European Association for Japanese Studies
ヨ-ロッパ日本研究協会

Bulletin No. 87 |  December 2016

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

eajs Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016
ISSN 0308-5139

Editor:Office of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS)
c/o Freie Universität Berlin
Hittorfstr. 18
14195 Berlin
Germany
Phone: +49 30 838 50929
Fax: +49 30 838 4 50931
E-mail: office@eajs.eu
Website: http://www.eajs.eu

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Members of the Council 2014-2017
President

Treasurer

Prof Dr Bjarke FRELLESVIG
University of Oxford
Oriental Institute
Pusey Lane
Oxford OX1 2LE (United Kingdom)
Phone: +44 1865 278 200
Fax: +44 1865 278 190
E-mail: frellesvig@eajs.eu

Prof Dr Verena
BLECHINGER-TALCOTT
Freie Universität Berlin
Institute of East Asian Studies
Japanese Studies
Hittorfstr. 18
14195 Berlin (Germany)
Phone: +49 30 838 57104
Fax: +49 30 838 457104
E-mail: blechinger-talcott@eajs.eu

Secretary
Dr Laura MORETTI
University of Cambridge
Faculty of Asian andMiddle Eastern Studies
Sidgwick Avenue
Cambridge CB3 9DA(United Kingdom)
Phone: +44 1223 335106
Fax: +44 1223 335110
E-mail: moretti@eajs.eu

Immediate Past President
Dr Rein RAUD
Senior Research Fellow
Tallinn University
Institute of Humanities
Narva Road 29
10120 Tallinn (Estonia)
E-mail: raud@eajs.eu

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Extended Council Members
Dr Anna ANDREEVAHeidelberg University
Cluster of Excellence “Asia andEurope in a Global Context“
Voßstraße 2, Gebäude 4400
69115 Heidelberg (Germany)
Phone: +49 6221 54 4363
Fax: +49 6221 54 4012
E-mail: andreeva@eajs.eu
Prof Dr Andrej BEKEŠ
University of Ljubljana
Department of Asian and African
Studies
Aškerčeva 21000 Ljubljana (Slovenia)
Phone: +386 1 241 1308
Fax: +386 1 425 93 37
E-mail: bekes@eajs.eu
Prof Dr Andrea GERMER
Kyushu University
744 Motooka, Nishi-ku
Fukuoka 819-0395 (Japan)
Phone: +81 92 802 5618
Fax: +81 92 802 5697
E-mail: germer@eajs.eu
Prof Dr John BREENInternational Research Center forJapanese Studies (Nichibunken)
3-2 Oeyama-cho
Goryo, Nishikyo-ku
Kyoto 610-1192 (Japan)
Phone: +81 75 335 2222
Fax: +81 75 335 2090
E-mail: breen@eajs.eu
4Prof Dr Michael KINSKI
Frankfurt University
FB 09 - Japanologie
Senckenberganlage 3160325 Frankfurt am
Main (Germany)
Phone: +49 69 798 23249
E-mail: kinski@eajs.eu
Prof Dr Urs Matthias ZACHMANN
Freie Universität Berlin
Institute of East Asian Studies
Japanese Studies
Hittorfstr. 18
14195 Berlin (Germany)
Phone: +49 30 838 61720
Fax: +49 30 838 461720
E-mail: zachmann@eajs.eu
EAJS International Conference
2017 Local Organizer
Prof Dr Alexandra CURVELONew University of Lisbon
Centre for Overseas History
Avenida de Berna, 26-C
1069-061 Lisbon (Portugal)
Phone: +351 21 790 83 00
Fax: +351 21 790 83 08
E-mail: alexandra.curvelo@gmail.
com

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Honorary Members
Augustin Berque, France
Adriana Boscaro, Italy
Eduard Klopfenstein, Switzerland
Josef Kreiner, Germany
Olof Lidin, Denmark
Mikolaj Melanowicz, Poland
Ian Nish, UK
Jacqueline Pigeot, France
Brian Powell, UK
Arthur Stockwin, UK

Louis Allen, 				UK, 1922–1991
Frank J. Daniels, 			
UK, 1900–1983
Charles Dunn, 				UK, 1915–1995
Charles Haguenauer, 		France, 1896–1976
Wieslaw Kotanski, 			
Poland, 1915–2005
Bruno Lewin, 			
Germany, 1924–2012
Fosco Maraini, 			
Italy, 1912–2004
Martin Ramming, 		Germany, 1899–1988
Alexander Slawik, 		Austria, 1900–1997
Frits Vos, 			
The Netherlands, 1918–2000

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

6EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Contents
Members of the Council 2014-2017��������������������������������������3
Message from the EAJS President���������������������������������������9News from the EAJS Office������������������������������������������������� 11
Raise of EAJS Membership Fees .......................................16
2nd EAJS Japan Conference,
Kobe, Japan, 28-29 September 2016����������������������������������18
Report by the Academic Organizer

18

Conference Programme

20

15th EAJS International Conference, Lisbon, Portugal,
30 August - 2 September 2017��������������������������������������������42
Call for Papers

42

11th EAJS PhD Workshop, Edinburgh, UK������������������������74
Report by the Academic Organizer

74

Reports by the Participants

77

12th EAJS PhD Workshop, Paris, France��������������������������92
Report by the Academic Organizer

92

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Reports by the Participants 95

1st EAJS Publication Workshop, Berlin, Germany������������� 111
Report of the Academic Organizer

111

Reports of the Participants

115

Toshiba International Foundation Fellowships�������������������124
Reports by the 2015 TIFO Fellows

124

2016 TIFO Fellows

140News from our members�������������������������������������������������������141
Items received������������������������������������������������������������������������142
Change of Address Form.......................................................143

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Message from the EAJS President
Dear Colleagues,
Preparations are now under way at full speed for the next international conference of our association, the 15th EAJS International Conference, which
will be held in Lisbon from 30 August to 2 September next year. The local
team in Lisbon, the section convenors and the EAJS office in Berlin are busy
preparing this important event, as no doubt many of you are busy preparing
proposals for presentations. I am sure that we can expect yet another successful conference next year and I am looking forward to meeting in Portugal,
which of course holds a special place in the history of European-Japaneserelations. I hope that many of you will be able to make your way to Lisbon toattend the conference and meet up with colleagues from all over the world.
In addition to the academic programme, the conference is also an important
opportunity to talk informally about the future direction of our association andabout our activities, and the General Meeting at the end of the conference isconstitutionally an important event for our association.
Through 2015 and 2016, the EAJS organized a number of activities with afocus on providing support for young scholars, which is an important part ofour mission. We organized PhD workshops in Edinburgh (2015) and Paris(2016), and we launched the 1st EAJS Publication workshop, which took
place 2015 in Berlin. In this bulletin, you will find some enthusiastic feedback
about the workshops from both participants and organizers. I am very grateful to the colleagues who generously give their time to the organization ofthese valuable events.
In keeping with our new tradition of holding an EAJS Japan Conference inthe year before the triennial EAJS International Conference in Europe – following the success of the first EAJS Japan conference, which was held at
Kyoto University in 2013 – the 2nd EAJS Japan Conference was held at
Kobe University in September 2016. The conference was very successful, toa large extent due to the support and efforts of Kobe University in hosting theconference. I report briefly on the conference inside this issue of the Bulletin.
Finally, I must once again note our thanks to the Japan Foundation and the9

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Toshiba International Foundation for their support which is so crucial for our
association and for our activities. Without the support of the Japan Foundation we would not be able to maintain our office or execute our daily business, or hold our European conference. TIFO provides an important part of
the funding for our PhD and publication workshops, and again this year they
funded fellowships for three student members to conduct extended fieldwork
in Japan.
I am looking very much forward to meeting in Lisbon and meanwhile wish ourmembers all the best until then.
Yours sincerely,
Bjarke Frellesvig
EAJS President

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

News from the EAJS Office
Dear EAJS members,
I hope this note finds you well! Thank you for your continued support of
the EAJS and its office. Since the last EAJS Special General Meeting in
Berlin in April 2015, we have been busy organizing a range of EAJS activities, which we will present in more depth in this issue of the EAJS Bulletin.
Currently, all of our energy is devoted to the preparation for the next EAJSInternational Conference which will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, from
August 30 to September 2, 2017. We are very much looking forward to thisconference, as it will bring us to the energetic city of Lisbon with its richtradition in exchanges with Japan, and it will provide us with an opportunity
to meet again and engage in lively academic discussions.
Today, I would like to inform you about recent activities and events in the
EAJS Office.
First of all, Tim Herbort, who was the EAJS office assistant for the last 18
months, has moved to a new position in October 2016. As Treasurer, I am
sad to see him leave the EAJS Office and would like to use this opportunity
to thank him again for his service to the association. For those of you whointeracted with Tim over the last year, you may share my appreciation of his
calm and friendly oversight of all EAJS office activities and his high work
efficiency. Tim Herbort transferred to a research position at the FU Berlin topursue his Ph.D. in Japanese Studies.
We are happy to announce that we could win back Lorenz Denninger, who
had worked in the office in 2014 and who had contributed to the successfulorganization of the EAJS International Conference in Ljubljana. Lorenz is
supported by our two student RAs, Alessa Peters and André Finger. We
had a smooth transition in the office and are looking forward to work with
the new team to continuously provide excellent service to our members.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Since the printing of the 2015 Bulletin, the EAJS organized two PhD Workshops, in Edinburgh in 2015 and in Paris in 2016. In November 2015, the
1st EAJS Publication Workshop took place in Berlin. The first workshop
in what may become a regular EAJS activity, the Publication Workshop
provided an opportunity for young scholars to discuss article manuscripts
with senior scholars and a journal editor. A simulation of the peer review
process helped participants to get to know the tools of the trade in theincreasingly important field of peer reviewed academic publication. Reports
about both workshops can be found in this issue.
The 12th EAJS doctoral Workshop took place in Paris in July 2016 under
the supervision of Professor Sébastien Lechevalier from EHESS. Once
more, 20 PhD students were invited to present and discuss their research.
In discussions, they received valuable support and guidance from a groupof 12 senior advisors and 3 junior advisors. You can find the organizer’s
report as well as the participants’ reports in the section on the 12th EAJS
PhD Workshop.
In September 2016, the EAJS also organized the second EAJS Japan
Conference, which was held in cooperation with Kobe University. After thehigh success of the first EAJS Japan Conference in Kyoto in 2013, the
EAJS Council decided to make EAJS Japan Conferences a regular activityof our Association. EAJS Conferences in Japan will be held every three
years, the next EAJS Japan Conference will take place in 2019.
The Conference in Kobe was even more successful than the first Japan
Conference in Kyoto three years ago and drew an even larger audience.
168 colleagues presented their academic research in Japan and weregistered about 200 participants. Our thanks go to the local organizing
committee from the Faculty of Letters at Kobe University for their wonderfulcooperation, but also to all section convenors for giving their time.
You will find the report on the 2nd EAJS Japan Conference in this Bulletin.
In May 2016, the EAJS Council met in Lisbon to hold a preparatory meetingfor the 15th EAJS International Conference. The members of the EAJSCouncil visited the conference venue and discussed organizational matterswith the local organizing team. The Office is working closely with the organ12

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

izing team at the host university, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and withsection convenors to ensure a high quality conference.
The conference website went online in September 2016. At the sametime, the Call for Papers for the conference was opened. The deadline forsubmitting proposals via the online submission system was December 14,
2016. To ensure that the submission and selection processes run smoothly,
the local organizers have made a contract with a professional conference
organizing company, Nomad IT. Firm representatives joined the preparatory meeting in Lisbon in May. Nomad IT is responsible for all technicalissues in conference preparation. The company owns and has run successfully at many international conferences an online submission system for
papers and panel proposals that has been adjusted to the specific needs
and requirements of the EAJS. Preparations are running smoothly, and the
EAJS office will keep you updated via EAJS-L
All EAJS activities are conducted with funding raised from external sources.
As Treasurer, I am delighted and grateful that the Japan Foundation has
provided us with funding for 2016-17. The continuing financial support by
the Japan Foundation enables us to operate the EAJS office and to provide
our members with valuable services, such as the EAJS-L mailing list or the
EAJS website. At the same time, Japan Foundation funding allows us toplan for key activities in the near future with a reasonable degree of certitude. In 2015, the Japan Foundation supported EAJS office costs and the
EAJS Publication Workshop in Berlin, and in 2016, the PhD Workshop in
Paris. We are immensely grateful for this support.
We are also pleased to announce that the Toshiba International Foundation continued its support for the EAJS, especially with regards to young
scholars. Already in 2014, the Toshiba International Foundation changed
the status of the Toshiba International Foundation Fellowships to that ofa non-grant program, which means that for the time being, the Toshiba
International Foundation will annually provide support for the Fellowship
program which continues to be administered by the EAJS (we reported
about this decision in Bulletin No. 85/86).

