Lecture: ‘Getting a Handle on the World from the News’

The Economic Association of Okayama University held a lecture titled “Getting a Handle on the World from the News” on November 28, 2018 at the 50th Anniversary Hall. It was a highly popular lecture with more than 500 people including students from the School of Economics, Faculty of Letters and Faculty of Law, graduate students from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and faculty members packing the venue, necessitating broadcasting of the lecture to other hopeful attendees. Jian Teng, who chairs the Economic Association, and Hirofumi Makino, president of Okayama University gave opening addresses. Journalist Akira Ikegami spoke on the theme of “interpreting the state of the world based on the news,” discussing the assassination of a Saudi Arabian journalist, issues regarding the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU) and facts and events behind the scenes of the Trump administration in the US. He said that to view the international situation, it is necessary to have two perspectives, horizontal (globalization) and vertical (history), and that it is important for university students to look at the various events occurring now in the world from a scholarly perspective. The participants listened with great interest and engaged in a lively question and answer session after the lecture.

A full lecture hall

Nov. 28, 2018 (Wed.) Grand Lectures
16:00 to 18:00, 50th Anniversary Hall
Lecturer: Akira Ikegami (journalist)
Title: Getting a Handle on the World from the News
Target audience: School of Economics students and Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences graduate students majoring in economics (capacity: 480 people)