Temple University, Japan Campus (TUJ) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Global Mosse Lecture Series and the Council for European Studies to receive grant funding in support of the lectures and related logistics. The Mosse Lectures seek to confront daunting, contemporary socio-economic, geopolitical, and environmental challenges by creating the opportunity for development and free exchange of fresh ideas.
An internationally respected public lecture series, events have been hosted at numerous universities since the inaugural event at the Humboldt-Universität in 1997, including the University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia University in the U.S., and the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. TUJ will be the first university in Japan to host the series.
The inaugural Mosse Lecture at TUJ will take place on February 25, 2026, featuring Kristin Surak, Associate Professor of Political Sociology at the London School of Economics. Her lecture, titled “Migration in the 21st Century: What Elite Mobility Reveals About the Present and Future of International Migration,” will examine elite mobility and its implications for understanding global migration.
Drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork in over 20 countries and her book “The Golden Passport”, she examines how wealthy individuals obtain citizenship through investment programs and how this reshapes ideas of rights, identity, inequality and globalization.
Surak is an internationally recognized scholar whose work spans migration, nationalism and Japanese politics, and she has held prestigious fellowships at institutions including Princeton, Cambridge and the European University Institute.
The event will take place at TUJ’s Parliament from 18:00-19:30 pm and be moderated by Sachiko Horiguchi, Professor of Anthropology at TUJ, with commentary by Gracia Liu-Farrer of Waseda University based in Tokyo. Attendance is free and no registration is required.
Background of the Mosse Lectures
The Mosse Lectures were founded by historian George L. Mosse and Klaus R. Scherpe. Rooted in the legacy of the German-Jewish Mosse family, prominent publishers, philanthropists, and defenders of democracy, the series embodies the motto “culture and science as a public commitment.” Since its launch, with Mosse’s inaugural lecture on liberalism and National Socialism, more than 250 events have been held. Each academic year the Global Mosse Lecture Series features leading scholars, writers, artists and public figures discussing diverse themes across disciplines.
Comments from Global Mosse Lectures and Council for European Studies
Skye Doney, the director of the George L. Mosse Program in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said, “The Global Mosse Lecture Series is honored to partner with TUJ to host Professor Surak. Nearly 4% of the global population are now migrants. It is vital that we better understand this phenomenon.”
Abigail Lewis, the Executive Director of the Council for European Studies, said, “CES is excited to partner with TUJ and the Global Mosse Lecture Series. CES hosts research networks focused on immigration and migration, and we are eager to highlight the research that scholars in our networks are doing on migration.”
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