Heading for the Stars, with Love
Artificial Intelligences, Digital Media, Alternative Realities and the Meaning of Life
At The Loving Futures Laboratory, we deepen our understanding of the future and of potential worlds to emerge from this one. We post regularly videos on the YouTube channel The School of Love as well as deeply instructive information on Maria Grajdian's professional website, which both strive to deliver insights into practical applications of academic research with concrete advice related to the transition from school to life - probably the most difficult transition in late-modern societies and which is hardly dealt with properly by anyone.
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As we move forward with our research, we shall keep posting new data and results. Stay tuned.
The Team
We are a cool team composed of internationally acknowledged, globally active and deeply self-aware scholars, fully committed to contributing positively to the future.
Anthony Y.H. Fung, PhD
Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Professor in the School of Art and Communication at Beijing Normal University
Anthony’s research interests focus on popular culture and cultural studies, popular music, gender and youth identity, cultural industries and policy, and digital media studies. Recently he has been examining user-generated productions on online fiction, TikTok and various online platforms. His recent books are Youth Cultures in China (2016, Polity Press, co-authored with Jerome de Kloet), Global Game Industries and Cultural Policy (2016, Palgrave Macmillan), Hong Kong Game Industry, Cultural Policy and East Asian Rivalry (2018, Rowman & Littlefield), and Made in Hong Kong: Studies in Popular Music (2020, Routledge).
Joff P. N. Bradley, PhD
Professor of Philosophy and English in the Faculty and Graduate School of Foreign Languages at Teikyo University
Joff is a visiting fellow at Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea, and formerly a visiting professor at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, India. Joff has co-written A Pedagogy of Cinema (2016, Brill Sense Publishers, with David R. Cole), and co-edited: Deleuze and Buddhism (2016, Palgrave Macmillan, with Tony See); Educational Philosophy and New French Thought (2018, Routledge, with David R. Cole); Principles of Transversality in Globalization and Education (2018, Springer, with David R. Cole); Educational Ills and the (Im)possibility of Utopia (2020, Routledge, with Gerald Argenton); Bringing Forth a World (2019, Brill Sense Publishers, with David Kennedy); Bernard Stiegler and the Philosophy of Education (2021, Routledge, with David Kennedy); Thinking with Animation (2021, Cambridge Scholars, with Catherine Ju-Yu Cheng). He has just published a monograph Schizoanalysis and Asia (2022, Rowman and Littlefield) and Deleuze, Guattari and the Schizoanalysis of Postmedia, (2023, Bloomsbury, co-edited with Alex Taek-Gwang Lee and Manoj NY). His next books are Deleuze, Guattari and the Global Ecologies of Leaning (Peter Lang, 2023, co-written with David R. Cole), and Bernard Stiegler and the Philosophy of Education Volume II (Routledge).
Pascal Rudolph, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow at the
Nuremberg University of Music
Pascal finished his PhD in musicology at the University of Potsdam in 2021. Previously he studied Musicology, Music Education, and German Literature and Language in Potsdam, Berlin, and Shanghai with distinguished scholarships, and graduated his master’s with distinction (M.A. & M.Ed.). His doctoral project explored the use of pre-existing music in Lars von Trier’s films. Outgrowths from his previous and current work have been published in Music & Science (2018), IASPM Journal (2020) as well as Twentieth-Century Music (2022), and he has presented his research at national and international conferences. In 2019 he won the scientific competition of the association of German-speaking Music Theory (GMTH). In 2020 and 2021 he was a DAAD research fellow at the University of Copenhagen and the Danish Film Institute. In 2022 his first book Präexistente Musik im Film (Pre-existing Music in Film; forthcoming) won the doctoral award of the German Musicological Society (GfM).
Raluca Nicolae, PhD
Associate Professor at the Department of Modern Languages and Business Communication at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies
Raluca has got a BA in Philology at Bucharest University (majoring in Japanese and English), BA at International Academy for the Study of Culture and Religion (majoring in the Philosophy of Culture), MA at Bucharest University (majoring in the Philosophy of Culture), PhD at “Constantin Brăiloiu” Institute of Ethnography and Folklore (Romanian Academy). She was the recipient of several scholarships in Japan and attended training courses in UK, Portugal and Hungary. She is the author of DicÅ£ionar de ideograme japoneze - Jôyô Kanji ([Japanese Character Dictionary – Jôyô Kanji], 2003); Introducere în scrierea kana ([Introduction to Kana Writing], 2005); Diurn ÅŸi nocturn în legendele japoneze ([Daytime and Nighttime in Japanese Legends], 2010); AlternanÅ£e tradiÅ£ionale: între cosmic ÅŸi teluric ([Traditional Interchanges: From Heaven to Earth], 2010); and the co-author of Ghid de conversaÅ£ie român-japonez ([Romanian-Japanese Conversational Guide], 2003); DicÈ›ionar de argou englez-român ([English-Romanian Slang Dictionary], 2015). Raluca has published several academic papers in academic journals in Ljuljana, Berlin, Kyoto, Tokyo and New York as well as book translations from authors such as Miyazawa Kenji, Akutagawa Ryûnosuke, Arikawa Hiro and Ogawa Yôko. She is the director of the Center of Japanese Studies within the Bucharest University of Economic Studies since 2018.
Associate Professor of Media Studies and Cultural Anthropology at Hiroshima University
Maria holds a PhD. in musicology from Hanover University of Media, Music and Drama, Germany. Her research and teaching focus on Japanese contemporary culture, history of knowledge and the dynamics of identity in late modernity. Recent publications include numerous research articles in academic journals as well as books, e.g., After Identity: Three Essays on the Musicality of Life and Cyberspaces of Loneliness: Love, Masculinity, Japan (both 2019, ProUniversitaria Press), Takahata Isao and Post-Cold-War Japanese Animation: Five Directors and Their Visions (both 2021, ProUniversitaria Press). Upcoming books are An Archaeology of Desire: Takarazuka Revue's Mythologies of the Future (Palgrave, 2023), Takarazuka Revue in Times of "Beautiful Harmony" (Die Takarazuka Revue in Zeiten der "schönen Harmonie", Iudicium, 2023) and Culture for Sale: Freedom, Responsibility and the Pursuit of Excellence (Brill, 2024) as well as Miyazaki Hayao (ProUniversitaria, 2024).