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Grasping for the Periphery: Ethnographic Imaginaries and Media Ecologies of Place in Late High-Growth Era Japan
No full textThis dissertation examines how media infrastructure reshaped popular perceptions of distant and peripheral sites in postwar Japan. It explores how media practitioners—across literature, film, television, and print—engaged with these regions to respond to emerging social, cultural, and ecological crises. Focusing on media production in historically “peripheralized” regions and former colonial sites during following the period of high economic growth, I trace how these spaces were materially transformed and mediated as sites of epistemological crisis and national reimagination. Through a close analysis of the “ethnography boom” of the 1970s, I examine how peripheral regions, former colonial holdings, and marginalized communities became focal points within Japan’s national imagination. I argue that these highly mediatized spaces—what I term “media ecologies of place”—played a critical role in shaping evolving notions of identity, space, and belonging. Utilizing a combined approach of structural analysis and close reading within the frameworks of media theory and cultural history, I explore how media creators experimented with ethnographic imaginaries across a wide range of intersecting—and at times oppositional—formats and genres. I contend that these media ecologies offer valuable insight into the emergence of new epistemologies of space, connectivity, national territory, and community. These frameworks continue to shape how “place” is experienced and imagined in contemporary Japan.
In each chapter of this project, I attend to the case study of a different kind of “peripheralized site” and core media genre to investigate how ethnographic and structuralist theories of cultural production were taken up by creators working across a variety of mediums to self-reflexively critique the structures of knowledge production at the heart of Japan’s modern consciousness. Chapter 1 examines the transformation of minicomi magazines and regional literature through the work of Kyushu-based writer Morisaki Kazue. Drawing on the structure of ethnographic works by canonical figures of modern Japanese thought, particularly Yanagita Kunio, Morisaki self-reflexively interrogated the intersections of language, cultural ideology, and modern consciousness. In tracing Morisaki’s shifting approach to documentary literature culminating in her 1973 work Gods of the Abyss: A Spiritual History of Coal Mine Labor, I consider how regional print cultures appropriated ethnographic frameworks to challenge dominant narratives of cultural homogeneity and historical continuity. Chapter 2 analyzes the documentary programs and theory of Konno Tsutomu, a co-founder of Japan’s first independent television production company, Terebi Man Union. Examining the breakout documentary travel series I Want to Go Far Away (1970-), I demonstrate how the concept of “place-ticity” (genbasei) emerged as a critical heuristic through which media practitioners responded to the creative and ethical demands of television production amid intense social upheaval, networking the spaces of the living room, the production site, and imagined ethnographic referents into new aleatory configurations. Chapter 3 evaluates the manga works of Mizuki Shigeru and Morohoshi Daijirō, tracing how their visual and narrative experimentation with yokai figures haunting the margins of the koma frame served as a means of creatively adapting and critiquing emerging sensibilities of “ethnographic realism” and the uncanny specters of colonial image culture that formed its roots. Chapter 4 investigates media events surrounding the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japanese administration and responses to these mediatic “calibrations” of cultural alterity. Using the concept of “(im)mobility” as a critical lens, I consider how the film Asia is One (1973) by Nihon Documentarist Union (NDU) and Okinawan playwright Chinen Seishin’s metatextual stage production The Human Pavilion (1976) negotiated the flows and constraints of ethnocultural subjects within an increasingly mediated nation-state, proposing spatial and temporal “counter-networks” to the models of alterity and belonging molded by the postwar state. I conclude with a brief discussion of the (re)institutionalization and operationalization of these ethnographic media imaginaries in the late 1970s, exemplified by the founding of The National Museum of Ethnology, or Minpaku, and the civilizational theories espoused by its first director-general, media theorist Umesao Tadao.East Asian Languages and Civilization
Developing a Strong and Durable Universal Self-Etching Adhesive Resin Agent.
No full textConventional methacrylate-based dental adhesives are prone to hydrolytic and enzymatic degradation, limiting their durability and long-term clinical success. This study introduces two novel self-etching universal adhesive formulations that replace hydrolytically unstable monomers with ether-based alternatives—TEGDVBE combined with either UDMA or PMGDM—alongside the functional monomer 10-MDP, known for its strong chemical affinity to dentin. These formulations were evaluated against an experimental Bis-GMA/HEMA/10MDP control and a commercial benchmark, Scotchbond Universal.
Adhesive performance was assessed across key parameters: water contact angle, resin spreading kinetics, degree of conversion, flexural properties, and both shear and micro-tensile bond strengths. The TEGDVBE-based adhesives demonstrated greater hydrophobicity and enhanced resistance to moisture-induced degradation, while maintaining efficient polymerization. Both experimental formulations achieved bond strengths on par with or superior to the controls, and exhibited mechanical properties within clinically acceptable ranges.
