Coexisting with the Body: Dialogues on the Self and Body in the 21st Century
12th session "Body and Place: Learning from the Practice of Takurojyo Yoriai"

Starting in July 2025, we will launch a new series titled "Coexisting with the Body: Dialogues on the Self and Body in the 21st Century." This series is co-organized by a JSPS KAKENHI (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research) project (Grant Number 23K12596) and the University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy (UTCP).

For this series, we will welcome speakers who are engaged in diverse research and activities broadly related to the concept of the "body" across various specialized fields, including philosophy, anthropology, sociology, medicine, psychology, fashion, theater, and music.
Through their lectures and interviews, we aim to explore questions such as "How do we engage with the alterity of our own bodies?" and "What factors define the unique perspectives on the body in contemporary society?" We also hope to foster discussions that can lead to insights for addressing the various conflicts people face regarding their bodies in modern times.

13th session "Body and Place: Learning from the Practice of Takurousho Yoriai"

Speaker: Takao Murase (General Director, Takurjyo Yoriai and affiliated facilities)

Interviewer: Rie Yamada (UTCP)

Date: 2:00-4:00 PM, Saturday, January 17th, 2026
Location: EAA Seminar Room. Bldg 101, University of Tokyo KomabaⅠCampus and Zoom
Register(In-person): Please register via Google Form
Register(online): Please register via Zoom.

When the body no longer moves as one intends, when memories and words no longer connect smoothly, people come to experience a gap between “myself” and “my body.” This gap often pulls the self away from familiar places and networks of relationships. In many cases, it becomes an experience in which places that once felt self-evidently one’s own begin to waver and gradually slip away.
In the twelfth session of this series, we welcome Takao Murase, who has long engaged with the everyday lives of people living with aging and dementia. Through dialogue, we will explore what it means to live alongside bodily change, and how bodies undergoing such change are not merely marginalized or excluded from places of belonging, but may instead be reconnected and re-embedded within them.

Takao Murase
Takao Murase was born in Iizuka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, and graduated from Tohoku Fukushi University. In 1988, he began working as a life counselor at a special nursing home for the elderly. In 1996, he became Director of Daini Takurojyo Yoriai; in 2013, he assumed the role of Representative Director of Takurojyo Yoriai. From 2015 to 2022, he served as Director of Yoriai no Mori.
Current positions:
General Director of Yoriai; Board Member, Fukuoka Hikari Social Welfare Corporation.
His major publications include Obaachan ga Boketa (Grandmother Has Become Senile), Practices of End-of-Life Care, Synchrony and Freedom, and Dementia and Altruism, among others.

Organized by:
JSPS KAKENHI "A Study on the Social Problematization of Tattoos and the Categorization of Tattoos as Fashion" (Principal Investigator: Rie Yamada, Grant Number 23K12596)

Co-organized by:
University of Tokyo Center for Philosophy (UTCP), Uehiro Research Division for Philosophy of Co-existence