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

To our delight, in 2016, the Toshiba International Foundation decided toextend the status of non-grant program also to our annual workshops for
doctoral candidates, which had been funded or co-funded by the Toshiba
International Foundation since 2000. This secures the funding for EAJS
PhD Workshops for years to come and allows us to plan accordingly continuously. We are very grateful and happy that our organization will thus beable to offer support for early career scholars in Japanese Studies.
The Toshiba International Foundation has offered to fund networking activities for former recipients of the foundations sponsorship. We are currently
designing an effective format to foster those networking activities. In
December and January, we will conduct surveys of previous participants in
PhD Workshops and former recipients of TIFO Fellowships. Based on thesurvey results, we will design a concept for alumni activities that best suits
the needs and interests of TIFO alumni as well as the wider communityof early career researchers within the EAJS. We will inform you about ourprogress in this regard in the next EAJS Bulletin.
Even though we are glad and grateful for the ongoing financial support fromthe Japan Foundation and the Toshiba International Foundation, overall, thefinancial situation has become more difficult for our organization. By andlarge, the EAJS had to face a net decrease in its funding, based on severebudget cuts on side of the Japan Foundation as well as currency fluctuations that negatively affected the total Euro amount granted to the EAJS.
In consequence, the EAJS will have to spend more of its own income
from membership fees to fund the EAJS office and all its services for a
growing EAJS membership in the future. As discussed in the EAJS General
Membership Meetings in 2011 and 2014, the EAJS will raise its membership fees from January 1, 2017. Please be assured that all measures weretaken to keep the increase in membership fees as small as possible and tothus reduce the burden on our members. This raise in membership fees willbe the first in more than ten years, and compared to other scholarly organizations, our memberships fees will still be very reasonable. Therefore, we
hope for your understanding and for your continuing support.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

The EAJS Office is looking forward to seeing many of you in Portugal inAugust. Also, please feel free to let us know if you want to stop by when
you are in Berlin and – as always – please do not hesitate to contact us incase of questions and inquiries.
Verena Blechinger-Talcott
EAJS Treasurer, and the EAJS Office Team15EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Raise of EAJS Membership Fees
Dear EAJS members,
The EAJS will raise membership fees effective January 1, 2017. From
January 2017, the fee for a new or renewed regular three-year membership will be increased from 60 EUR to 90 EUR. The membership fee for students will rise from 30 EUR to 45 EUR for three years.
The decision to increase membership fees was certainly not easy and has
been discussed thoroughly by the EAJS Council and in the EAJS General
Meetings in 2011 and again in 2014. Both past and current members of
the EAJS Council and the members present at the General Meetings 2011
and 2014 voted in favour of the proposed increase in membership fees.
Even though this step is undesirable, it has become unavoidable. Since
taking over the position as EAJS treasurer, I have been cutting costs forthe association where possible. We reduced our expenses for IT support quite considerably over the last five years thanks to cooperation with
our host university, FU Berlin. The EAJS office assistant works only parttime, and the team at the EAJS office includes several student assistants.
But even such cost cutting measures did not lead to a sustainable financial
situation, as at the same time the external funding provided to the EAJS decreased. The Japan Foundation, the main provider of support for the EAJS office and EAJS activities, has undergone severe budget cuts over the last years;
and fluctuations in currency exchange rates have led to a further reduction of
the Euro amount granted to the EAJS. Please be assured that all reasonableoptions possible have been explored to ensure that the impact of an increase
in membership fees will be as minimal as possible in these circumstances.
This is the first raise in membership fees in more than ten years. Moreover, compared to other scholarly associations in Europe and elsewhere, the new EAJS membership fees still remain very reasonable.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

I hope for your understanding and your continuing support for the EAJS.
Please help us ensure that our Association will continue to play an importantrole as a healthy and active association of scholars from Europe and elsewhere
who strive to continuously promote research and knowledge about Japan.
I will be happy to respond to all queries, suggestions and concerns.
Yours sincerely,
Verena Blechinger-Talcott
EAJS Treasurer

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

2nd EAJS Japan Conference,
Kobe, Japan, 28-29 September 2016
Message from the Academic Organizer
It is a pleasure for me to report briefly on the successful 2nd Japan Conference of the EAJS. The conference was held at Kobe University. It took placea few days after the typhoon Malakas had hit Japan, and so the weather was
clement, temperate and clear, affording us some impressive views over the
Osaka Bay from Kobe’s Rokko campus, which provided an ideal setting forthe conference. For a number of our colleagues and members, this was thefirst visit to Kobe University, but I am sure that it will not be their last.
On 23 September, the day before the conference, Kobe University had organized a well-attended pre-conference event, marking the launch of Kobe’s
new Kobe University Educational Program on Current Japan which is taught
in English and open to exchange students at both undergraduate and graduate (Master’s) levels.
The conference proper opened on 24 September and took up two full days
with a rich academic programme. On 24 September, Dr. Tamotsu Aoki (Director of the National Art Center, Tokyo) delivered the first keynote lecture(“Age of ‘cultural power’ – Japan, Asia and the world”), and on the second
day of the conference, Professor Gabriele Vogt (University of Hamburg)
gave the second keynote lecture, on “Crossing borders: Japan and Europe
in a globalized world”. This webpage http://www.lit.kobe-u.ac.jp/~eajs2016/index_en.html has links to both the full conference programme and the bookof abstracts.
In addition to the academic programme, the conference reception on 24
September treated participants to delicious - and plentiful - food and drink,
as well as a mesmerizing performance by the Kamigata Taiko Ren, which
included an opportunity for conference participants to try out their taiko skills.
I would like to thank all of those involved in making the conference the true
success it turned out to be. The EAJS Office in Berlin, and especially Tim
Herbort, played an important part in planning and scheduling and in pro18

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

cessing the abstract proposals for review. I would also like to thank the section convenors for their important contribution to the smooth running of eachof the sections. They were: Carmen Tamas (Anthropology), Simon James
Bytheway (Economy), Harald Fuess (History), Anna Bordilovskaya (Language and Linguistics), Paul Schalow (Literature), Ayako Kusunoki (Politics),
Christian Morimoto Hermansen (Religion and Philosophy), Bjarke Frellesvig(Interdisciplinary).
Thank you also to the Japan Foundation who supported the conference financially. Both the Japan Foundation and TIFO had representatives attending the conference, and making themselves available to EAJS members.
First and foremost, however, I must on behalf of the EAJS express my immense gratitude to Kobe University and the local organizers. Kobe University committed a great deal of resource, both direct and indirect costs, toholding the conference and organizing the practicalities and logistics of theconference, and many colleagues at Kobe gave generously of their time both
before and during the conference. The local organizing committee, which included Professor Nobuo Kazashi, Professor Yoshikazu Suzuki, and Kiyomitsu Yui, was chaired by Professor Noriyuki Inoue, Executive Vice-President ofKobe University. Without his strong support the conference would not havebeen the great success it was, and we are extremely grateful to Professor
Inoue and all his colleagues at Kobe University for all they invested in theconference.
Bjarke Frellesvig
EAJS President

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Conference Programme
Greetings and Keynote Speeches
Saturday (24 Sept. 2016) 13:45-14:45, Rokko Hall
Greetings by Professor Bjarke FRELLESVIG (EAJS President)
Welcome Remarks by Professor Noriyuki INOUE (Vice President of Kobe
University)
Keynote Speech by Dr Tamotsu AOKI (The National Art Center, Tokyo):Age of “Cultural Power” ―Japan, Asia and World「『文化力』の時代―日本とアジア・世界」
Sunday (25 Sept. 2016) 13:45-14:45, Rokko Hall
Introduction by Professor Bjarke FRELLESVIG (EAJS President)
Keynote speech by Professor Gabriele VOGT (University of Hamburg,
Germany):
Crossing Borders: Japan and Europe in a Globalized World
Cultural Programme
Saturday (24 Sept. 2016) 18:45, Takigawa Memorial Hall, 1F
Dinner Reception and performance by Kamigata Taiko (pre-registration
online or on-site)
Project Director
Professor Bjarke FRELLESVIG, University of Oxford
Local Organizers
Professor Noriyuki INOUE, Kobe University
Professor Nobuo KAZASHI, Kobe University
Professor Yoshikazu SUZUKI, Kobe University
Professor Kiyomitsu YUI, Kobe University

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Venue
Kobe University, Faculty of Letters
Rokkodai Second Campus
Rokkodai-cho 1-1, Nada-ku, Kobe 6570013, Japan
Phone: +81 78 803 5561
Location on Google Maps: https://goo.gl/zACbzZ
Lunch
Available at the campus restaurant (Bldg. 101) from 11:00 to 14:00 on Saturday and Sunday (no registration required)
Book CornerIn the east side of the campus restaurant (Bldg. 101)
Anthropology (JAWS) Section
Convenor: Carmen Tamas (Kobe University, Japan)
DAY ONE (Saturday, 24 September)
Panel I: The shifting structures and salience of homes, families andhouseholds in Japan
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B331
Chair: Richard Ronald (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Richard Ronald, Oana Druta (University of Amsterdam) & Maren
Godzik (Fukuoka University, Japan): Japan’s Urban Singles: Negotiating Alternatives to Family Households and Standard Housing Pathways
Lynne Nakano (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong):
Single Women and Housing Choices in Tokyo, Hong Kong, andShanghaiOana Druta (University of Amsterdam): Young adults’ pathways into
homeownership in Tokyo: shifting practices & meanings

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Session 1
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B331
Charly Poisson (University Lyon 3 - Jean Moulin, France): Three representations of the family in the 2000s Japanese cinema
Nathalie Close (Sophia University, Japan): Film as research methodology: a case study
Maria Ibari Ortega (Australian National University, Australia): The mothers of men’s tradition. Transmitting local heritage from the margins inJapanSession 2
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B204
Noriko Fujita (Waseda University, Japan): “Hatarakikata” as Discourse:
For Whom? For What?
Ludgera Lewerich (Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf, Germany):
Searching for and finding a better life in the countryside? Migration stories from rural Japan
Gurvan Maillard de la Morandais (Hiroshima University, Japan): A
study of the retiree contribution aspects to the revitalization process of
Higashi-Hiroshima city rural areas
Matthew Henry Wickens (Toyo University, Japan): Work as a Survival
Strategy for Homeless Men in Tokyo, Japan
Session 3
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B331
Andrea de Antoni (Ritsumeikan University, Japan): Call Me a Dog:
Ritualized Affective Correspondences, Inugami Possession and Exorcism in Contemporary Tokushima Prefecture
Alina Radulescu (University of the Ryukyus, Japan): Praying for Rainin the Yaeyama Islands – from state ritual to revival of tradition
Natasa Visocnik (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia): Festival as a social
movement – Higashi Kujo Madang in Kyoto
Christian Goehlert (LMU Munich, Germany): Japanese Rituals of Pregnancy and Childbirth between Resurgence and Re-Interpretation

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Session 4
17:15-18:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B331
Björn-Ole Kamm (Kyoto University, Japan): The Power of 100 Yen –Larp in Japan
Clothilde Sabre (Hokkaido University, Japan): A trip to cuteness or acute trip? The promotion of ‘Kawaii Tourism’
Kyoko Koma (Meiji University, Japan): ‘Legitimation’ of Kawaii as aJapanese Culture through Perpetual Acculturation?: A Case of Lolita
Fashion Representations in Tokyo, Paris, and Otaru
DAY TWO (Sunday, 25 September)
Panel II: Creating a Sense of Belonging, Community, and Self at
Schools in Japan
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B204
Chair: Jennifer McGuire (University of Oxford, UK)
Gregory Poole (Doshisha University, Japan): Creating Community at
Daycare: Deflecting the power of the state
Yuki Imoto (Keio University, Japan): Revisiting International Preschools
in Japan: Reflections on the evolvement of the self and the field in ethnographic research
Jennifer McGuire (University of Oxford): Integrated Education andIntegrating Worlds: Deaf and hard-of-hearing Japanese youth and thecreation of ibasho
Maki Tsuruta (Soka University, Japan): “Was Medicine Taken?”: Thefunction of the category “medicine” and the social construction of ADHDin Japanese schools
Panel III: Rural areas in Japan—between decline and resurgence
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B331
Chair: Ralph Lützeler (University of Vienna, Austria)
Ralph Lützeler (University of Vienna): Living conditions in Japaneserural areas: Stuck in a downward spiral?
Barbara Holthus (University of Vienna): Parental well-being in Japan:
Regional differences
Wolfram Manzenreiter (University of Vienna): Rural well-being in Ja23

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

pan: Reexamining the Aggregate Kumamoto Happiness Index
Johannes Wilhelm (University of Vienna): Vulnerability and resilience
as seen in a post-disaster rural environment
Session 5
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B331
Anya Benson (Chuo University): Becoming Purikyua: The creation ofcommercialized identity spaces in the marketing of Purikyua
Nicola Pietro Bonaldi (University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy): Male at Play:
Understanding Japanese Bishōjo Gēmu
William H. Kelly (University of Oxford, UK): Religious Encounters in the
Rating and Censorship of video games in Japan and beyond
Session 6
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B204
Eyal Ben-Ari (Kinneret Academic College, Israel): Good Repose for the
Military Dead: Japan in Comparative Perspective
David Lewis (Yunnan University, China): Rituals of Sacrifice and Safety
in a Japanese Factory
Sebastien Penmellen Boret (Tohoku University, Japan): Remembering
Disasters in Japan: Memorials, religion and the State
Session 7
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B331
Emma Cook (Hokkaido University, Japan): Food Rituals and Food Allergies: School Lunches in Contemporary Japan
Garcia St. Aubyn Chambers (Toyo University, Japan): The Ritual ofCommunal Bath in Japan: Perspectives from a Participant-Observer
Marta Elzbieta Szczygiel (Osaka University, Japan): “We’re cleaning
up Japan” - Western Role in the Social and Cultural Construction of
Excrement in Japan
Adrian Ovidiu Tamas (Osaka Electro-Communication University, Japan): The Ritual of Hygiene and the Practice of Purity—Daily Routinesof Cleanliness

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Economy Section
Convenor: Simon James Bytheway (Nihon University, Japan)
DAY ONE: Saturday (24 September)
Session 1
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B234
Simon James Bytheway (Nihon University): Yasuda Zaibatsu: Dissolution, Reorganization, and Beyond
David Rear (Nihon University, Japan): Weakening the hegemony ofJapanese-style-management: discourse intervention through keywords
James Brady (Asia Pacific Institute of Research Osaka, Japan): Firms
on the farm: an ideational political economy analysis of corporations inJapanese agriculture
Session 2
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B234
Pawel Pasierbiak (Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Poland): The
Role of Japan in East Asian Economic Regionalism
Joey Soehardjojo (Warwick Business School, United Kingdom): Transplantation or transforming? Bringing Japanese Management Systems to
Indonesia
Session 3
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B234
Lenka Vyletalova (Sophia University, Japan): Adjustments to the neoliberal market: ‘global human resources’ development in Japan
Ryohei Nakagawa (Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Japan): On
wage negotiation power and flat wages after the 2000s in Japan
Philippe Debroux (Soka University, Japan): Elderly workers in Japan
and Germany
Session 4
17:15-18:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B234
Claude Levi Alvares (University of Hiroshima, Japan): Teachers profes25

