Waseda University

This course provides a comparative approach to European politics, analyzing the interplay between national and EU-level decision-making. It examines how political authority is delegated from voters to representatives, governments, and EU institutions to understand broader European political processes. Throughout the course, it explores the institutional diversity of European democracies, comparing parliamentary, semi-presidential, and majoritarian systems and analyzing how electoral rules shape party competition and voter behavior. It also examines the European Union’s governance structures and how they interact with national decision-making, influencing both domestic policies and broader integration efforts while assessing how different economic models shape national economic policy preferences. 

Additionally, the course investigates the political and social impacts of migration, welfare state reforms, and sovereignty conflicts, as well as the rise of populism and Euroskepticism, exploring how these forces reshape both national and European politics. Rather than focusing on a single-country approach, this course draws on comparative examples from multiple European countries to highlight similarities, differences, and key trends. 

This course examines a variety of anime movies and television series featuring problems of the city, urban design, ruins, environment, and ecology as a central theme and as a source of creative inspirations. The course examines Akira, Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell, Nausicaä, Psycho-Pass, and Your Name.

The course closely analyzes and discusses each animation work (narrative, world-setting,audio-visual style, etc.) but also a wide range of critical texts on anime, urban space, environment, and ruins. This course examines why anime is an important cultural text, and what socio-political, philosophical, and ethical issues they often raise for further critical thinking.

This course explores the dynamic, culturally and historically contingent ways in which architecture and urban space are structured along the distinction between what belongs to the protected realm of the private and what is to ‘take place’ in the interpersonal sphere of the public. As the physical and experiential form of the city, it’s buildings and the character of its urban life are deeply influenced by the private/public distinction, it is important to understand these implications not only in theory, but also for urban politics, the practices of urban design and place-making as well as for everyday appropriation.