Visiting speaker seminar: Yuho Hisayama (Kobe University)
Porosity, Differential Horizons, and Cross-Cultural Atmospheric Studies
Yuho Hisayama (Kobe University)
This talk discusses the future of Atmospheric Studies as an emerging academic field through the concepts of porosity, differential horizons, and cross-cultural inquiry. Building on Gernot Böhme’s theory of atmosphere, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and critical theory, it understands atmospheres not merely as subjective moods or objective spatial qualities, but as felt modulations of the horizons through which worlds become sensible. At the same time, these horizons are never neutral or universally shared.
Bodies inhabit atmospheres differently according to culture, history, memory, race, gender, religion, class, disability, and colonial experience. By placing modern European atmospheric theory in dialogue with plural vocabularies of breath and vital air—such as pneuma and qi—this talk considers how Atmospheric Studies might develop as a new field for critically examining how sensible
worlds are produced, shared, commodified, and sometimes violently formatted.
Yuho Hisayama / 久山雄甫 is Associate Professor at Kobe University, Japan. He earned his first Ph.D. from Technische Universität Darmstadt in 2013, followed by a second Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 2021. He has been affiliated with Kobe University since 2013 and founded the Kobe Institute for Atmospheric Studies (KOIAS) in 2022. His research focuses on German literature and philosophy, especially Goethe; the history of ideas concerning pneuma, spiritus, spirit, Geist, and ki; and Atmospheric Studies. His work explores the intersections of literature, philosophy, bodily experience, atmosphere, and intellectual history across European and Japanese contexts. He is the author of Erfahrungen des ki: Leibessphäre, Atmosphäre, Pansphäre (Freiburg and Munich, 2014) and the guest editor of the special issue “Atmosphere and Breath in Cultural Diversity” in Sophia (Springer Nature), Vol. 65, No. 2, June 2026. He has published widely in German, Japanese, and English on literature, philosophy, and Atmospheric Studies.
Contact: emergingtechlab@monash.edu to attend
Event Details
- Date:
- 20 July 2026 at 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
Description
Porosity, Differential Horizons, and Cross-Cultural Atmospheric Studies
Yuho Hisayama (Kobe University)
This talk discusses the future of Atmospheric Studies as an emerging academic field through the concepts of porosity, differential horizons, and cross-cultural inquiry. Building on Gernot Böhme’s theory of atmosphere, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and critical theory, it understands atmospheres not merely as subjective moods or objective spatial qualities, but as felt modulations of the horizons through which worlds become sensible. At the same time, these horizons are never neutral or universally shared.
Bodies inhabit atmospheres differently according to culture, history, memory, race, gender, religion, class, disability, and colonial experience. By placing modern European atmospheric theory in dialogue with plural vocabularies of breath and vital air—such as pneuma and qi—this talk considers how Atmospheric Studies might develop as a new field for critically examining how sensible
worlds are produced, shared, commodified, and sometimes violently formatted.
Yuho Hisayama / 久山雄甫 is Associate Professor at Kobe University, Japan. He earned his first Ph.D. from Technische Universität Darmstadt in 2013, followed by a second Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 2021. He has been affiliated with Kobe University since 2013 and founded the Kobe Institute for Atmospheric Studies (KOIAS) in 2022. His research focuses on German literature and philosophy, especially Goethe; the history of ideas concerning pneuma, spiritus, spirit, Geist, and ki; and Atmospheric Studies. His work explores the intersections of literature, philosophy, bodily experience, atmosphere, and intellectual history across European and Japanese contexts. He is the author of Erfahrungen des ki: Leibessphäre, Atmosphäre, Pansphäre (Freiburg and Munich, 2014) and the guest editor of the special issue “Atmosphere and Breath in Cultural Diversity” in Sophia (Springer Nature), Vol. 65, No. 2, June 2026. He has published widely in German, Japanese, and English on literature, philosophy, and Atmospheric Studies.
Contact: emergingtechlab@monash.edu to attend