophy
Western Medieval Philosophy

Metaphysics and epistemology in Thomas Aquinas. Analytic Thomism. Contemporary epistemology. The philosophy of religion.

Human Sciences
Social Psychology

I study decision-making in social contexts, with a particular interest in the relationship between the establishment of social norms and human decision-making. My research to date has primarily used laboratory experiments to investigate how people prefer to distribute limited resources among members of society. More recently, I have been focusing on social psychology research that takes advantage of the increasing availability of real-world data and computational resources.

French Literature
19th-Century French Literature

I'm interested in the 19th-Century French Literature, especially in the works of Stendhal, including fictions, biography, autobiography, travel books, political essays and art criticism. Examining the notion of "honor" that appears through various topics such as ancient Romans, artist’s image, custom of cicisbeo, principals of monarchy, military man etc., I study how the 19th-Century writers transformed the ideals and the themes they inherited from the past.