Annual Conference 2025

The 2025 annual conference is organized by Andreas Eder-Ramsauer (University of Vienna) with the title: “(Un)Democratic Futures: Japan and Global Trajectories towards an (Un)Equal World” (7.-9.11.2025, University of Vienna).

The goal of the conference is to engage in discussion on the future of democracy and equality (economic, global, and along gender or ethnic divisions) between outstanding academics from Japan and the German-speaking countries. Amidst the attribution of multiple crises, the future has become something seemingly foreclosed to many. Taking up democracy’s roots as a hopeful and emancipatory project, the three-day conference aims at fostering hopeful perspectives, as well as critical reflections on the present. A special focus is put on bringing together experts from Japan Studies and Political Science (in Japan and the German-speaking world) with other spatial foci, to utilize the former group’s potential to function as a transnational bridge for the exchange of ideas and community-building. The following questions guide all discussions:

• What (un)equal conditions are characteristic for our democratic moment
and what futures are looming, feasible, or needed?
• What novel boundaries or urgencies for (un)democratic practices have
emerged due to the intensifying planetary emergency?

You can find the latest information here: https://vsjf2025.univie.ac.at/

The conference is preceded by the annual Gender workshop.