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ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

Daniel White

AFFECT: AN INTRODUCTION

A Retrospectives collection offering a look at what the concept of affect has contributed to anthropology in the recent past and where it might take us in the near future

Hirofumi Katsuno

THE ROBOT'S HEART: TINKERING WITH HUMANITY AND INTIMACY IN ROBOT-BUILDING

An article exploring the processes by which humanoid robots become sites of affective investment in contemporary Japan

Hirofumi Katsuno

BRANDING HUMANOID JAPAN

A chapter from Assembling Japan: Modernity, Technology, and Global Culture, analyzing the intersections of cultural politics and technology in Japan

Hirofumi Katsuno

THE CULTURAL POWER OF ROBOT IN JAPAN

A chapter from At Home and in the Field: Ethnographic Encounters in Asia and the Pacific Islands, exploring ethnographic challenges of conducting fieldwork on robots

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Hirofumi Katsuno

AI時代のメディア体験

"Media Experiences in the Age of Artificial Intelligence." This short piece in Japanese explores the relationship between AI and media, published in メディア用語基本事典(第2版)

Daniel White & Hirofumi Katsuno

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY FOR SOCIAL EMOTION MODELING

A paper written to help build platforms of communication between anthropologists, engineers, and computer scientists, presented at the 8th International Conference on Affective Computing

Daniel White

THE MECHANICS OF FEAR
RE-ENVISIONING ANXIETY THROUGH EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES OF AFFECT

An article published in the German journal History of Technology that addresses how the modeling of robots in Japan that express anxiety poses questions for psychologists studying fear

Daniel White & Hirofumi Katsuno

TOWARD AN AFFECTIVE SENSE OF LIFE: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, ANIMACY, AND AMUSEMENT AT A ROBOT PET MEMORIAL SERVICE IN JAPAN

An article in Cultural Anthropology that analyzes the organization of Buddhist memorial services for robot pets in Japan against the backdrop of emerging markets for robots equipped with artificial emotional intelligence. 

Fear Paper

Daniel White & Hirofumi Katsuno

ARTIFICIAL EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE BEYOND EAST AND WEST

An article in the journal Internet Policy Review that illustrates how aspects of cultural difference are both incorporated and elided in projects that equip machines with emotional intelligence.

Hirofumi Katsuno & Daniel White

HAPTIC CREATURES: TACTILE AFFECT AND HUMAN-ROBOT INTIMACY IN JAPAN 

A book chapter in Consumer Culture Theory in Asia that evaluates the rise of what we call haptic creatures, experimental devices in Japan that generate new and unexpected pleasures of affective care through haptic feedback particular to human-robot relationships.

ACII Paper Link

Daniel White & Hirofumi Katsuno

MODELLING EMOTION, PERFECTING HEART: DISASSEMBLING TECHNOLOGIES OF AFFECT WITH AN ANDROID BODHISATTVA IN JAPAN

An article in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute that explores how partnerships between Buddhists and engineers can constructively challenge Western models of emotion, creating experimental spaces for positive emotional relationships between humans and machines. 

Hirofumi Katsuno & Daniel White

SOCIAL ROBOTS AS COMPANION SPECIES

An article in Japanese for the Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan discussing recent transformations in Japanese social robotics as a process of emerging "companion species" (伴侶種). 

Hirofumi Katsuno & Daniel White

ENGINEERING ROBOTS WITH HEART IN JAPAN: THE POLITICS OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCE IN ARTIFICIAL EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

A chapter in the book Imagining AI: How the World Sees Intelligent Machines, edited by Stephen Cave and Kanta Dihal. The chapter discusses a recent history of emotion-focused robotics design as a political practice of cultural difference-making.

Hirofumi Katsuno & Daniel White

ADDITIONAL PUBLICATIONS

Visit each author's publication pages for more work on a wider variety of topics

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BLOGS AND MEDIA

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Daniel White

More than Human Worlds

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Daniel White & Patrick Galbraith

Cultural Anthropology News

Chip Colwell, Jennifer Robertson, Daniel White, Hirofumi Katsuno

SAPIENS Podcast

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Jennifer Robertson & Daniel White

CaMP Anthropology Blog

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Hirofumi Katsuno &

Takashi Horinouchi

Bloomberg News

Daniel White

Platyupus

The CASTAC Blog

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TALKS

June 3, 2019

Hirofumi Katsuno and Daniel White

A presentation at the German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo, Japan

May 10, 2019

ANTHROPOLOGY FOR AFFECTIVE ROBOTICS

Daniel White and Hirofumi Katsuno

A brief introduction to our collaborative workshop platform with the Human-AI Communication Team and the Nishida Laboratory, Kyoto University

April 24, 2019

A roundtable discussion at AI/SUM 2019, with Ashley Casovan, Director, Digital and Data, Government of Canada; Michael Lanzetta, Director, Applied Machine Learning - Asia, Microsoft; and Charles Ovink, Associate Political Affairs Officer, UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in the Asia and the Pacific, and MODEM project member Daniel White

March 28, 2019

Daniel White and Hirofumi Katsuno

A presentation on understandings of life and death in reference to AIBO kuyō, for the Third Kyoto Workshop on Evolutionary Thanatology: Death in Non-humans, and Human Perspectives

January 26, 2019

Daniel White and Hirofumi Katsuno

A join presentation on AIBO kuyō services for the Fourth Skills of Feeling with the World Workshop, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan

November 14, 2018

MODEL EMOTIONS IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, CONTEMPLATIVE, AND ALGORITHMIC APPROACHES TO EMOTIONAL BALANCE

Daniel White

A presentation on cross-currents of thought on emotional wellbeing from anthropology, AI, and the contemplative sciences, given at the American Anthropological Society's Annual Meeting, San Jose, USA

October 14, 2018

Daniel White

A presentation on emotion modeling in technologies sensitive to fear and the construction of anxiety as a cultural category, delivered at the Max Planck workshop on Fear and Technology, Berlin, Germany

September 26, 2018

Daniel White

A lecture surveying emergent affect-sensitive technologies and so-called emotional robots in Japan, and their relation to changing mass markets of care. Given at the Affective Societies workshop, Affective Arrangements in Mental Health Care Settings, Berlin, Germany

September 19, 2018

AUGMENTED REALITY IN THE AFFECT-EMOTION GAP: TECHNOLOGICAL INTERVENTIONS IN SENSATION AND MEMORY IN JAPAN

Daniel White

A presentation exploring the potential of new affective experiences in relation to augmented reality technologies in Japan. Given at the The Association of Social Anthropologists 2018 Conference, Oxford, UK

August 17, 2018

THE SOFT AESTHETICS OF HARD POLICY: CROSS-SECTIONS OF CUTE DESIGN IN JAPANESE POPULAR, POLITICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL CULTURES

Daniel White

A presentation discussing intersections of soft power cultural policy and the cute (kawaii) aesthetics of robotics design. European Association of Social Anthropologists 2018 conference, Stockholm, Sweden

June 10, 2018

Daniel White and Hirofumi Katsuno

A group presentation on the nature of affect in first-time encounters between people and robots. Delivered at the Robots and Artificial Intelligence in Contemporary Japanese Society Symposium, hosted by Sophia University's Institute of Contemporary Culture, Tokyo, Japan

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