These results support ether-based monomers as a viable, biocompatible alternative to traditional methacrylate systems. By improving hydrolytic stability without compromising adhesion or mechanical performance, these formulations represent a promising direction for next-generation dental adhesives. Further, in vivo studies are warranted to validate their long-term clinical performance.Prosthodontic
Virgilian Vision and Voice
No full textThis dissertation explores how vision functions not merely as a theme in Virgil’s poetry, but as a poetic method: a means of structuring narrative, shaping emotion, and producing meaning through language. Drawing on frameworks from ancient rhetorical theory, Roman visual culture, and modern narratology, I examine how acts of seeing in Virgil’s Eclogues, Georgics,
and Aeneid are framed, deferred, and restructured by poetic form. This project focuses not only on what characters see, but on how vision itself is staged—rhetorically, symbolically, and emotionally—and how this visual logic interacts with poetic voice.
At the heart of this inquiry is the relationship between vision and voice, or more materially, between image and text. I define voice not as sound, but as focalization. In Virgil, seeing is rarely direct or complete; it is mediated by memory, grief, desire, and delay. Through close readings of poetic imagery, metaphor, and gesture, I argue that vision in Virgil is not a neutral act of perception, but a site of poetic labor—recursive, unstable, and generative.
The dissertation is organized into four chapters. Chapter 1 lays the theoretical groundwork through ancient concepts of ekphrasis and enargeia, tracing how poetic vividness in Virgil complicates seeing and knowing. Chapter 2 turns to the eye itself, exploring how Latin terms like oculus, lumen, and acies function not only anatomically, but metonymically and emotionally—through tears, violence, sleep, and transformation. Chapter 3 examines visual directionality and movement in the Aeneid, from Aeneas’ seaborne departures to the rhetorical force of volvens oculos and ante oculos formulas. Chapter 4 focuses on poetic images themselves—imago and monumentum—and how vision becomes a way of remembering, mourning, and imagining. The chapter pairs scenes from Eclogue 2, Georgics 4, and Aeneid 1 with Hellenistic precedents to show how Virgil constructs a poetics of visual framing.
Taken together, the chapters show that to “read with the eyes” in Virgil is not to see clearly or completely, but to engage in a process of orientation, affect, and poetic recognition. The project ultimately argues that in Virgil, vision is not simply depicted—it is performed, challenged, and reimagined as a vital mode of poetic expression.Classic
Lectures on insulating and conducting quantum spin liquids
No full textTwo of the iconic phases of the hole-doped cuprate materials are the intermediate temperature pseudogap metal and the lower temperature d-wave superconductor. Following the prescient suggestion of P.~W.~Anderson, there were numerous early theories of these phases as doped quantum spin liquids. However, these theories have had difficulties with two prominent observations:
(i) angle-dependent magnetoresistance measurements (ADMR), including observation of the Yamaji effect, present convincing evidence of small hole pockets which can tunnel coherently between square lattice layers, and
(ii) the velocities of the nodal Bogoliubov quasiparticles in the d-wave superconductor are highly anisotropic, with v_F >> v_\Delta.
These lecture notes review how the fractionalized Fermi Liquid (FL*) state, which dopes quantum spin liquids with gauge-neutral electron-like quasiparticles, resolves both difficulties. Theories of quantum spin liquids employing fractionalization of the electron spin into bosonic and fermionic partons are reviewed. In the early theories, upon doping, the bosonic parton theory leads to a candidate holon metal theory of the pseudogap, while the fermionic parton theory leads to a d-wave superconductor. The construction of the FL* state is described using a quantum dimer model, followed by a more realistic description using the Ancilla Layer Model (ALM). Computations using the ALM resolve the difficulties in both the pseudogap metal and the d-wave superconductor.PhysicsAuthor's Origina
MEDUSA for Identifying Death Regulatory Genes in Chemo-genetic Profiling Data
No full textThis publication requires a 6 month embargo period.Accepted Manuscrip
The Recalcitrants: Fantasy Worldbuilding and Storytelling as a Site of Religious Scholarship
No full textFantasy, as a genre, creates a space where suspension of belief and removal from the familiar allow for unique forms of exploration. Having seldom encountered fantasy that takes advantage of this space to contemplate questions of religion, I began working on a semi-autobiographical New Adult fantasy novel about religious deconstruction and reconstruction. This project has been a process of worldbuilding, character creation, and deep personal reckoning, as I consider what makes a world, what makes a religion, and how fiction makes (and re-makes) us.Author's Origina
Beveridge Beyond the British Isles: Health in Colonial Development and Postwar Visions of Societal Protection
No full textAuthor's Origina
Assessment of the Influence of Implant Design on the Accuracy of Implant Placement Using Static Computer-Aided Implant Surgery: an in vitro study
No full textEvolving advances in the field of implant dentistry aim to continue improving the predictability of implant therapy in replacing missing teeth. The aim of this research project is to investigate the influence of implant body thread design on the accuracy of implant placement using computer-aided implant surgery, specifically comparing the impact of two implant designs. It was hypothesized that the more aggressive thread design of the BLX implant will lead to greater 3D deviation in both healed (type 4) and extraction socket (type 1) sites, compared to the less aggressive BLC design. The study used acrylic bone models simulating a human maxillary arch with missing teeth, and implants were placed using a complete digital workflow and the deviation between planned and actual implant positions were measured using a digital software. The results revealed BLX implants were more accurate in both type 1 and type 4 sites, and also showed that type 4 had less deviation than type 1 scenarios. Limitations of the study include the use of bone models and alloy implant replicas, which do not fully replicate human bone or titanium implant surfaces, though these limitations were standardized to isolate the variables of interest, such as thread design. Although the results showing statistical significance, more clinical research is needed to corelate clinical relevance and formulate clinical recommendations.Implant Dentistr
Regulatory Reform
No full textFor many years I have been arguing, in the OECD and elsewhere, that the post-crash crisis of capitalism has extended into a crisis of legitimacy in the institutional and regulatory settlement underpinning it.