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016sionalization paradigm in question
Kai Macyowsky (Osaka University, Japan): Precarious Employment at
Japanese Universities - About the Work and Life of Hijōkin Kōshi
History Section
Convenor: Harald Fuess (Heidelberg University, Germany)
DAY ONE: Saturday (24 September)
Session 1
09:00-11:00, Takigawa Memorial Hall, Conference Room L1
Harald Fuess (Heidelberg University, Germany): Kobe and the Meiji
Restoration: Diplomats, Merchants, and the Global Arms Trade
Giulio Bertelli (Osaka University, Japan): The role of Italian diplomats
in Japan from the end of the Edo period to early Meiji era (1866-1870)
Ian Ruxton (Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan): Ernest Satow’s
visits to Japan from Siam
Session 2
11:15-12:30, Takigawa Memorial Hall, Conference Room L1Jürgen Paul Melzer (Yamanashi Gakuin, Japan): From Zero Fighters
to Cherry Blossom Suicide Attackers: Japanese Aeronautical Innovation
During World War II
Judit Erika Magyar (Waseda University, Japan): Advertising in total
war: changes in government directives between 1938-1945 depicted in
Shashin Shuho
Panel I: Ordinary Women in Extraordinary Times
15:00-17:00, Takigawa Memorial Hall, Conference Room L1
Chair: Michiko Ikuta (Osaka University, Japan)
Discussant: Yulia Mikhailova (Hiroshima City University, Japan)
Katsumi Fujiwara (Osaka University, Japan): Women as Consumers in
Harbin – Focusing on Department Stores
Naho Igaue (Chuo University, Japan): Interethnic Marriages in Japanese Novels Set in “Manchukuo”: Relationship between Russian Migrants and Asian People
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Michiko Ikuta (Osaka University, Japan): The Imprisonment of Womenin Siberia
Session 3
17:15-18:30, Takigawa Memorial Hall, Conference Room L1
Sergey Tolstoguzov (Hiroshima University, Japan): Takashima Shūhan
and finance problems in Japan in Tenpo period
Petra Palmeshofer (University of Vienna, Austria): The Visualization ofHistory in Aesop´s Fables in Japan - Victorian Illustration versus Kawanabe Kyōsai´s Depiction of Meiji History in Caricatures
DAY TWO: Sunday (25 September)
Panel II: East-Asia and the International Order after the Great War:
Prospects, Hopes, and Disappointments
09:00-11:00, Takigawa Memorial Hall, Conference Room L1
Chair: Tosh Minohara (Kobe University, Japan)
Discussant: Torsten Weber (DIJ German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo, Japan)
Clinton Godart (Hokkaido University, Japan): Future War andFuture Peace after 1919: Military Affairs and Religion in theThought of Ishiwara Kanji
Junghoon Lee (University of Ulsan, Republic of Korea): The Shanghai
Provisional Government and the Myth of an Emergence of a Modern
Nationalist State in Korea
Aleksandra Babovic (Kobe University, Japan): The International Orderafter the Great War and Creation of the International Military Tribunal for
the Far East
Session 4
11:15-12:30, Takigawa Memorial Hall, Conference Room L1
Egas Moniz Bandeira (Tohoku University, Japan): Japanese stances
towards Chinese constitutionalism, 1906-1909
Includes: Panel III: The structure and function’s transfiguration of thenationalism in Japan
Chair: Katsuji Nara (Ritsumeikan University, Japan)
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Katsuji Nara (Ritsumeikan University, Japan): Aizawa Seishisai’s
thought of order in the Bakumatsu Period: through the analysis of mails
to his nephew
Takuma Sato (Hanyang University, Republic of Korea): The Seductionof “Nuclear-Nationalism”: A Page of Anti-Americanism nationalism
Session 5
15:00-17:00 Takigawa Memorial Hall, Conference Room L1
Takahiro Yamamoto (University of Tokyo, Japan): Balance of Favour:
The emergence of territorial boundaries around Japan, 1861-1875
Sigfrid Östberg (University of Oxford, UK): Between Crisis and Innovation: Japanese–Korean Frontier Diplomacy in the Mid-NineteenthCentury
Marco Tinello (Hosei University, Japan): The Annexation of Ryukyu toJapan through the lens of the Ryukyuan International Treaties
Session 6
15:00-17:00, Takigawa Memorial Hall, Conference Room L2
Giovanni Borriello (Tuscia University, Italy): Women in Japanese medicine. A comparative analysis of women’s role in medicine between Eastand West
Astghik Hovhannisyan (Hitotsubashi University, Japan): A Rational
Coalition? Ōta Tenrei’s Defense of Birth Control, Eugenics, and Euthanasia
Interdisciplinary Section
Convenor: Bjarke Frellesvig (University of Oxford, UK)
DAY ONE: Saturday (24 September)
Panel I: Mapping Trends, Mapping Identities: Material Cultural Exchange Between Japan and its Neighbours
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B101
Chair: Jennifer Coates (Kyoto University, Japan)
Ikuko Wada (Okayama University, Japan): Designing National Aesthetics: Seventeenth Century Textile Trade between Japan and India
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Katsura Koishi (Kyoto University, Japan): Cho-cho san no kibō: Considering Japan’s Hopeful Attitudes to International Encounter
Jennifer Coates (Kyoto University): Imported Trends on Japanese Bodies: American Aesthetics in Postwar Japanese Cinema
Panel II: Film, Journal and the Japanese Empire: Imagining the Other
and the Self in the 20th century
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B204
Chair: Fei Chen (University of Tokyo, Japan)
Jihye Chung (University of Tokyo): The Imagination of Koreans in Moving Images in Early Postwar Japan
Le Wang (University of Tokyo): Negotiation between Propaganda andEntertainment: the Imagination of Manchukuo in “National Policy Films”
Fei Chen (University of Tokyo): Locating Yunnan in the Qing Empireand Asia: the Geographical Imagination of Chinese Provinces among
the Chinese Students in Japan, 1906-1911
Session 1: Cheerleading
09:00-11:00, Takigawa Memorial Hall, Conference Room L2
Hirofumi Iwatani (Kobe University, Japan): A Case study of changes inJapanese styles of cheering: Focusing on unique body performances ofa college cheerleading group
Norio Niwa (National Museum of Ethnology, Japan): Cultivating a selfdisciplined, resourceful and respectable leader: how ritualistic behaviors
among cheerleading groups in Japanese universities have changed
Kayo Yoshida (Kobe University, Japan): Engendering “Cheer up!”:
Change of Women’s Role in the Japanese College CheerleadingGroupsSession 2: Japanese Cinema
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B101
Leena Eerolainen (University of Helsinki, Finland): The monstrous
masculine in Japanese kaiki eiga
Fernando Ortiz-Moya (University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China):
U-Turn and the pursuit of Happiness: the “back to basics” Japanese Cinema
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Session 3: Place and Heritage
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B204
Golani Solomon Erez (Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Israel)and Christian Dimmer (Waseda University, Japan): Heritagisation in
pre-2020 Olympic Tokyo — Discourses around the City’s Modernist Built
LegacyAbhik Chakraborty (Wakayama University, Japan): Alpine Tourism andPlace-Making in Contemporary Japan
Panel III: Staying Hopeful in the Periphery: Multiple Marginalization in
Rural Japan
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B101
Chair: Hisako Omori (Akita International University, Japan)
Chikako Nagayama (Akita International University, Japan): Colonial
Interpretations of an Aboriginal Girl ‘s Life and Death
Sean O’Reilly (Akita International University, Japan): Fighting Blind:Zatoichi as a Symbol of Hope for the Marginalized in Japanese History
Hisako Omori (Akita International University, Japan): “There is Something about Mary”: The Global Prominence and Local Marginalization of
the Marian Apparition in Akita
Session 4: Old Age and Ageing
15:00-17:00, Takigawa Memorial Hall, Conference Room L2
Steve Chan (SIM University, Singapore): Ageing in Place: Housing for
Seniors in Japan and Singapore
Celia Spoden (Düsseldorf University, Germany): Differing approaches
to terminal care for people with dementia in a Japanese and a German
nursing home
Maren Godzik (Fukuoka University, Japan): Old Age and Ageing inContemporary Japanese Art
Session 5: Art and Design
17:15-18:30, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B101
Hitomi Asano (Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University, Japan): A New
Interpretation of Western Style Paintings Found on Folded Screens
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Delphine Vomscheid (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Japan):
Zashiki: the essence of the Japanese dwelling?
Session 6: Disaster and Recovery
17:15-18:30, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B204
Anna Vainio (Tohoku University, Japan): Un-pausing Communities in
Tohoku: Social Construction of Recovery and the Future by Grassroots
ActorsFlavia Fulco (Sophia University, Japan): Kataribe tours: performance ofstorytelling in post-disaster Tohoku
DAY TWO: Sunday (25 September)
Session 7: Contemporary Issues in Japanese Studies
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B101
Bojana Yamamoto-Pavlasevic (Kobe University, Japan): Child-centrism in Japan
Wolfgang Herbert (University of Tokushima, Japan): Schism in theJapanese underworld: the Yakuza on the way to extinction
Yasuo Shimizu (Doshisha University, Japan): Japanese Running Taboo
Session 8: Popular Culture
09:00-11:00, Takigawa Memorial Hall, Conference Room L2
Maria Grajdian (Nagasaki University, Japan): Precariousness andVulnerability: Love, melancholia and anomie in Makoto Shinkai’s anime
works
Marco Pellitteri (Kobe University, Japan): From muscular to feminine,from cool to kawaii Shifts in trends, meanings, and audience of anime in
Italy in the 1990s
Kamila Sosnowska (Jagiellonian University, Poland): The faces ofkawaii - an aesthetical trend, a social device and globalised culture

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Session 9: Nikkei and Japanese Abroad
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B101
Yvonne Siemann (University of Lucerne, Switzerland): Undokai in theJapanese diaspora: the example of Bolivian Nikkei
Ana Sueyoshi (Utsunomiya University, Japan): Second Generation ofSouth Americans in the Japanese Higher Education System and their
Academic Performance
Session 10: Rural Renewal
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B204
Rebecca Ferderer (Nagoya University, Japan): Extending the Protection of Geographical Indications to Non-Agricultural Products as a Strategy for Rural Revitalization in Japan
Kenji Nagasaka (Doshisha University, Japan): Can Japanese greening
NGO be an integrator of scientific knowledge transfer for afforestation?
Case of Green Earth Network Japan
Panel IV: Imagined Landscapes and Boundaries: Negotiating Cultural
Geography through Film
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Agriculture, Room B101
Chair: Anastasia Fedorova (Hokkaido University, Japan)
Hironori Itoh (Kyoto University, Japan): The Expressway and the Shinkansen: Images of Tokyo in the Films of Ozu, Wenders, and Kiarostami
Mari Sugawa (Nara Prefectural University, Japan): The Struggle ofFemale Independence in Postwar Kyoto Cinema
Anastasia Fedorova (Hokkaido University, Japan): Documenting
the Border: Imperial Japanese Cinema and Its Depiction of Sakhalin(Karafuto)

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Language and Linguistics Section
Convenor: Anna Bordilovskaya (Rikkyo University, Japan)
DAY ONE: Saturday (24 September)
Session 1
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B135
Mark Irwin (Yamagata University, Japan): Rendaku and Labial Lenition
Junko Hayashi (University of Tokyo, Japan): The Types of Intentional
Interrogatives in Modern Japanese Language
Session 2
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B135
Anna Bordilovskaya (Rikkyo University, Japan): Foreign Culture
Frame in Contemporary Japanese: A Corpus-based Case Study of
Loanword Modifiers
Bernhard Seidl (Vienna University, Austria): Negotiating description
and prescription: Language criticism in Japanese newspapers
DAY TWO: Sunday (25 September)
Session 3
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B135
Ekaterina Levchenko (Independent Researcher, Russia): “Kojiki” and“Nihon Shoki” songs: New academic translations in Russian with glossing and morphemic analyses
Julie Brock (Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan): How to translate apoem “poetically” or “the meaning of the meaning” – The example of awaka of the Man’yōshū (Book 9, n°1778)
Session 4
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B135
Martin Parsons and Mark D. Sheehan (Hannan University, Japan):
Promoting active learning through collaborative problem-solving at auniversity student conference in Japan
Blanche Sylvie Delaborde (INALCO, France): The Expressive and33

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Narrative Power of Graphic Onomatopoeia in Japanese Comics: theexample of Bonobono (1986-Today)
Panel I: Internships for Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language,
Portfolios and E-learning
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B135
Chair: Richard Harrison (Kobe University, Japan)
Masao Sanehiro (Kobe University): Internships in Teaching Japanese
As a Foreign Language
Miyako Kiso (Kobe University): Portfolios in Teaching Japanese As a
Foreign Language at The University of Hamburg – a case study using
Literary Works
Richard Harrison (Kobe University): Portfolios in the Teaching ofJapanese as a Foreign/Second Language - E-Portfolios and Flipped
Classrooms
Literature Section
Convenor: Paul Schalow (Rutgers University, United States of America)
DAY ONE: Saturday (24 September)
Panel I: From Modernism through Digital Culture in Japan: Poetry andthe Visual
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B232
Chair: Jordan A. Y. Smith (Josai International University, Japan)
Tanya Barnett (University of California, Los Angeles, United States ofAmerica): The Red of Putrefying Decadence: Landscapes of the Interiorand Exterior in the Works of Murayama Kaita
Marianne Simon-Oikawa (University of Tokyo, Japan): Poetry andSpace: The Collaborative Poems of Niikuni Seiichi and Pierre GarnierAndrew Campana (Harvard University, United States of America): Moving Hands, Still Feet: Japanese Poetry and Visualizing Disability
Jordan A. Y. Smith (Josai International University, Japan): Visual
Poetry of Contemporary Japan: Medium+Message / Analogue+Digital
Modes
Session 1
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

