influence over Japanese workers' movements, though did not have communist leanings. He was critical of Marxist views on religion and its limited scope of natural philosophy in modern natural science. In 1928, he was engaged to Tobata Kimiko and the following year they married. Trouble befell him when money he lent to a friend was used, unbeknown to Miki, to make illegal donations to the Japanese Communist Party. Being implicated in the development, Miki was arrested in January 1930 and held for six months, leading him to resign his post as professor. The following November, three months after the birth of his eldest daughter, he was sentenced to one year imprisonment but had the sentence deferred. The same year, members of the Puroretaria Kagaku Kenkyūjo (Proletariat Science Research Institute), including Hattori Shisō, decried Miki's academic works after which he sought to further distance himself from Marxism. While he remained in touch with his mentor, Nishida, and other members of the Kyoto School, he worked outside mainstream academia, producing popular writings aimed at a wide audience. In 1931, Miki was appointed as a Japanese representative of the International Hegel League. He became a staunch proponent of academic freedom after raising earnest criticisms of Nazi Germany and Japanese militarism. One or more of his works were banned by the government during this time. Throughout the mid-1930s Miki regained his academic standing, forming strong collaborations with his contemporaries. Most notably he became closely associated with Jun Tosaka, a fellow student of Nishida, and remained in close contact with their mutual teacher. He wrote articles for a conservative newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun, providing commentary on issues of the day. In 1936 his first wife died, after which he would remain unmarried for three years. In the late 1930s he was employed by the Japanese government to give a series of lectures in China and Manchuria. His firm belief that philosophy should lead politics encouraged the political activism of fellow intellectuals, and when offered in 1937, he eagerly accepted the opportunity to head the cultural division of the Shōwa Kenkyūkai (Shōwa Research Association), the brain trust of Prince Konoe Fumimaro's Shintaisei (New Order Movement). During this time Miki conceptualized the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere though felt deeply betrayed by the Imperial Japanese Army's misuse of the doctrine, employing it in justifying aggressive expansion in China and Southeast Asia. Following the collapse of the Shōwa Kenkyūkai