Regulators and other public authorities that were once seen as harnessing the forces of capitalism for the public good are increasingly being cast - by the left and the right - as part of the problem: unaccountable guardians of an economic order that serves the few at the expense of the many. This is far more than mere populism. Much of it is widely held to be justified.
Criticism of regulators is increasing across Western economies. Ineffective and excessive regulations are held to create impediments to productivity and growth, often serving the interests of large corporations and retarding innovation and optimal capital allocation.
Policy makers are neither satisfied with the performance of regulation in encouraging growth, nor in protecting consumers from the harms of market power. They are increasingly concerned by the economic and political costs of substandard regulatory performance; it is now widely accepted that the industries which regulators supervise are responsible for weaknesses of the supply side. Such evidence that exists suggests that markets are becoming more concentrated and less dynamic, despite significant antitrust activity. The rate of entries and exits to markets is declining. Technological advances are now widely held to enable some of the biggest platforms to entrench market power and engage in rent-seeking. Research from the developed world documents the productivity and growth benefits of competition-boosting regulation, and the penalties to growth and investment from regulatory barriers to entry.
Macroeconomic consequences are also of concern to policy makers. Many view declining competition as a cause of inflation and inequality. The IMF and others estimate that excessive profit margins contributed to around half of the recent growth of inflation in several economies. Rent-seeking is also associated with increasing inequality, leading many to believe that global capitalism benefits asset-owning elites at the expense of the rest of the population. This has also been held to inflame populist sentiments and to contribute to political instability.
An important task for those who believe that competitive markets within a framework of regulation are the most effective route to prosperity is to contribute to restoring trust, and by demonstrating that markets can continue to serve the interests of millions of people. This will require improvements in regulatory performance.
Governments have responded to criticisms of regulators by pursuing wholesale deregulation, which poses risks to economies and the public. This is most salient in the United States, where President Trump has pursued action to cull regulations and enforcement capacity in the first months of his second administration (see Appendix 1). The UK and EU also intend to pursue deregulation, with the stated intention of achieving higher growth and innovation. Each of these interventions requires assessment on its merits. Sweeping reforms, such as those on which the US appears to be embarking, carry the risk of unintended consequences. European regulators for example, have raised alarms that the Trump administration’s deregulation of cryptocurrencies could lead to another major global financial crisis.
Addressing fundamental problems in the regulatory framework of Western economies is not - despite appearances - a recondite subject best left to technocrats. Nor can it be achieved simply by reducing the number of regulations. Both the causes of regulatory under-performance, and possible remedies, are varied and often complex. The consequences of under-performance, to both their political communities and their wider publics, will need to be explained over a sustained period, and far better than is currently achieved in many jurisdictions. It is a prerequisite for the restoration of public trust in free enterprise. These problems - widely perceived regulatory under-performance, inadequate public explanation and a lack of trust in decision-making - have been less fully examined, and much less subject to public and parliamentary discourse, than their macroeconomic counterparts, post-2008. But, like them, their main characteristics are shared across many jurisdictions. What follows first illustrates some of those characteristics; part two offers some suggestions for making improvements. many years I have been arguing, in the OECD and elsewhere, that the post-crash crisis of capitalism has extended into a crisis of legitimacy in the institutional and regulatory settlement underpinning it.
Regulators and other public authorities that were once seen as harnessing the forces of capitalism for the public good are increasingly being cast - by the left and the right - as part of the problem: unaccountable guardians of an economic order that serves the few at the expense of the many. This is far more than mere populism. Much of it is widely held to be justified.
Criticism of regulators is increasing across Western economies. Ineffective and excessive regulations are held to create impediments to productivity and growth, often serving the interests of large corporations and retarding innovation and optimal capital allocation.
