Since the mid-1990s Japan has faced the end of an extended economic bubble, economic decline, widening income gaps, declining birthrates, aging population, and the major disasters of 1995 and 2011. For these reasons, the Heisei era (1989 to 2019) is often called the "Lost 30 years." In this lecture, Professor Yoshimi gives context to this era by showing the resonance between generational cycles and cycles of global history through his 'scales of history' framework in which he views centuries-long histories in 25-year segments.

Shunya YOSHIMI is Professor of Sociology, Cultural Studies, and Media Studies at the University of Tokyo. He is the author of many books on cultural theory, urban culture, international expositions, media culture, information technology, the emperor system, and Americanization in modern Japan and East Asia. He has been a leading scholar in the field of Media and Cultural Studies in contemporary Japan. He was the 2018 Edwin O. Reischauer Visiting Professor at Harvard University and has been a visiting fellow of El Colegio de Mexico (1993), Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sciences Sociales (1998), University of Western Sydney (1999), and Queensland University (2000). He is a member of the executive committee of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (Routledge), editorial board of Cultural Studies (Routledge), associate editors of Theory, Culture & Society (Sage), and the editorial advisory board of Japanese Studies (Carfax Publishing).