Dr. Emma Cook
Associate Professor, Modern Japanese Studies Program, Hokkaido University, Japan
Toyota Visiting Professor, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan (2022-2023) 
 
In this talk I explore how young adults with food allergies in Japan “read the air” and try to avoid creating trouble for others and themselves in their practices of allergy disclosure. I trace how their experiences of reading the air and their engagement with feelings of trouble (meiwaku) emerge out of - and become - an imaginative practice that is embodied, intersubjective, and built on feelings of how people might respond to their disclosures, as well as the social risks that they feel food allergies present.