11:15-12:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B232
Laura Imai Messina (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan): Material/Immaterial, Useful/Useless Dichotomies in Kusuri yubi no hyōhon
by Ogawa Yōko
Elena Giannoulis (Free University of Berlin, Germany): Forms andFunctions of Emoticons in Japanese Literature
Session 2
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B232
Alina Anton (Kobe University, Japan): The Asian Body in North American Context: Visual and Literary Racialization(s)Tomoko Aoyama (University of Queensland, Australia): The Significance of Girls’ Intertextuality in Nogami Yaeko’s Mori
Kathryn M. Tanaka (Otemae University, Japan): Literature as Social Activism and Reconciliation: Survivor writing and the meaning ofHansen’s disease in Japan
Session 3
17:15-18:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B232
Dylan McGee (Nagoya University, Japan): Cures for the Common
Reader: Advertisements for Cosmetic and Medicinal Products in theDaisō Rental Books (1767-1899)
Mario Talamo (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, France): The sleepof reason produces monsters: katakiuchimono and the sunset of Kansei
ideology
DAY TWO: Sunday (25 September)
Panel II: Female Homosocial Bonds in Modern Japanese Literature
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B232
Discussant: Yoriko Kume (Nihon University, Japan)
Junko Yamada Noro (Ochanomizu University, Japan): Female Relationships in Takeo Arishima’s Kurara no shukke: Representation of
Christianity in Japanese Literature
Yumi Kikuchi (Ochanomizu University): The heroine‘s desire for female
35

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016bonding in Nomizo Naoko’s novel Jojū Shinri
Shoko Haga (Ochanomizu University): Tightening bonds between women: serialized novels in women’s magazines of Taishō and early Shōwa
Letizia Guarini (Ochanomizu University): Are Women Their Own Worst
Enemies? Female Bonds in Kakuta Mitsuyo’s works
Session 4
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B234
Yuko Kawarai (Osaka University, Japan): The reception of “The Tale ofGenji” regarding laments for empress consort Kenshi
Paul Schalow (Rutgers University, United States of America): Memoryof Fujiwara no Yorinaga (1120-1156)
Berenice Moeller (University of Hamburg, Germany): Practices of rebinding in early Edo illustrated manuscripts
Session 5
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B232
Irina Holca (Kyoto University, Japan): Home Is Where Mother Is, and
the Way to a Man’s Heart Goes through His Stomach: Bodies in the
Kitchen (Yoshimoto Banana)
Toshio Takemoto (University of Lille, France): Murakami Haruki andthe novel writer’s literary expression of political involvement
Session 6
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B232
Larry Walker (Kyoto Prefectural University, Japan): “Voice” in the Knopf
Translation of Mishima Yukio’s Spring Snow
Stefan Wuerrer (The University of Tokyo, Japan): Negotiations on
Femininity in the Literary Works of Kusama Yayoi
Azumi Kawahara (Ritsumeikan University, Japan): “Kachiku-jin Yapoo”
and Post-War Historiography: Relation between Syozo Numa’s Masochism and Japanese History

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Session 7
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B234
Pieter Van Lommel (University of Tsukuba, Japan): The educational
novel in Meiji Japan
Akiyo Suzuki (Kanazawa University, Japan): The ingestion and rewriting of Japanese classical literature inside the English drama of Torahiko
Kori
Mami Fujiwara (Yamaguchi University, Japan): Plagiarism or Rewriting?—Osamu Dazai’s literary collage, Onna no Kettō (A Woman’s Duel),a Re-told Story
Politics Section
Convenor: Ayako Kusunoki (International Research Center for JapaneseStudies, Japan)
DAY ONE: Saturday (24 September)
Panel I: Japan’s Postwar Path from the Paradigm of National Security:
The Shifting Patterns of US-Japan Strategic Relations, 1950s-1980s
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B231
Chair: Nam Chang-hee (Inha University, Korea)
Discussants: Yasuyo Sakata (Kanda University of International Studies,Japan) and Chisako T. Masuo (Kyushu University, Japan)
Tomoaki Hagito (Kobe University; Japan): U.S.-Japan Relations within
the Context of American Security Interests in East Asia during the 1950s
Shiro Sato (Osaka International University, Japan): Nuclear Disarmament and Nuclear Umbrella in US-Japan Relations
Ayako Kusunoki (International Research Center for Japanese Studies,Japan): The Establishment of the Japan Foundation and U.S.-Japan
Relations during the early 1970s
Wataru Yamaguchi (Doshisha University, Japan): Formation and Development of Reagan’s Foreign Policy toward Japan during the 1980s37

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Session 1
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B231
Nissim Otmazgin (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel): From
Colonial Power to Soft Power: Japan’s Cultural Policy in Asia
Tets Kimura (Flinders University, Australia): Japanese fashion limited:
Its soft power (in)ability in Australia
Panel II: Japan’s Proactive Engagement in the International Development and Peace Cooperation
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B231
Chair: Raymond Yamamoto (Osaka University, Japan)
Carla Bringas (Osaka University, Japan): Japan’s aid food security
strategy: comparing strategies in Cerrado and Prosavana
Misato Matsuoka (The University of Warwick, Japan): Japan’s Proactive Pacifism and the ODA Policy: Changing Foreign and Security
Policymaking?
Masumi Owa (Nagoya College, Japan): Japan’s aid: self-interest or
enlightened self-interest
Raymond Yamamoto (Osaka University, Japan): Japan’s Security Reforms—Implications for the Country’s Peacekeeping Engagement
Session 2
17:15-18:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B231
Jan Niggemeier (Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany): Embrace the
Global, but How? - Japanese Social Movements as Strategic Agents inTransnational Diffusion
Ioan Trifu (Goethe-University Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany): Japan’s
Cultural Heritage Policy: Postwar Identity Politics, Residual Tensions,and Emerging Governance38

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

DAY TWO: Sunday (25 September)
Panel III: Civil Society and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B231
Chair: Sayuri Guthrie Shimizu (Rice University, United States ofAmerica)
Lily Gardner Feldman (Johns Hopkins University, United States ofAmerica): German Civil Society and Reconciliation: Lessons for Japan?
Seiko Mimaki (Kansai Gaidai University, Japan): Emerging Global Epistemic Community? The Possible Roles of Scholars in Northeast Asian
Reconciliation
Andrew Horvat (Josai International University, Japan): The JapaneseNews Media’s Role in Historical Reconciliation – a Question of Sustainability
Session 3
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B231
Susanne Brucksch (DIJ German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo,
Japan): Innovation Governance in the Field of Medical Technologies:
The newly founded Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED)
Hadas Kushelevich (Osaka University, Japan): The Future Reputationof Japan’ Pharmaceutical Market
Session 4
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B231
Tatsuro Chiba (Pompeu Fabra University, Spain): Japan’ Foreign Policyin the Post Cold War PeriodDavid Adebahr (LMU Munich, Germany): Abe’s pivot south – implications for Japan’s current security policy in Asia

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Religion and Philosophy Section
Convenor: Christian Hermansen (Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan)
DAY ONE: Saturday (24 September)
Session 1
09:00-11:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B334
David Malitz (Assumption University, Thailand): Discipline and progress: Thai-Buddhist modernity and its imaginations of the Japanese
Christian Hermansen (Kwansei Gakuin University): Shinreisan or theThomsen Farm - the story of a mission project in Japan
Session 2
11:15-12:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B334
Michiko Hirama (Toho Gakuen College, Tokyo, Japan): Sumai (相撲)
Rituals as Imperial Performance Ceremonies in the Ancient Japanese
Court (seventh to tenth century): Introduction of the Chinese Baixi (百戯) Festival and the Social Importance of Konoefu (近衛府) Music and
Dance
Paola Cavaliere (Osaka University, Japan): Testing the empowerment
thesis: a typology of Religious Civil Society Organizations in Japan
Session 3
15:00-17:00, Faculty of Letters, Room B334
Jon Morris (Komazawa Women’s University, Japan): Toward a Socialand Intellectual History of Mokujiki
Roman Pașca (Kanda University of International Studies, Japan):Nature as an ontological principle: on Ando Shoeki’s concept of gosei(“mutual natures”)
Jordanco Sekulovski (Kobe University, Japan): The Way of Kâta: Rethinking Selfhood through Japanese and Non-standard philosophy

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Session 4
17:15-18:30, Faculty of Letters, Room B334
Claudia Marra (Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies, Japan): Hanjimono (判じ物) leading to Enlightenment - The Pictural Heart Sutra (般若
絵心経)
Mihaela Lacramioara Sighinas (Kobe University, Japan): On the Interpretation of Pilgrimage Songs in Early Modern Japan41

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

15th EAJS International Conference, Lisbon,
Portugal, 30 August - 2 September 2017
Calls for Papers
for the EAJS International Conference 2017
Urban, Regional and Environmental Studies(Section 1)
Convenors:
Volker Elis, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Evelyn Schulz, University of Munich, Germany
The European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be heldin Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The section will have the following theme:
Cultural Turn in the spatial sciences
Keywords: urban, rural, future living, disasters, environment
This section considers itself an interdisciplinary forum that deals with a variety of issues and subject areas normally associated with social geography and urban studies: space and place, urban and regional differences,architecture and the built environment, sociology, anthropology, cultural geography etc. One of our long-standing concerns has been the interaction
between social, political and economic change and spatial transformationsin Japan.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Call for Papers
In the course of the 20th century, processes such as population growth, industrialisation and centralisation have led to rapid urban growth and a highpopulation density in Japan. Since the 1990s, these growth processes haveslowed down and even show signs of stagnation. Economic transformations
such as the deindustrialisation of rural regions and the transfer of production
to neighbouring Asian countries in response to the pressure of globalisation
as well as demographic shifts such as population decline and the aging of
the population have led to marked socio-spatial disparities. This shift put thequestions of social justice and political participation back on the agenda,
influencing the power balance between rural and urban actors and even the
results of elections at the national level.
On the other hand, Japan today offers cutting-edge examples of widespreadand increasing interest in social and economic deceleration and downshifting at the local level. For some time now, various actors develop strategies
to revitalise rural areas and to develop cities, with Tokyo as a trendsetter in
the national and global location competition, in an ecologically and sociallysustainable way to make them more livable. In contrast to the city of themodern age, which is based on functional separation of land uses, acceleration, growth and urban sprawl, the post-industrial city is associated with multifunctional spaces, diversity in architecture and urban planning, deceleration, deindustrialisation, de-growth and spatial limitation. This is connectedwith a shift to the compact, the decelerated and informal. Considerations
surrounding a partial deceleration are taken up and related to questions ofinclusion and the “good life”.
In addition to these developments, the social and environmental impact of
the triple disaster of March 2011 is still making itself felt and continues toinfluence the options considered in regional planning and political decisionmaking on different administrative levels.
In our section call for the 2017 EAJS conference, we therefore invite panels as well as individual papers that address urban and regional topics ingeneral, but particularly welcome papers that specifically engage with thefollowing themes:- socio-cultural construction of spaces- spatial conflicts and actor constellations
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

- spatial discourses- neoliberal cityscapes- gentrification- acceleration as a consequence of globalisation- socio-spatial inequality- social and environmental justice- alternative forms of living- life beyond growth- deceleration/slowness- local traditions and events- art, architecture and culture in rural and urban areas- representations of memory and oblivion in space and architecture- consequences of the triple disaster
Please note, however, that proposals of papers and panels that fall outsideof the theme are very welcome and will be considered fully and equally. Decisions about acceptance will be based on academic merit after a thoroughreview process.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract inEnglish.
Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, leaving 15 to 20 minutes per paper plus 10 minutes of discussion per paper.
There may be up to three individual papers, or if it is a panel, three papers
and a discussant’s comment in the 90-minute session.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than 350 words.
Please include a short list of your most important references.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350 word
abstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.
Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in more44

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

than one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to be submitted together with your proposal.
All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraph biographical statement.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at urban@eajs.eu.

Linguistics(Section 2)
Convenors:
Patrick Heinrich, Ca’Foscari University of Venice, Italy
Riikka Länsisalmi, University of Helsinki, Finland
The European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be heldin Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The section will have the following theme:
Multilingual Japan
In this section, we invite contributions on the languages of Japan (Ainu,
Japanese, Ryukyuan, Sign Language), and their status and uses in- andoutside of Japan, as well as uses of and attitudes to migrant languages inJapan, and contact between any of these languages.
Contributions addressing any of the following fields are welcome.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Historical and contemporary approaches
Any level of linguistic description (phonology, morphology, syntax,
lexicology etc.)
Sociolinguistics and pragmatics
Discourse and text linguistics
All critical approaches
Relation between spoken and written language
Issues relating to script and orthography
Language and technology

Please note, however, that proposals of papers and panels that fall outsideof the theme are very welcome and will be considered fully and equally.
Decisions about acceptance will be based on academic merit after a thoroughreview process.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract inEnglish.
Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes. Individual papers should notexceed 15-20 minutes. Conveners will organize individual papers into topicrelated sessions, which require active participation and joint discussions of
all presenters at the end of the respective sessions.
There may be up to three individual papers in the 90-minute session. If a
proposed panel is organized, it should include three papers, followed bya discussant’s comments at the end of the session. Applicants proposing
panels in their abstracts should include a designated discussant.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than 350 words.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350 word
abstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in morethan one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to besubmitted together with your proposal.
All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at linguistics@eajs.eu.