Policy makers are neither satisfied with the performance of regulation in encouraging growth, nor in protecting consumers from the harms of market power. They are increasingly concerned by the economic and political costs of substandard regulatory performance; it is now widely accepted that the industries which regulators supervise are responsible for weaknesses of the supply side. Such evidence that exists suggests that markets are becoming more concentrated and less dynamic, despite significant antitrust activity. The rate of entries and exits to markets is declining. Technological advances are now widely held to enable some of the biggest platforms to entrench market power and engage in rent-seeking. Research from the developed world documents the productivity and growth benefits of competition-boosting regulation, and the penalties to growth and investment from regulatory barriers to entry.
Macroeconomic consequences are also of concern to policy makers. Many view declining competition as a cause of inflation and inequality. The IMF and others estimate that excessive profit margins contributed to around half of the recent growth of inflation in several economies. Rent-seeking is also associated with increasing inequality, leading many to believe that global capitalism benefits asset-owning elites at the expense of the rest of the population. This has also been held to inflame populist sentiments and to contribute to political instability.
An important task for those who believe that competitive markets within a framework of regulation are the most effective route to prosperity is to contribute to restoring trust, and by demonstrating that markets can continue to serve the interests of millions of people. This will require improvements in regulatory performance.
Governments have responded to criticisms of regulators by pursuing wholesale deregulation, which poses risks to economies and the public. This is most salient in the United States, where President Trump has pursued action to cull regulations and enforcement capacity in the first months of his second administration (see Appendix 1). The UK and EU also intend to pursue deregulation, with the stated intention of achieving higher growth and innovation. Each of these interventions requires assessment on its merits. Sweeping reforms, such as those on which the US appears to be embarking, carry the risk of unintended consequences. European regulators for example, have raised alarms that the Trump administration’s deregulation of cryptocurrencies could lead to another major global financial crisis.
Addressing fundamental problems in the regulatory framework of Western economies is not - despite appearances - a recondite subject best left to technocrats. Nor can it be achieved simply by reducing the number of regulations. Both the causes of regulatory under-performance, and possible remedies, are varied and often complex. The consequences of under-performance, to both their political communities and their wider publics, will need to be explained over a sustained period, and far better than is currently achieved in many jurisdictions. It is a prerequisite for the restoration of public trust in free enterprise. These problems - widely perceived regulatory under-performance, inadequate public explanation and a lack of trust in decision-making - have been less fully examined, and much less subject to public and parliamentary discourse, than their macroeconomic counterparts, post-2008. But, like them, their main characteristics are shared across many jurisdictions. What follows first illustrates some of those characteristics; part two offers some suggestions for making improvements.Version of Recor
Bioengineering Morphogenesis and Differentiation in Human Brain Organoids
No full textThe developmental processes that give rise to the distinctive human cerebral cortex are ex- perimentally inaccessible, and only partially recapitulated in animal models. Brain organoids derived from human stem cells offer a unique window into these events at the cellular level. However, organoids deviate from the single-lumen morphology and polarized tissue archi- tecture of the embryonic cortex, which orchestrate cell-cell interactions critical for normal development in vivo. Here, I develop techniques for culturing 3D in vitro human organoid mod- els of the cerebral cortex that maintain a single ventricle-like structure and display biomimetic polarization of the cortical neuroepithelium. I apply these models to investigate the role of tissue-level mechanical forces in balancing between proliferation and differentiation of neural stem cells. I find that manually inflating organoids by injection of biocompatible fluids to increase intraluminal pressure promotes the maintenance and expansion of endogenous-like tissue architecture. This injection protocol prolongs the survival of apicobasally polarized architecture from the previously reported maximum of 22 days in culture to at least 49 days, maintains this architecture as organoids grow to over a millimeter in diameter, and can preserve the overall single-lumen structure for up to three months. Leveraging the ability of this model to experimentally vary mechanical strain on human neuroepithelium-like tissue, I demonstrate that inflation of ventricular structures in organoids delays neurogenesis, favoring proliferative divisions of neural progenitors at the expense of differentiation. Conversely, pressure release is rapidly followed by an increase in neuronal differentiation. This finding suggests that mechani- cal forces naturally present in the early brain could play a key role in regulating the timing and extent of stem cell proliferation relative to differentiation, serving as a previously unrecognized driver of final cortex size and cellular composition. As a step towards future models that could enable experimental exposure of biomimetic human neuroepithelia to realistic polarized biochemical signals, I also completed the design and pilot experiments for a microfluidically perfused neural tube model. Together, my results show that organoid-derived neural stem cells retain the ability to form large-scale tissues with high fidelity to in vivo histology when provided with appropriate mechanical cues, and illustrate the potential for bioengineered brain models to investigate fundamental questions in developmental neurobiology.Biological and Biomedical Science