The Path to Becoming a Researcher — Shaped by Personal Experience
The starting point of Associate Professor Connie Minami’s journey into research lies in a deeply personal realization: “Even those without a voice have thoughts and feelings.” Born in Denmark, Minami spent formative years there until junior high school before moving to Japan with family during high school. The transition was difficult—unable to follow classes and unable to ask anyone for help. “Even though I was physically present in the same classroom, I could not speak. And I realized that there were others like me, people who could not express themselves,” she recalls. This experience became one of the sparks that led to her current research theme of questioning what it means to be human and how society should function. How can we transform “voices that cannot be heard” and “opinions that are never drawn out” into meaningful action within society? “That question,” she says, “became the origin of my path as a researcher.” A pivotal encounter also shaped this trajectory: the discovery of Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human, a novel that prompted her to think more deeply about the place of vulnerable individuals in society and the nature of human existence. This eventually guided her toward the field of 20th?century French thought and literature. For her, the goal is not only to study ideas, but to bring them into the real world—to transform knowledge into practice, or what she calls “knowledge in action.”
“The Unfinished Theory of Morality” — Connecting Sartre’s Thought to Contemporary Society
Associate Professor Minami’s research focuses on the later thought of Jean?Paul Sartre, one of the central philosophers of twentieth?century France—particularly Sartre’s ideas surrounding the “People’s Tribunal” and his “unfinished theory of morality.” During the era of the Vietnam War, Sartre helped establish the People’s Tribunal, a citizen?led forum where ordinary people could denounce war crimes and critically examine ethics. Although the tribunal held no legal authority, Minami explains that it marked “a major turning point in transforming knowledge that previously remained confined to books and theory—‘knowledge that only thinks’—into a force for action.” In Sartre’s view, “truth is not something that has been produced once and for all, but something that is continually being produced.” Ethics and justice, too, are never complete. They must be constantly questioned, reinterpreted, and practiced within the shifting realities of society and history. They remain forever “unfinished.” This idea resonates deeply with her own formative experience of recognizing those whose voices go unheard. Knowledge, she believes, should not end in passive understanding; it should become “knowledge in action”—knowledge that intervenes in lived reality. In today’s society, shaped by AI, digitalization, and vast flows of information, the voices of those who remain unheard can, through collective civic engagement, become a powerful force capable of reshaping social norms and public life. Associate Professor Minami sees the study of Sartre’s unfinished theory of morality as holding significant potential for illuminating how ethical values and moral frameworks are shifting in the contemporary world.
Knowledge That Comes Alive through Action
“Knowing alone does not change society,” says Associate Professor Minami. “The knowledge we gain from reading books or studying ideas should not end in passive understanding. Only when we feel the desire to change something, and translate that feeling into action and practice, does knowledge truly come alive.” Her academic aspiration is rooted in this concept of “knowledge in action.” It means transforming the act of thinking into the power to act within society—putting ideas into practice and connecting them to social change. Equally important for Minami is creating an environment where students can think for themselves, take initiative, act independently, and grow their agency as they walk alongside others.
Expanding knowledge in action demonstrates that each one of us has the potential to gradually change our immediate world—by thinking for ourselves about the questions and challenges we encounter in everyday life and taking concrete steps in response.
(Science writer: Yuko MITERA, English translation:? Md Abul Kalam SIDDIKE)?
PAGE TOP