Modern Literature(Section 3a)Convenors:
PD Dr. Simone Müller, Zurich, Switzerland
Prof. Dr. Atsuko Ueda, Princeton, USA
The European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be heldin Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The Modern literature section will have the following theme:
Literature and Politics
We would like to encourage contributions which place special emphasis onreflecting the interaction between literature and politics in modern Japansuch as novels that treat political topics, debates and discussions on thetheme as well as literary groups that were engaged in social issues or acted
as political agents.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Reflections on the socio-political role of literature constitute an important
topic of discussion among the Japanese literati since the Meiji period. At
the end of the 19th Century, the influx of new literary currents and politicalideas from the West such realism, naturalism, humanism, democracy andsocialism led Japanese writers and literary critics to reflect on their social
responsibility vis-à-vis literature. The new political novel as well as various
literary debates such as the “Debate on the relation to life” (jinsei sōshō
ronsō), in which historian Yamaji Aizan and poet Kitamura Tōkoku argued
whether literature ought to have practical or purely aesthetic purposes, callwitness to this newly emerging political interest. This marks the beginningof an intense and long lasting discourse on “literature and politics” that
continues until today. Notably, beginning in the 1920s, when the influenceof Marxism on Japanese intellectuals was decidedly strong, the Japanese
literati strived for social impact: the proletarian literature movement made“politics” virtually its central concern. Right-wing “Japanese romantic school”
on the other hand dedicated literature to state interests. Politics and literature
was a topic of great interest among the literati in the postwar years when
they deliberated war responsibility. All these movements were accompanied
by various debates as well as a focus on the political function of literature.
Underlying these debates was the question of whether literature should
serve politics or it should be self-sufficient as a form of artistic expression.
In the postwar period, especially as Marxism and Existentialism began tostrongly shape the debates, many called for a politically “engaged” literature.
In the 1960s, with the onset of student movements and the Vietnam War,writer’s political participation became especially intense. In the 1970s and1980s politically engaged literature went out of fashion, but with the collapseof the bubble economy, new literary currents emerged, which began to show
political inclinations, such as the “new proletarian literature” and “freeter
novels”. After Fukushima, the topic gained a new dimension. Writers andcritics again began to call for self-reflection, sustainability and a criticalquestioning of the system.
In the modern literature section we would like to discuss these and otherissues related to the interaction between literature and politics in modern
Japan from various angles and with different methodological approaches.
Please note, however, that proposals of papers and panels that fall outsideof the theme are very welcome and will be considered fully and equally.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Decisions about acceptance will be based on academic merit after a thoroughreview process.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract inEnglish.
Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, leaving 15 to 20 minutes per paperplus 10 minutes of discussion per paper.
There may be up to three individual papers, or if it is a panel, three papers
and a discussant’s comment in the 90-minute session.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than 350 words.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350 word
abstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.
Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in morethan one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to besubmitted together with your proposal.
All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at modern_literature@eajs.eu.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Premodern Literature(Section 3b)
Convenors:
Maria Chiara Migliore, Università del Salento, Italy
Rajyashree Pandey, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, United
Kingdom
The European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be heldin Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
We cordially invite proposals for papers and panels in the Pre-Modern
Literature Subsection. Presentations may be proposed either as individual
papers or as thematically organized panels. Panels and individual papers
will share the program in roughly 50-50 proportion. Proposals from advanced
graduate students will be considered. Presentations may be given in English
or Japanese.
INDIVIDUAL PAPER PROPOSALS: Individual papers should be no morethan twenty minutes in length. Papers will be grouped by the convenors,
with time allowed for questions and discussion. There may be up to three
individual papers in the 90-minute session.
PANEL PROPOSALS: A thematically organized panel should consist of
three paper presentations of twenty minutes in length followed either by thecomments of a discussant or a longer period for general discussion. It is
customary for the panel organizer to act as chair. Your proposal should makeclear who will act as organizer and chair. A discussant may not be one of thepresenters, but the roles of discussant and a non-presenting chair can be
combined. The panel should make good use of the 90-minute session andallow time at the end for questions.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract inEnglish.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, leaving 15 to 20 minutes per paperplus 10 minutes of discussion per paper.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than 350 words.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350 word
abstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.
Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in morethan one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to besubmitted together with your proposal.
All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at premodern_literature@eajs.
eu.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Visual Arts
(Section 4a)Convenors:
Jaqueline Berndt, Stockholm University, Sweden
Khanh Trinh, Museum Rietberg Zürich, Switzerland
The European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be heldin Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The section will have the following theme:
Materialities of Visual Art
The subject area of Nihon bijutsushi has traditionally formed the core of the
Visual Arts subsection at the EAJS, but this area has seen significant shifts inrecent years. Institutional sites of art-historical expertise are a desideratum inmany parts of Europe. In addition, the changes in the institutional position of
the discipline as well as the wider environment (globalization, digitalization,
neoliberalism) have made the specificity of art a controversial issue. This
includes critical attempts at dissolving art-specific issues into culture on the
one hand, and inclinations towards excluding sociological contextualizationin the name of aesthetics on the other hand. Closely related, the study ofJapanese art faces the challenge of interrelating the old and the new, notonly with regards to historical periods but also to different genres and notionsof visual art (including the fact that visual art is not necessarily purely visual).
Against this backdrop, we call for contributions that are shaped by anawareness for what distinguishes the wider field of Visual Arts researchfrom sections such as Media Studies, Anthropology/Sociology, or History.
This distinction is not a matter of subject as the use of visual artefacts andtexts across disciplines demonstrates; rather it is a matter of perspective or
methodology, that is, how subjects are analyzed and to what end.
With “materiality” we propose a structural approach, which allows foraddressing “art” – a recognizable cultural given – without privileging one
specific concept, period, or genre, while highlighting what representationalism52

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

and culturalization tend to overlook. We expect “materiality” to apply to a broad
range of dimensions, from the aesthetic and sensory to the technologicaland industrial and to the institutional and discursive aspects of art, drawing
attention to both the art work’s conditions and agency or individuation. With
respect to subject area, the “visual arts” shall include all kinds of creations
which involve still or moving images, whether with a special emphasis on
visuality and watching or as part of a multimodal/multimedial narrative.
Please note, however, that proposals of papers and panels that fall outsideof the theme are very welcome and will be considered fully and equally.
Decisions about acceptance will be based on academic merit after a thoroughreview process.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract inEnglish.
Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, leaving 15 to 20 minutes per paperplus 10 minutes of discussion per paper.
There may be up to three individual papers, or if it is a panel, three papers
and a discussant’s comment in the 90-minute session.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than 350 words.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350 word
abstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.
Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in morethan one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to besubmitted together with your proposal.
All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at visual_arts@eajs.eu.

Performing Arts
(Section 4b)
Convenors:
Barbara Geilhorn, Manchester, Great Britain
Andreas Regelsberger, Trier, Germany
The European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be heldin Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The section will have the following theme:
Theatre and Community
It is often stated that theatre is capable of telling people’s stories and creatinga public sphere that evokes temporary communities between actors andaudiences. Erika Fischer-Lichte (among others) has identified the discoveryof the audience as an important change of paradigms in twentieth-century
theatre. However, the significance of the actor-audience relationship is not
limited to contemporary performing arts. In Kabuki, for example, actors
stepping out of character to make announcements (kōjō) or ceremonies
on full stage for actors taking on a new stage-name (shūmei) represent
an essential part of the joys of the art. Besides, performing arts can playa central role in the social cohesion of a village, as is the case for minzokugeinō. Or they are generally made for a particular community, sometimes by
and with the participation of its members.

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The section will focus on the interrelatedness of theatre and performancewith various kinds of communities. Research papers might investigate:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Actor-audience relationships in various genres of performing arts
The history and organization of actors guilds in pre-modern JapanesetheatreStructure and functions of fan clubs
The role of theatre and performance for a particular community
Local theatre and art festivals in the ongoing trend to move awayfrom the big city centers to smaller localities
Socially engaged theatre
Assignment of tasks and cooperation between playwrights, actors,
directors and producers to explore questions such as how do
directors and actors cooperate and develop a performance?

Please note, however, that proposals of papers and panels that fall outsideof the theme are very welcome and will be considered fully and equally.
Decisions about acceptance will be based on academic merit after a thoroughreview process.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract inEnglish.
Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, leaving 15 to 20 minutes per paperplus 10 minutes of discussion per paper.
There may be up to three individual papers, or if it is a panel, three papers
and a discussant’s comment in the 90-minute session.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than 350 words.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350 word
abstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in morethan one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to besubmitted together with your proposal.
All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at performing_arts@eajs.eu.

Anthropology(Section 5a)Convenors:
Emma Cook, Hokkaido University, Japan
Andrea De Antoni, Ritsumeikan University, JapanThe European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be heldin Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The section will have the following theme:
Feeling (in) Japan: Affective, Sensory and Material Entanglements in
the Field
In the last decades, anthropological scholarship has recognized corporeity
as a condition of human experience and the body as the “existential groundof culture and self” (Csordas 1994). The lived body moving in the world isconsidered a source of perception, a bearer of practical knowledge and skills,
developed through practice, with which we dwell in the world (Ingold 2000).
56EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

This approach points at the necessity of looking “beyond the body proper”(Lock and Farquhar 2007), by investigating the body from the perspective of
its perceptions, which originate in its interaction with the material environment.
The so-called “affective turn” in the Humanities and Social Sciences has
shed light on the (inter-)subjective intensity and dynamics immanent tobodily perceptions and matter in general (e.g. Massumi 2002). Similarly,
research on the senses has stressed their centrality in the shaping ofsocial practice and culture (e.g. Geurts 2002, Howes 2004), calling for a
focus on perception in processes of doing ethnography (e.g. Pink 2009).
Furthermore, Ingold’s work (2000, 2013) has pointed at the need to highlightthe creative processes in social practice and anthropology in the making,as engagements and correspondences with materials and the environment,
in which skills of perception and action emerge alongside with ontologies.
In addition, anthropological works have also emphasized the importantrole matter plays in developing sensorial skills and in bearing or affording
specific affects (e.g. Durham 2011, Navaro-Yashin 2012). A common thread
among these studies is that they point at the need to go beyond symbols andrepresentations, meaning making processes, cognition, or belief. In otherwords, they suggest new research directions to go beyond overly simplified
conceptions of “culture”. On the other hand, however, recent research sheds
light on the danger of leaving cultural differences aside, by, for example,
excessively focusing on concepts – such as suffering or trauma – which relyon the assumption that they transcend culture, being human universals (e.g.
Robbins 2013).
While focusing on these debates, this section aims to explore the possibilities
for new perspectives that doing fieldwork in Japan can provide. We aim toaddress such questions as:
In what ways can the anthropology and sociology of Japan contributeto the development of theories on affect, the senses and materiality?
Can a focus on affect and the senses provide new tools for theunderstanding of communication in a society where it is often argued thatpeople are (allegedly and ideologically) generally socialized as not outspoken
and where what is left as implicit is supposed to play a major role?
How can a focus on affect and the senses in Japan shed light on,
and complicate, perceptions, understandings, and materialities of ”Japaneseculture”?
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What is the role of body politics and discourse in the learning of
bodily skills?
How are affective and sensory skills trained through practice in, forexample, sports, leisure activities, (religious) rituals, festivals, education,
labour, or through the production and consumption of food?
What is the role of the ethnographer’s bodily and sensorial
perceptions in doing fieldwork in Japan?
Please note, however, that proposals of papers and panels that fall outsideof the theme are very welcome and will be considered fully and equally.
Decisions about acceptance will be based on academic merit after a thoroughreview process.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract inEnglish.
Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, leaving 15 to 20 minutes per paperplus 10 minutes of discussion per paper.
In each 90-minute session, a maximum of three individual papers is allowed.
In case of a panel, three individual papers and one discussant’s comment
are possible.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than 350 words.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350 word
abstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.
Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in morethan one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to besubmitted together with your proposal.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at anthropology@eajs.eu.

Media Studies(Section 5b)
Convenors:
Blai Guarné, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Catalonia, Spain
Ronald Saladin, German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ), JapanThe European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be heldin Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The section will have the following theme:
Research on Japanese Media and Popular Culture
The Section 5b: Media Studies would like to cordially invite researchers
working in the field of Japanese media and popular culture to submit any
proposal dealing with various media in Japan, stretching from print toaudiovisual media and from manga to TV series and movies.
We particularly encourage submission of thematically coordinated panels,
but individual submissions will also be considered.
Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, leaving 15 to 20 minutes per paperplus 10 minutes of discussion per paper.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

There may be up to three individual papers, or if it is a panel, three papers
and a discussant’s comment in the 90-minute session.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at media_studies@eajs.eu.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
•
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than
350 words. Papers should generally be presented in English, but may bepresented in Japanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an
abstract in English.
•
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up
to 350 words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350
words abstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.
•
Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme inmore than one session.
•
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need tobe submitted together with your proposal.
All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts. Decisions about
acceptance will be based on academic merit after a thorough review process.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Economics(Section 6)
Convenors:
Sébastien Lechevalier, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales,
FranceD. Hugh Whittaker, University of Oxford, U.K.
The European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be heldin Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The section will have the following theme:
Does Japan Need More Structural Reform?
“Japan is Back!” The three arrows of Abenomics promised to revitaliseindustry, turn challenges into opportunities, create new frontiers, andmaximize the potential of all citizens. Whatever else they achieved, thearrows created a set of expectations, and some benchmarks against which
numerous ‘scorecards’ have been proposed. Compared to the first two
arrows, the third – structural reforms – took some time to articulate andimplement. Whenever economic targets were missed, it was convenient toblame a lack of progress in the third arrow, especially labour market reform.
It can be argued, however, that corporate governance, one of the 10 key
reform areas, has changed very significantly, following implementation of
the corporate governance and stewardship codes, and related measures.
Ironically, the government rather than the market has played a key role inthis. But will this revitalize the economy, or spur financialisation? Indeed,in some areas, there may have been too much structural reform rather than
too little. More ‘flexiblisation’ of the labour force, for instance, in which over
35 percent of workers are classed as ‘non-regular,’ may simply depress
domestic demand further rather than freeing up resources for revitalisation.
Structural reforms predate Abenomics, of course. Over three decades, aquite comprehensive program of structural reforms has been implemented
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

on the financial, goods and labor markets, which has led to substantial but
uneven liberalization and deregulation of the Japanese economy. Arguably
the most productive sectors have become more competitive. However, it isalso recognized that stagnant consumption and investment – major causesof the poor economic growth – are not caused by a lack of deregulation. If so,
are further structural reforms the right answer to Japan’s current economic
problems? And what is the balance between positive and negative effects,
such as rising inequalities or wage-led deflation? A time frame of three
decades offers ample scope for analysis and reflection.
As part of the Economics, Business and Political Economy Section, we
particularly welcome papers which address these and similar issues on
structural reform. We expect that there will be a diversity of views, depending
on disciplinary specialisations, and approaches towards political economy.
The following topics would be particularly welcome:•Individual structural reforms (corporate governance; public fundmanagement; venture business; corporate tax; innovation and newtechnology; women’s participation and advancement; flexible
working practices; healthcare)•
Political economy of structural reforms and/or Abenomics•
Social consequences of structural reforms and/or Abenomics•
Structural reforms and/or Abenomics in comparative perspective•
Japanese economy/business/political economy in a regional context
Please note, however, that proposals of papers and panels that fall outsideof the theme are very welcome and will be considered fully and equally.
Decisions about acceptance will be based on academic merit after a thoroughreview process.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract inEnglish.
Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, leaving 15 to 20 minutes per paperplus 10 minutes of discussion per paper.
There may be up to three individual papers, or if it is a panel, three papers
and a discussant’s comment in the 90-minute session.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than 350 words.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350 word
abstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.
Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in morethan one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to besubmitted together with your proposal.
All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at economics@eajs.eu.
Post-conference publication: We are hoping to publish selected papers ina special issue of a refereed journal. As the convenors of the Economics,
Business and Political Economy section we are already in contact withpublishers and editors of refereed journals. This would mean that a revised
version of the conference paper must be submitted soon after the conference
for the double-blind review process. In case you are wishing to be considered
for the post-conference publication please submit not only the abstract but
also a full manuscript by July 31, 2017.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

History(Section 7)
Convenors:
Mark Pendleton, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
Mickey Adolphson, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
The European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be heldin Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The section will have the following theme:
Bridging Divides in Japanese History:
Troubling Periodization and Methodological Rigidity
Historians of Japan have often been constrained by periodization schemesthat tend toward the teleological. Indeed, the use of specific periodizations
implies a predetermined approach to what is important and to what belongs
where, thus overlooking continuities or developments that seem to have little
to do with subsequent periods to sustain oversimplified narratives. Whilescholars have questioned a few of these divides by pointing to continuities(i.e. the pre- and post-war era, or the “long sixteenth century”), other schemes
seem harder to question, in particular with the premodern/modern divide.
Similarly, divisions amongst historians on methodological grounds canprevent us from exploring how different approaches enrich a more balanced
understanding of the past. Historical divisions emerged between traditionalbases in political and diplomatic history and those for whom ‘histories frombelow’ and the cultural turn opened up new lines of historical enquiry andrepositioned who could be understood as historical actors and how. Newerhistoriographical approaches, such as in environmental history, histories
of emotions and global history, further complicate a neat methodologicaldistinction within the discipline while questioning ideas of agency.

