The 105th ASC Seminar will be held with Dr.Ohsoon Yun. The 105th ASC Seminar will feature Dr. Ohsoon Yun from Korea, who has been affiliated with our center as a Research Fellow since April of this year.

Dr. Ohsoon Yun will talk about her research on "Ethiopian Coffee: Asian Coffee Road" and other topics.

If you are a coffee lover and live near TUFS, please come and join us, you can also join us via Zoom, please pre-register here.

Click here for Dr.Yun's YOUTUBE video

Title: "Why Coffee Needs a Geography: Mapping Meaning from Asia to Africa"

Abstract:

While a ubiquitous global commodity, coffee's profound influence on place and identity often goes unexamined. This talk introduces Coffee Geography as a new academic field that investigates how coffee's journeys, narratives, and sensory experiences shape spatial meanings across Asia and Africa. Drawing from human and cultural geography, this framework positions coffee not only as a global product but as a moving signifier--a cultural medium that acquires new meanings as it travels between regions.

Blending narrative and sensory analysis, I argue that coffee enables the construction of imagined geographies, linking distant places through shared tastes, stories, and symbolic associations. By tracing coffee's layered histories--from its African origins to its reinvention in Asian contexts--I explore how coffee mediates belonging, identity, and global connection.

Ethnographic examples and case studies will illustrate how everyday coffee practices foster unexpected connections and remap relationships between cultures. Ultimately, this talk calls for a more reflexive and sensory-oriented approach to commodity studies, revealing how even a daily drink can reshape our understanding of space, self, and the world.

◆Speaker: Dr. Ohsoon Yun

◆Date：July 10th, 2025 (Thu) 5:40p.m.～7:10p.m.（JST）/ 8:40a.m.～10:10a.m.（GMT)

◆Venue：Hybrid　

Onsite： Room113（1F Research and lecture bldg.,TUFS Fuchu Campus）

Online：ZOOM

◆Language：English

◆Addmission fee：Free

【Please pre-register in advence from here】Or Use QR Code.

Registration deadline: Noon July 10th, 2025 (Thu)

The Zoom link will be sent after you pre-registerd.

◆Jointly organized by African Studies Center - TUFS and Kanto Branch of Japan Association for African Studies

Report

The 105th ASC Seminar was held in a hybrid format, with a total of 60 participants (14 face-to-face and 46 online).
The seminar was given by Dr. Yun, a special researcher at ASC.

Her encounter with coffee in Ethiopia, which began with Ethiopian coffee geography (tourism), expanded beyond geography and tourism to include comparisons of coffee cultures in Japan, Korea, and Asia through Africa.
The story, which became a lifelong research topic for Dr. Yun, was also interesting to us from multiple angles.
As the content was multifaceted, participants asked a variety of questions during the Q&A session.

※We are looking for questionnaires from participants: Questionnaire submission (due by July 20, one week after the seminar)