Alex Kerr will talk about his projects in Iya Valley, Shikoku (where while still in university he bought an old thatched-rooofed farmhouse in 1973), and other villages across Japan. Alex writes in Japanese as well as English, and speaks across Japan on issues of rural revival. His books include Lost Japan (1993), focused on traditional culture including Iya; Dogs and Demons (2001), which outlines the damage done by a massive program of public works; Theory of Japanese Landscape [Nippon Keikanron] (2012, in Japanese only), which takes up issues of landscape management and sustainable tourism, and Another Kyoto (2016), a de-constructive view of traditional Kyoto.