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“Bridging Divides in Japanese History” seeks contributions that question,
analyze and seek to explain temporal or sub-disciplinary divides in historicalnarratives. Panels may focus on particular divisions, connect themes andtrends across numerous periods, deconstruct periodization schemes inhistorical narratives, or bring together different methodological approaches
to historical questions. We will look to build panels of individual contributions
that speak to these broad aims of developing cross-period and crossmethodological dialogue.
Please note, however, that proposals of papers and panels that fall outside thetheme are also welcome and will be considered fully and equally. Decisions
about acceptance will be based on academic merit after a thorough review
process.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract inEnglish.
Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, allowing for 15 to 20 minutes plus
10 minutes of discussion per paper.
There may be up to three individual papers, or if it is a panel, three papers
and a discussant’s comment in the 90-minute session.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than 350 words.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350-wordabstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.
Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in morethan one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to besubmitted together with your proposal.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at history@eajs.eu.

Religion(Section 8a)Convenors:
Erica Baffelli, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom
Lucia Dolce, SOAS, University of London, United Kingdom
The European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be heldin Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The Religion Section aims to provide a forum for introducing new researchand reflecting on the study of religion in Japan. In particular, we welcome
papers and panels that reflect on the methodological challenges that the
study of religion in Japan poses and/or re-consider researchers’ contribution
to the current developments in the field. Presenters are encouraged toposition their papers/panels in a larger context by considering how theirresearch changes the way religion in Japan can be studied.
Decisions about acceptance will be based on academic merit after a thoroughreview process.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract inEnglish.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, leaving 15 to 20 minutes per paperplus 10 minutes of discussion per paper.
There may be up to three individual papers, or if it is a panel, three papers
and a discussant’s comment in the 90-minute session.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than 350 words.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350 word
abstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.
Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in morethan one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to besubmitted together with your proposal.
All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at religion@eajs.eu.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Philosophy(Section 8b)
Convenors:
Rein Raud, University of Tallinn, Estonia
Raji Steineck, University of Zurich, Switzerland
The European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the section “Intellectual History and Philosophy” at theforthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be held in Lisbon,
Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The section will have the following theme:Time***
The section Philosophy and the History of Ideas covers broadly all sustained
intellectual endeavours within Japan’s many intellectual and religious
traditions, ranging from Confucianism and Buddhist philosophy, throughKokugaku and Rangaku, to the history of knowledge and the sciences,modern academic philosophy and intellectual discourse.
In terms of subject matter, papers may address ideas about ontology andmetaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, as well as politics, law,
technology and the sciences. They can also explore the nitty-gritty ofintellectual production, e.g. the organisation and structure of the intellectualand scholarly world, or the means of producing, reproducing, and circulatingideas, as well as their bearing on politics and the social order.
As a special theme for this conference, we propose the subject of time – which
can be considered from many aspects: temporal scaling and measurement,
orders of time, the context and ideological function of calendars and clocks,
the evaluation of periods or concepts of time, temporal regimes, theirintellectual justification and social use.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Please note that proposals that fall outside of the theme are welcome
and shall be considered fully and equally. All proposals will primarily beconsidered on the grounds of their originality, their relevance within the field,
and methodological consistency. Papers that connect their topic to larger
issues of intellectual history will be given priority. All papers must have asolid basis in the original Japanese sources. Decisions about acceptancewill be based on academic merit after a thorough review process. We willconsider both individual abstracts and panel proposals, but will vet each
paper in panels individually. A failure to be accepted as a panel may lead toproposals to present individually to some participants.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract andslides in English.
Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, leaving 15 to 20 minutes per paperplus 10 minutes of discussion per paper. There may be up to three individual
papers, or if it is a panel, three papers and a discussant’s comment in the
90-minute session.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than 350 words.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350 word
abstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.
Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in morethan one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to besubmitted together with your proposal.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at philosophy@eajs.eu.

Politics and International Relations(Section 9)
Convenors:
Karl Gustafsson, Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Sweden
Paul O’Shea, Lund University, Sweden
The European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper and panel
proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference to be heldin Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The section will have the following theme:
Change or Continuity in Japan’s Domestic and International Politics
The politics and international relations section proposes to focus at theforthcoming conference on recent developments in and outside Japan andtheir implications for Japan’s domestic and international politics. Specifically,
we welcome papers dealing with topics such as constitutional reform, Japan’s‘shift to the right’, trends in voting behaviour and party politics, ‘Abenomics’,and changes in Japan’s foreign policy and international relations.
We also welcome papers dealing with a broader set of related themes,
including political transition, regional security, identity politics and the impact
of global change and uncertainties.
We are particularly interested in panel proposals, but also strongly welcome
individual submissions on these and related subjects.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese if necessary and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract inEnglish.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, leaving 15 to 20 minutes per paperplus 10 minutes of discussion per paper. There may be up to three individual
papers, or if it is a panel, three papers and a discussant’s comment in the
90-minute session.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English and submitted nolater than 30 November 2016.
For individual papers, please submit an abstract of not more than 350 words.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350 word
abstract from each participant.
Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in morethan one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to besubmitted together with your proposal.
All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by the end of January
2017.
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at politics@eajs.eu.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Japanese Language Education(Section 10)
Convenors:
Marcella Mariotti, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy
Iwasaki Noriko, SOAS, UK
The European Association for Japanese Studies invites paper, panel, andposter proposals for the forthcoming 15th EAJS International Conference tobe held in Lisbon, Portugal, from 30 August to 2 September 2017.
The section will have the following theme:“Learning and teaching Japanese in Europe. Why? - Voices from thefield -”
Please note, however, that proposals of papers and panels that fall outsideof the theme are very welcome and will be considered fully and equally.
Decisions about acceptance will be based on academic merit after a thoroughreview process.
Papers should generally be presented in English, but may be presented inJapanese and must, if so, be accompanied by an abstract in English.
Sessions will normally last for 90 minutes, leaving 15 to 20 minutes per paperplus 10 minutes of discussion per paper.
Abstracts and panel proposals should be written in English or Japanese andsubmitted no later than 31 January 2017.
For individual papers and for posters, please submit an abstract of not morethan 350 words.
For panels, please submit the title of the panel and an abstract of up to 350
words explaining the overall focus of the panel, together with a 350 word
abstract from each participant. Please also identify a panel chair.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Please note that any one participant cannot be on the programme in morethan one session.
Any audio-visual equipment requirements you might have need to besubmitted together with your proposal.
All proposals will be peer reviewed by a board of experts.
All applicants should be either an AJE member or EAJS member at the timeof submission of abstracts.
Applicants will be informed of the selection results by Mid-March 2017
Accepted presenters will be asked to submit a short, one paragraphbiographical statement written in English.
Please direct all inquiries to the convenors at language_teaching@eajs.eu.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

11th EAJS PhD Workshop, Edinburgh, UK
11-14 June 2015
Report by the
Academic Organizer
The 11th EAJS workshop for doctoral students in 2015 took place at
the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. As previously, the objectiveof the workshop was to give outstanding PhD students from European universities in their early andmid-term stage of dissertation writing the opportunity to present theircurrent work to peers and senioracademics and receive constructive feedback from both groups inorder to improve their final production of the dissertation. Emphasis
was placed on a frank exchangeof ideas in an intimate setting andcross-fertilization through interdisciplinary panels. As a secondary
effect, the workshop also aimed
to create an environment in whichyoung scholars could forge anddeepen their academic network
across national confines that would
be instrumental for their scholarship and their career in the future
and thus help to create a bond thatwould hopefully also lead to a further integration and advancementof the discipline of Japanese Studies in Europe.
74

The selection of candidates firstand foremost put emphasis on theacademic quality and relevanceof the proposals submitted by thecandidates, but also was undertaken with the above objectives inmind. Thus, the selection committee aimed at a spread as wide as
possible across European universities, particularly also encouraging students from Eastern Europe
to join the workshop. Equally, thecommittee tried to select proposals
that came from a variety of disciplines across the humanities andsocial sciences that, despite their
thematic variety, could relate to andbenefit from each other.
In this year, 49 candidates responded to the call for papers.
From among these, the selection
committee, consisting of members of the Council and the senioracademic advisors, selected 20
students, ranking the candidates
according to the quality of the proposals, the academic excellenceof the candidates, and the state of
their research. As all of the submitted proposals were of a high scholarly excellence, the choice was anaturally very difficult one. The selected students were asked to sub-

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

mit reports on their research project
until the end of May 2015. These
became the basis for their presentations and for the comments by
the senior academic advisors.
As senior academic advisors, thelocal organizer was fortunate to
be able to invite the following colleagues to cover the PhD projects within their respective field(s)of expertise: Reiko Abe Auestad(University of Oslo) for literature,
Sharon Kinsella (University of Manchester) for Japanese culture andsociety, Mark Metzler (Universityof Austin at Texas) for history andeconomy, and Gabriele Vogt (University of Hamburg) for politics andsociety of Japan. Additionally, we
could rely on the expertise of local
colleagues, namely Ian Astley (University of Edinburgh) for Buddhist
studies, Rosina Buckland (National
Museums of Scotland) for art history, Christopher Harding (University of Edinburgh) for history andpsychology, Helen Parker (University of Edinburgh) for literature andperforming arts, and finally myself
for history and international relations. Thus, we had a broad spectrum of scholars who were able tocomment on the whole variety ofthe selected PhD projects.
The workshop began on the evening of 11 June with a welcome reception at the School of Literature,

Languages and Cultures at Edinburgh University as the institutional
host of this workshop. This enabledstudents to get to know each otherand their advisors in an informal
setting.
The following two days were filledwith presentations and intense discussions of the PhD projects. The
venue for day 1 (12 June) was thehistoric Raeburn Room on Old College, one of the oldest parts of theuniversity; on day 2 (13 June), wemoved to the newly built ProjectRoom of the School of Languages,
Literatures and Cultures. In bothvenues, the roundtable setting
created an intimate working atmosphere and very much encouraged
lively discussion.
Both days, the participants met
from 9 am to 6 pm. Each day, 10
candidates presented, grouped into
four panels of 2 or 3, with lunch andcoffee breaks in between. Eachcandidate was given 20 minutes topresent, with additional 10 minutes
for the advisor to comment, anda final 30 minutes for the general
discussion. In order to maintain aconcentrated atmosphere, we collected all presentations, followedby the comments and finally thegeneral discussion.
Despite the wide variety of subjects, the PhD projects fell natu75

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

rally into a sequence of intrinsicallylinked panels. On the first day, theprojects were grouped into the following sessions: 1) Aesthetics,
Poetry and Performance; 2) The
Organization of Knowledge in Premodern Japan; 3) The Explorationof the Japanese Self; 4) The Construction of Identity. The second
day had the following panels: 1)
Exploring the Cityscape; 2) The
Fantastic and Magical in Japanese
Culture; 3) Food, History and Identity in Japanese Relations; 4) Networks, Domestic and International;
followed by a short wrap-up session. Each panel was chaired by asenior advisor on the first day, andby a volunteer student on the second day.
Due to the consistently excellent
quality of the presentations andcomments by the senior advisors,
discussions of the projects were
lively, constructive and inspired
throughout the workshop until thevery end, despite the rather daunting schedule. Participants wereable to identify common problemsof research design and possible
solutions to overcome these. Moreover, despite the variety of subjects
and disciplines, the discussions
yielded common threads and motives that enabled participants toview their projects in new contexts
and thereby gain new ideas andunderstanding for their progress76

towards completion and future research. Throughout the workshop,
the atmosphere among participants was very lively and cheerful,and the dinner at the end of each
workshop day enabled participants
to form and further deepen contacts and friendships.
We therefore consider the 11thEAJS workshop for doctoral students as successful in terms of theimmediate objectives as set out
above and hope that it will also help
to yield the expected long-term
effects in the future. We are immensely grateful to the Toshiba International Foundation (TIFO) andthe Japan Foundation for their generous financial support which madethis workshop possible. Finally, I
would like to thank my colleague
Prof Verena Blechinger-Talcott andthe EAJS Office at Freie Universität
Berlin, particularly Mr Tim Herbort,for the expert advice and logistic
assistance.
Urs Matthias Zachmann
Handa Chair in Japanese-Chinese
Relations
Asian Studies
The University of Edinburgh

