IASIL Japan Newsletter2016 No. 2
The Japan Branch of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures
September 2016

1. IASIL Japan Conference 2016, International Christian University
IASIL Japan Conference 2016 will meet on Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 October at International
Christian University. This year’s conference theme is ‘Transformations’. Please find enclosed theprogramme and the campus map, as well as the reply postcard to fill in and return to us. The book ofabstracts and the poster of the conference are both downloadable from the IASIL Japan website.
Students and guests are welcome to attend. We hope to see you all there!
The reply postcard must reach Professor Mika Momoo, treasurer, no later than 23 September
2016.
About the Guest Speakers
Patrick Lonergan is Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at NUI Galway. His research is on suchareas as contemporary Irish drama, Shakespeare and Ireland, theatre and social media, andglobalization and performance. Publications include Theatre and Globalization (Winner of the 2008
Theatre Book Prize) and The Theatre and Films of Martin McDonagh (2012). He is director of theIrish Theatrical Diaspora Project, an Executive member of the International Association for the Studyof Irish Literatures, and a Board Member of Baboro International Arts Festival for Children. He is also
the academic editor of Abbey Theatre Archive Digitization Project.
Alan Gilsenan is an award-winning Irish filmmaker, writer and theatre director. His many films
include The Road To God Knows Where, All Souls’ Day, The Green Fields of France, Zulu 9, The
Ghost of Roger Casement, Timbuktu, as well as the acclaimed documentary series The Asylum, The
Hospice and I See A Darkness. For the theatre, he has directed his own adaptation of John Banville’s
The Book of Evidence, Tom Murphy’s The Patriot Game and On The Inside/On the Outside, amongst
others. Most recently, he directed the drama-documentary Eliza Lynch, Queen of Paraguay, theexperimental film A Vision: A Life of WB Yeats, and has just completed writing and directing thefeature film Unless. He is a former Chairman of the Irish Film Institute and a board member of boththe Irish Film Board and RTÉ, Ireland’s public service broadcaster.
*Hugo Hamilton who was originally invited as our guest speaker cancelled due to some family matters.

12. New IASIL Executive Committee for 2016 to 2019
Rui Carvalho Homem, IASIL Returning Officer, reported in April that the nomination process for theIASIL Executive was complete, and that the list of duly nominated members for the period 2016-19 isas follows:Ondřej Pilný – Chairperson

Naoko Toraiwa – Vice-Chairperson for Japan

Clíona Ó Gallchoir – Secretary

Andrew Fitzsimons – Representative for Japan

Tina O'Toole – Treasurer (2016-17)

Mika Momoo – Representative for Japan

Christina Morin - Treasurer (2017-19)

Haruko Takakuwa – Representative for Japan

Rui Carvalho Homem - Returning Officer
All positions were filled and were uncontested. Under the applicable regulations, an election was notnecessary, and the nominations were validated at the AGM in Cork.

3. Payment of annual membership fees
If you have not already paid your membership fees for 2016, please do so by the end of September, as
the journals will be distributed to paid-up members at the conference. This of course applies tonon-paid fees for past years as well.
Membership with JIS¥7,000Membership with JIS & IUR ¥10,000

Couple membership with JIS
Couple membership with JIS & IUR

三菱東京 UFJ 銀行（銀行番号：0005）
経堂支店（店番：091）
普通 0648854 IASIL JAPAN 会計 桃尾美佳

¥10,000¥13,000

ゆうちょ銀行
振替口座 00940－4－143302(099 店（099） 当座 0143302）

If you live abroad, please transfer your membership fee to the following account:
Bank Name Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, LTD.
SWIFT CODE: BOTKJPJT
Branch Name: Kyodo Branch (Branch No. 091)
Branch Address: 3-1-42 Miyasaka, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 156-0051, Japan
Tel: +81 (0)3-5477-5751
Account Name: IASIL Japan Treasurer Mika Momoo
Account No: 0648854
The membership fee does not include the transfer charge, so please make sure that the exact amountreaches us. Please add the overseas postal charge to mail you the copies of Journal of Irish Studies andIrish University Review for which you have paid, according to the table below.
International postal
Oceania, North America, Central South America,
Asia
rates for JIS & IUR
America, Europe, Middle EastAfrica
JIS
¥ 750
¥ 1,000¥ 1,300
JIS & IUR
¥ 1,500¥ 2,000¥ 2,600

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4. Report of IASIL 2016, University College of Cork, Ireland
On July 25-29, 2016, the annual conference of the IASIL was hosted by University College Cork
(Coláiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh). The theme of the conference was ‘Change’.
The number of delegates was said to be almost 300, nearly three times that of last year. Normallythere were eight panels taking place at the same time, so I was always torn between several panels.
The programme leaflet offered not only the information about paper readings and lectures but also
about current events and things to see in Cork and even about a conference pub that had a special offerfor conference participants.
Delegates from Japan who read papers were Kaori Hirashige, Hiroko Ikeda, Ryuji Ishikawa,Masaya Shimokusu, Toshiki Tatara, Naoko Toraiwa, Shotaro Yamauchi and Akemi Yoshida; HarukoTakakuwa chaired a panel. On the third afternoon, we had some free time and could choose among atrip of Cobh (the last port of call for the Titanic), a Cork walking tour, or a Crawford Art Gallery tour.
There were not only plenary talks from Prof Jahan Ramazani (U of Virginia), Dr Anne Mulhall (UCD)
and Dr Heather Laird (UCC), but also a variety of sessions and events such as ‘Frank O’Connor
Reading and Roundtable’ with contemporary Irish novelists; ‘Prose Reading by Louise O’Neill, Rob
Doyle and Lisa Mclnerney’; a book launch for Irish Women’s Writings, 1878-1922: Advancing theCause of Liberty; a project launch for ‘Nation, Genre and Gender’; a seminar on ‘Ecocriticism, andEcofeminism in Irish Studies’ and a ‘Roundtable on Irish Film’; and other smaller forums. One of thehighlights was the poetry reading on the fourth evening, with poets from UCC: Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill,
Theo Dorgan, Louis De Paor, and Leanne O’Sullivan. Theo Dorgan read his latest poem, which he hadcontributed to the event ‘A Poet’s Rising’ organized as part of the 1916 centenary celebrations(http://irishwriterscentre.ie/pages/a-poets-rising).
Hiroko Ikeda, Kyoto University

5. IASIL Annual Conference, 24-28 July 2017
The IASIL conference next year will be hosted by the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social
Sciences, at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The conference theme is ‘Ireland’s Writers
in the 21st Century’.
6. Call for Donations: ‘Japan Corner’ at the Dublin City Public Libraries
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Ireland-Japan relationship in 2017, the Japanese Embassy inIreland and the Dublin City Public Libraries are planning a ‘Japan Corner’, where they hope to display
books of Irish literature translated into Japanese. They are now asking for book donation for theCorner from IASIL Japan members. If you wish to donate, please send the secretary the necessary
information by the end of September 2016, using the Excel format which was sent to the members via
Mailing List. The format is also available at IASIL Japan News website (http://iasil.jp/news/).

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