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Reports by the Participants
I applied to the 11th EAJS Workshop
for Doctoral Students primarily inorder to have a chance to present
on my research topic concerning
linguistic gender performativity inJapanese to an audience familiar
with Japanese society and its
specifics. One of the challenges
with multidisciplinary research isthat the common ground changes
with every audience, and as I
had yet to present my topic in thecontext of Japanese Studies I felt it
was a valuable opportunity to me.
In the course of the workshop
I received many valuable andcritical comments that I will bringwith me in my ongoing efforts todevelop my abilities to make mywork understandable to colleagues
in different fields, as well as moregeneral audiences. I realize now
which parts of my project needmore elaborate explanations inthese contexts, and I have the
EAJS workshop to thank for these
insights. It is my hope that I will beable to integrate these experiences
for the future.
I very much appreciated theatmosphere of shared learning andthe great variety of the presented
subjects, making the workshop
very broad in scope. It is stimulating
to know that Japan ties into thesevery varied research topics, as wellas these many different disciplinary

perspectives. As some people
were facing similar challenges as
myself, the workshop also serveda supportive function for me as a
PhD candidate at the outset of theirproject, for which I am thankful.
Pontus Andersson
University of Helsinki, Finland+++
I feel very fortunate to havebeen selected for presenting my
PhD project in this fruitful andexciting workshop. The 11th EAJSWorkshop for Doctoral Students
in Edinburgh was a very wellorganized and excellent event,bringing students and professors
from several countries and different
fields together. As I am doing my
PhD in Japan, one of the greatest
benefits of this workshop for me wasthe chance to build an international
network with other PhD students
and of course professors fromvarious universities in Europe.
Listening to presentations about
fields and projects different frommy own was also a very profitable
experience in terms of revealing new
approaches and methodologies I
had not been familiar with. Thanks
to the diversity of the topics, it did
not require any particular effort tostay focused until the end of thesessions. The friendly and yet very
professional atmosphere is another77

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

advantage of this workshop I would
like to mark. I enjoyed having small
but meaningful conversations withprofessors and other participants
during lunch breaks or dinner.
Besides the very accurate and wellprepared comments made by thesupervisors, I found the discussion
with other students following thepresentations very important, too.
These helped me to reconsider
my project from a wider point ofview, as well as to realize new
possibilities in my project.
Finally, I would like to express mydeepest gratitude personally to
Professor Abe Auestad for giving
me very inspiring ideas not justabout my PhD project but my future
opportunities, too. I also want
to extend my heartfelt thanks toProfessor Zachmann and the EAJS
for having created this excellent
opportunity for us to develop and the
Toshiba International Foundationand the Japan Foundation for theirsupport and funding.
Katalin Dalmi
Hiroshima University, Japan+++
I applied for the workshop with mydissertation project Personificationof the Social Monstrous in Postwar
Japanese Kaiki Eiga, in which
my aim is to analyze the humanshaped monsters of Japanese78

strange cinema and try to decipher
the various meanings they have.
The monstrosity of these beings
is often related to the notion ofhenshin, metamorphosis, which is
the main focus of my work. I will
ultimately argue that there has
been a distinctive shift in thesefilms from bodily transformation (変身) of the early postwar period toa psychological one (変心) of thecontemporary times.
The feedback I received based on
my project report was very thoughtprovoking. I had spent a lot of timetrying to categorize my subject
matter, but one of the best advice
I received from my advisor Sharon
Kinsella was, however, to let go ofthis. This is indeed what I decided
to do and am now finding the
project much more satisfying. I also
got greatly influenced by anotherpresentation about magical realism,
a concept I had not known before.
I am now trying to use the concept
in my analysis and, as a result,
have found myself immersed in the
kaikiness of the films. In addition, I
was able to overcome the anxiety I
had previously felt about presenting
in English.
Even though my work benefitted
greatly from all the feedback, oneof the best things was, however, tomeet the other students, my futurecolleagues, and to share thoughts
on Japan and research with them.
I had always felt very alone withEAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

my project, but I have now foundmyself a larger community into
which I belong.
Leena Eerolainen
University of Helsinki, Finland
+++
The
11th
EAJS
Workshopfor Doctoral Students held in
Edinburgh, Scotland, was a uniqueand stimulating experience for me,
and I am very thankful for being
given the chance to participate. It
has been a unique opportunity toshare knowledge and experiencesamong young and expert scholars
in my field and in the broader fieldof Japanese studies. I presented
my research project and received
useful and constructive feedbacks
and suggestions from the other
PhD students and from the seniorscholars. In particular, the individual
consultation with Professor Metzler
was very fruitful, and he suggested
to me some points to focus on that
I had never thought of before. I
also found the other presentations
very inspiring, and all participants
worked with enthusiasm. Dueto the various disciplines andalso the various methodologicalapproaches, the group discussions
were a lively and stimulatingexchange of opinions and ideas.
The participants and supervisors
were very likeable and it was a

nice and relaxed atmosphere withdiscussions carrying on even after
the workshop had ended, during
the delicious dinners we had in
Edinburgh. It also provided me witha great opportunity to meet and get
to know other PhD students fromacross Europe, many of whom I am
sure I will meet again in the near
future. I am sure that the contacts
established in this meeting will
help me a great deal in my future
research.
Felice Farina
University of Naples L’Orientale,
Italy
+++
Edinburgh in the middle of June
met us with an uncharacteristicallywarm and sunny weather. “Us”
being a group of about twenty PhD
students of Japan from a myriad offields, from history to international
relations, through geography, artsand more.
For two intense days we listened,discussed and thought about eachother’s research projects, as far
from our own study field as they
may be. This variation of topics
and fields led to an interesting
divergence of perceptions. This
divergence was evident in theunique comments that participantsreceived from each other, thatwere often different than ones
79

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

received when presenting in agroup consisting of scholars of
the same field. This difference inperception and understanding may
be the road to new understandingsof one’s own research subject.
I presented my work about theuse of network theories in order tonavigate the complicated waters of
U.S.-Japan security relationship.
This work has a general aspect
to it – understanding themanagement of the relationship,
as well as a specific case study– the negotiation and power play
revolving around the Special Action
Committee of Okinawa in 1995-6.
I had the privilege of being the lastpresenter, and received helpful andinsightful comments from Professor
Gabriele Vogt as well as from otherparticipants.
Above all, the workshop let us, PhD
students from different countries,
meet and get to know each other,
forming connections that will surely
continue in future years. This
workshop left me with new energies
to continue my research and ideasof how to do it.
I look forward to meet the“Edinburgh group” again.
Yiftach Raphael Govreen
The
Hebrew
University
Jerusalem, Israel
+++

80

of

The workshop was flawless andfascinating.
First of all I would like to express
my gratitude for having been invited
to the 11th EAJS PhD Workshop in
Edinburgh and having been given
this wonderful chance to present
and discuss my research project toa multi-disciplinary audience withina stimulating academic setting.
Academically,
I
very
much
appreciated the multi-disciplinary
character of the workshop. Whilst it
is indeed difficult to come up witheven a superficially constructive
comment for someone who works
in a completely different discipline,
I do think that, however, this multidisciplinary character is precisely
what makes this workshop sovaluable: for it not only brings
together innovative ideas that we
may never otherwise think of, butalso reminds us of an easily forgotten
basic academic principle – the very
attitude of being open-minded toothers’ ideas. As a PhD student
working with a multi-disciplinary
methodology in the field of politics
and international relations, I
received massively helpful foodfor thought, especially from thepeer researchers in the fields ofliterature and historical studies.
Multi-disciplinary approaches area trend in area studies, and I hopethat the workshop can keep up withthis fantastic tradition, which has
made possible such a rich sourceEAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016of exchange.
Apart from the academic aspect,
the atmosphere of the workshop
stroke me as passionate, open,
and friendly, where I have madepriceless friendship with people
whom I would never have otherwise
met. This workshop has enabled
not just an exchange of ideas, butalso, more importantly, friendshipamong us, and I feel sure that ourpaths will cross throughout ourcareer in the future.
I would like to express my deepest
thanks to all participants, mysupervisors, and the organizers,
especially Professor Zachmann,
who offered me tremendously
helpful comments on my project.
I would also like to extend
my gratitude to the Toshiba
International Foundation and the Japan Foundation for
funding the workshop -- it has beena huge success, and I sincerely
wish it will continue to be so.
Hai Guo
University of Leeds, UK+++
The workshop gave me an
intensive and challenging time.
Fully packed days, but I liked it alot. Especially the exchange withmy fellow students and also withthe supervisors were creating acomportable ambience.

Even though some topics were noteasy to follow because far awayfrom one's own field of researchor interest, each presentation
was very interesting. I learned alot. Sometimes the feedback of
the supervisors was kind of farreaching, but nevertheless I could
retrieve always some good inputs,
which I could apply to my own
situation or my own work.
It was also a good exercise to set
up all the preparatory work likefor example the project report andespecially to present the individual
work in front of the other workshop
participants and the supervisors.
Helen Parker and Rosina Buckland,
who were my supervisors, did agood job and I got plenty of helpful
input and questions, which areboosting the progress of my work.
After the presentation we directly
got oral feedback and even written
proof of it.
Generally, the workshop was anentirely inspiring and stimulating
event for myself and my further
researchandenrichedmepersonally, not only with the many
nice people I met there. I also
liked the dinner time we spent all
together in a nice and relaxing
atmosphere, the tasty food and thegood conversations.
Brigitte Iris Huber
University of Zurich, Switzerland

81

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016+++
The workshop was held in beautiful
Edinburgh and the surrounding
surely contributed to the good spiritof the participants and I am very
grateful for the possibility to be apart of this.
At first I was somehow skeptical
about the huge variety of research
topics (e.g. gender performativity
or post-war monster movies) andwhether I will be able to contribute.
But, the interesting presentations
led to vivid discussions that werecarried on in the coffee breaks andcontinued at the dinner meetings.
Although my own research about
early modern agricultural writingsseems not easily to be connect
to the other fields of my fellows,
I received valuable responses
from both supervisors and PhD
candidates and was even able tocontribute. As a key objective of theearly modern agricultural writings
was to increase agricultural
production, I got especially linked
to the projects of Felice Farina
and Tine Walravens, who areconcerned about food security andits impact on society.
I am deeply convinced that the EAJS
workshop for doctoral students
is not only a good opportunity tointroduce your project and getvaluable advice, but to makecontact with other scholars. Even
if their research topic seems to be82

very different, the feedback will
prove to be more valuable for yourown.
Stefan Jeka
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
University Frankfurt, Germany+++
The project I presented at the
11th EAJS Workshop for Doctoral
Students was on medicine inancient Japan. In particular,
my project investigated how atenth-century Japanese medical
writer,Tanba
no
Yasuyori,conceptualized the earliest form ofSino-Japanese textual medicine,
Ishinpō, through an analysis of
how Yasuyori organized his text
and the multifaceted sourcesof the author’s knowledge. The
workshop was the first opportunity
to receive detailed feedback on
my work from Japanologists who
were not already familiar with myresearch. Professor Mark Metzler,
who served as my advisor for
the workshop, and Professor
Matthias Zachmann, the organizerof the workshop, provided criticalfeedback on my project. I also
received insightful questions fromother participants and engaging
remarks from the advisors ofother participants. I found thecomments of Profs. Metzler andZachmann especially helpful as

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Japanologists who with their fields
being temporally and thematicallydistant were able to provide a
broad specialist perspective on
my work. Their comments werealso constructive in the creationof a coherent larger thesis for mydissertation. Moreover, they helpedme think through conceptualizing
my dissertation project for a larger
audience as a book project after the
PhD. Besides my own research,however, I learned many new things
both from the presentations of myfellow participants as well as thediscussions that ensued following
them. As all the participants wereat different stages of their doctoral
work, it was also an informative
exposure to theory from different
disciplines, different approaches toresearch, and, most importantly, thesalience and importance of Japan
across these different disciplinary
and methodological frameworks.
Finally, in addition to discussions
withseniorcolleagues,
theworkshop facilitated communication
with fellow students throughout
Europe, my future colleagues. We
have already created a network,
which I hope will support futurecollaboration.
Mujeeb Khan
University of Cambridge, UK+++

The 11th EAJS Workshop for
Doctoral Students in Edinburgh
was a most valuable experience.
It was a great opportunity to get toknow peers as well as influential
establishedscholarson aninternational level. The organizer
Matthias Zachmann from the
University of Edinburgh managed
to put together a wide array ofinteresting topics and commenters.
The atmosphere throughout theworkshop was really nice and at
the same time very productive.
The presentation of my doctoral
thesis “Laboratory Vienna-Tokyo –On the emergence of a psychiatricthought-style in Austria and Japan”
was very well received and throughthe extensive discussion following
the presentation I was able to geta great deal of fruitful input. I am
especially deeply grateful for the
wonderful remarks by Christopher
Harding, who was selected tocomment on my presentation.
I could not have had a better
commenter. His in-depth response
was without doubt one of thehighlights of the workshop. It was
one of these striking moments
when you hear a piece of advice
and suddenly realize that after
years of work and numerous
academic talks you never thought
about it and nobody ever drew yourattention in this specific direction.
Apart
from
presenting
anddiscussing your research and the83

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

projects of your peers at length,
the workshop also provided theopportunity to chair a panel. Since
I never had the chance to do thisbefore it was a perfect training for
future conferences.
I want to take this opportunity tothank the Toshiba International
Foundation,
the
EAJS
and
Matthias Zachmann for organizing
this excellent workshop and I would
highly recommend every doctoral
student of Japanese Studies toparticipate in it!
Bernhard Leitner
University of Vienna, Austria+++
The participation in the 11thEAJS PhD Workshop has been
an exceptional opportunity on
different levels: first of all, it waschallenging and interesting to
introduce my dissertation projectto such a heterogeneous audience.
All professors and students
had a background in JapaneseStudies, but all had very different
research topics. This enabled me
to get feedback from outside theframework I was until then thinking
in, which was very valuable. I
received input that I will mostcertainly include in my work.
The supervisors were extremely
kind and engaging. I was surprisedby the extensive feedback they84

gave to each student. One could
see that they put a lot of time andeffort into it, which is something I
am very grateful for. It was also theoccasion to meet a few recurringnames in the field, and it was great
to be able to meet them in person
and to discuss with them.
Meeting fellow PhD candidates
from over the world and discussing
with them about their view of the
field of Japanese Studies andhow it is being practiced in theirrespective
countries/universities
was inspiring. It made me reflect
on the way we saw our field in myhome university and even slightly
changed my view of JapaneseStudies in general.
I would like to express my gratitude
to the European Association forJapanese Studies, the Toshiba
Foundation, the Japan Foundation,and to the supervisors and fellow
students from the workshop for thisgreat and enriching experience.
Tarik Merida
University of Heidelberg, Germany+++
The workshop was an extremely
profitable, useful and even adelightful experience for me.
Professor Zachmann’s feedback,which he very kindly sent me inwritten form, and all the otherremarks, such as Professor Abe

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Auestad’s, actually echoed with
my own questions, or allowed me
to reconsider my problematics
in a broader view. Some of theobjections which were formulated
matched objections that I tend toformulate to myself; therefore, it wasvery positive for me that an exterior
point of view confirmed what I wasonly beginning to grasp. Others
remarks helped me see relations
between my research and otherquestions in a very new and simple
way, such as drawing a parallel
between aesthetics and otherproblems resulting from the same
discrepancy between universal
structures and local specificity.
More pragmatically, objections
about specific historical directions
that I could look into corresponded
to research I have endeavored,
but have not given priority to, suchas the (complex) question of therelation between E.F. Fenollosa
and avant-gardes in Occidental
art. Such study has already been
partially covered by Amano Kazuo,
but I will make a point of developing
the links between my doctorate
research and the work of thisresearcher in my final memoire, or
further articles.
The workshop was also a uniquechance of getting an outlook uponcurrent works by dynamic young
researchers from all over theworld. I appreciated very much theparticipants’ attention and attitude

at the workshop, very positiveand curious. Besides, I madeprecious contacts for possible latercollaboration. Finally, the warm
welcome and perfect organization
granted by the University of
Edinburgh made us feel actuallyvalorized, and thus brought theperfect conditions for such qualityof exchange.
Arthur Mitteau
INALCO, Paris, France+++
I would like to thank the EAJS andthe University of Edinburgh for
inviting me to the 11th Doctoral
Workshop. For three days, theorganizers successfully managed
to provide us with a collaborativeenvironment for discussing eachother’s work and articulating ourthoughts. The workshop was a mosthelpful opportunity for me to exploretransdisciplinary
methodologicalissues of my work with peers from
non-literary Japanese Studies
disciplines.
I also appreciated the interactions
with the various senior experts,
with whom we were given ample
opportunity for exchange during
the workshop breaks and at the twodinners. I experienced Professor
Abe Auestad as a passionatelyinterested and most dedicatedadvisor; it was truly inspiring to85

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

work with her and I recommend herwarmly for future workshops.
I have been thinking aboutsuggestions to make, but I feelthe ‘classic’ workshop format,
meaning panel presentations withdiscussions
afterwards,
reallyworked for us, even despite thelarge number of participants.
What might be interesting toexperiment with in the future could
be moderated peer-discussions
to selected questions from therespective project reports. Apartfrom that I sincerely congratulate
everyone involved on a mosteffective event!
Maria Römer
University of Heidelberg, Germany+++
I would like to take this opportunity
to thank the Toshiba International
Foundation, the Japan Foundation,
and all of the organizers andparticipants
who
made
this
year’s EAJS PhD workshop suchan engaging and productive
experience. As PhD candidates in
the field of Japanese Studies weare currently experiencing a dearthof funding opportunities that restrict
our ability to conduct research and
impede our access to the academic
community which surrounds us.
As a fully-funded workshop led bydiscussion and active participation,
86

this EAJS event provides us withthe rare possibility to engage witheach other’s work while conversing
face-to-face, and to expand ourown ideas about how individual andspecialized projects relate to theoverarching discipline of JapaneseStudies.
I enjoyed presenting my workwithin an intimate and supportive
environment, and the feedback
I received from Professor Vogt
and Dr. Kinsella, as well as theother academics and students,
helped me to think about myresearch in constructive new ways.
Furthermore, conversations I had
with participants between and after
sessions over the weekend proved
to be equally rewarding. On suchoccasions I had opportunities todiscuss points in greater depth, tomake new friends and to create
networks which I hope will last wellinto all of our academic careers.
Professor Zachmann, as project
director of this year’s workshop, dida wonderful job of ensuring that weall had equal access to discussions
and feedback, as well as offering
germane advice to each one of us
and encouraging a lively, inclusive
atmosphere during our time in
Edinburgh.
Robert Simpkins
SOAS, University of London, UK+++

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

The 11th EAJS Workshop for
Doctoral Students allowed me to
discuss some excellent research
topicsconcerning
Japanese
Studies and to meet somewonderful people from all aroundthe world. I am very grateful to the
EAJS and its sponsors to give me
the chance to discuss my researchwith outstanding scholars andpeers, and of course the Universityof Edinburgh for providing us with avenue that made it possible for us
to have fruitful discussions.
When I attended the Workshop,
I was just about to leave forfieldwork in Japan and wishedto get some feedback on mymethod and general theoreticalframework before going to Tokyo.
The feedback I received from theadvisors was very insightful andgave me new ideas on how toapproach my informants and how
to cope when I would encounter
unforeseen
problems.
Theyaddressed both issues that I had
thought about and needed someextra feedback for and issues that I
had not thought about at all, which I
am now working on to implement in
my research.
Meeting other students that are
working on their PhD at various
stages was also extremely usefuland supportive to me. Since I am
still in an early stage of research, it
was good to see how other projects

had developed over time and how
other students had dealt with the
problems they encountered. Being
surrounded by so many skillful PhD
students from so many diverse
backgrounds and fields reallybroadened my view of JapaneseStudies as a whole. It was great tomeet these people and to exchange
ideas, experiences, and fun stories.
Therefore, I would really like tothank the attending advisors and mypeers for the wonderful discussions
and talks we had during our time at
Edinburgh University. I can really
recommend this workshop foranyone who is doing a PhD related
to Japanese Studies!
Deirdre Aranka Lucia Sneep
University of Duisburg-Essen,
Germany+++
The 11th EAJS PhD Workshop in
Edinburgh was a wonderful andfruitful event when considering
its merit for our scholarly growth,and a very pleasant experience ingeneral. It was a great opportunity
to meet other young scholars andlearn about their own research,and, very importantly, about their
theoretical approach.
The wide scope of the topics
discussed at the workshop is, inmy opinion, one of its main selling
points. Very often when doing
87

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

research we get bogged down in thespecifics of our own narrow field,
and we do not confront ourselveswith approaches of other scholars
researching in other fields that canbe totally different from our own.
The EAJS workshop is an ideal
platform for discussing various
research ideas and concepts. Suchan exchange of ideas gives us awider perspective, and hopefully
that will help us publish a muchbetter thesis, and much better
research. Thanks to this workshop
I have also realized that I haveto problematize every part of myresearch, from the used theoretical
apparatus, through the sources, tothe whole framework. I hope suchworkshops will continue for many
years to come and I would like towholeheartedly recommend it to
any PhD student dealing with the
topic of Japanese Studies. I would
also like to thank the EAJS, theToshiba International Foundationand the Japan Foundation fororganizing and financing theworkshop.
Vít Ulman
Charles University, Czech Republic+++
I was very happy to be able tosecure a spot at the workshop as
I thought it would give me a great
opportunity to interact and network88

with other Japanese Studies
scholars in Europe, and not just in
the UK. This was a great personal
success for me and I was happy
to meet other people in the field,
immerse myself in the network ofyoung scholars and get feedback
from senior advisers. The workshop
was organized well and we more orless managed to stay on schedule.
The University of Edinburgh werealso great hosts and I felt very
welcome.
The format of the presentation
sessions was a little tiring for me,
as the sessions were very longand there was not much time forconstructive discussions amongthepost-graduate
students
themselves. There may have been
benefit in grouping students basedon their research themes into
panels, and providing more room
for individual sessions between
students and their senior advisers
for one-to-one support. However,while the feedback and discussion
part was slightly sacrificed, theformat allowed for more time forstudents to introduce their researchin more detail and gave them an
opportunity to gain experiencein presenting conference styleindividual papers.
All in all, I was satisfied with theworkshop and find that the links
and networks created will be usefulfor my future career and research
objectives.

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Anna Vainio
University of Sheffield, UK+++
By applying to the 11th EAJSDoctoral Workshop, I was hoping
to receive feedback on my PhD
project from expert scholars in myfield and from the other participants.
However, the workshop soonturned out to be far more thanwhat I had expected in advance.
The wonderful surroundings of
Edinburgh University set for a very
pleasant and enjoyable networking
opportunity. Socializing with theother PhD candidates proved to bereassuring and constructive; mostof us face similar problems but deal
with them differently. Those days in
Edinburgh were a very nice way outof the every-day isolated doctoral
life, while exchanging academic
as well as personal experienceswith fellow PhD candidates whom
I most likely will soon see again atconferences or workshops in thenear future.
As the workshop was organized assuch that all participants listened
to and commented on each other’s
projects, encompassing a wide
range of research fields suchas history, linguistics, literature,politics, business, medicine or
agriculture, it was a very useful
update on the current stateof research in many areas ofJapanese Studies.
The feedback I received by theexpert scholars after my talk, aswell as after the other talks, wasvery useful as matters such as
methodology, research questions,and feasibility of the projects werediscussed. The personal comments
I received from Professor Mark
Metzler, who was assigned toread my project proposal, wereparticularly constructive and willdefinitely prove to be very helpful inthe near future.
In conclusion, the workshop was aunique opportunity that enabled me
to share experiences and knowledge
with fellow PhD candidates, andas such build connections for
future cooperation in the academic
community of Japanese Studies.
Therefore, I would like to thankProfessor Zachmann and his teamat University of Edinburgh for the
wonderful organization, and the
Toshiba International Foundationand the Japan Foundation formaking this workshop possible.
Last but not least, I would also liketo express my gratitude to Professor
Metzler for his feedback on mypresentation and to all the seniorscholars for their constructive
attitude and encouraging words tothe participants during the entire
workshop.
Tine Walravens
89

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Ghent University, Belgium+++
On the whole, the EAJS PhD
workshop was a very pleasant andhighly intriguing academic event.
It has very well demonstrated thebreadth of Japanese Studies,
which was particularly surprising
but also inspiring for me as a nonJapanologist. Although - at firstsight - comments and discussions
on projects of completely different
fields appeared to be less relevant
for one’s own research, theyturned out to be strategically andargumentatively fairly useful formany respects at closer look.
For my own research, which ison the effects of the highly skilledmigration of transnational financial
professionals and their sociospatial patterns on the urban
transformation in the Global
City
Tokyo
(urban/migration
geography), the comments werevery enlightening with regard to theperspective of Japanese Studies
scholars. The workshop provided
a valuable occasion to present
my work to a very different anddiversified audience than usual,adding a new perspective to thedebate. I would like to take thisopportunity to thank the organizers
for the excellent organization of thisworkshop, and also the Toshiba
International Foundation and the90Japan Foundation for their funding.
As a suggestion for future
workshops: It could be even more
fruitful if sub-sessions according to
the research fields were organized,
e.g. literature & linguistics, history& politics, modern culture & society.
Taking the breadth of JapaneseStudies into consideration, indepth discussions may be better
conducted in smaller specialty
groups,whereasshorterpresentations of all projects could
complement them as an overview.
Such a structure could allow further
positive ancillary effects amongst
peers and also contribute to more
intensive one-to-one supervisions,which were sufficiently available inthe course of the discussion times
and coffee breaks, yet were also‘limited’ by the abundance andvariety of intriguing conversations
with other peers and scholars.
Sakura Yamamura
University of Hamburg, Germany /MACIMIDE Maastricht University,
Netherlands+++
The EAJS Workshop for Doctoral
Students in Edinburgh was a very
important, helpful and at the sametime pleasant experience for me.
Firstly, I finally had the chance
to meet Japan researchers fromdifferent European countries (whichEAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

I have been wanting to do for along time). Moreover, with students
of close academic interests wehave been discussing joint projects(conferences for example) which
I hope we will proceed to convey.
Secondly, the workshop format wasmuch more fruitful than the usual
conference style because we wereable not only to ask questions but tofreely express any thoughts on thesubject. This way every one of us
got great feedback on his project.
Then, the advisors’ comments were
the best part. I was surprised thatevery presenter had his paper sothoroughly examined and reviewed.
This detailed critical judgment froma specialist in the field is probably
the best present a research student
can expect. I personally got many
new thoughts and ideas from thecomments of Professor Reiko Abe
Auestad and am very grateful. My
project deals with the ideology ofa group of Japanese intellectuals.
Because I tried to squeeze an
aesthetical problem I wanted
to discuss as well in the shortpresentation, it turned out very
brief and poorly comprehensible(my own judgment), but it was greatpractice and encouraged me tomake further improvements. I must
add that having the opportunity topresent my paper in the historicalbuilding of Edinburgh University
Old College (surrounded by the
portraits of great professors) was agreat honor and delight.
Olga Zaberezhnaia
Moscow State University, Russia

91

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

12th EAJS PhD Workshop, Paris, France
4-7 July 2015
Report by the
Academic Organizer
The 12th EAJS PhD Workshop
was held at the École des Hautes
Études en Sciences Sociales,
France on 4-7 July 2016. The main
objective of this workshop was togive PhD students an opportunity to
discuss their projects and receive
feedback from scholars specialisedin their fields as well as their fellow
PhD students. It also provided all
the participants with a chance to
network and exchange ideas withother scholars in Japanese studies. This three-day workshop wasa successful one, fulfilling its objectives and contributing to the further
development of Japanese studies
in Europe.
The workshop attracted applications from 63 PhD students andtwenty promising projects were selected by the senior scholars participating at the workshop and theboard of the EAJS based on thequality of the project, a balanceamong the students’ disciplines,
countries, and affiliations. The participants included students from
University of Cambridge (UK), Uni92

versity of Oxford (UK), Universityof Bonn (Germany), University ofManchester (UK), Free University
Berlin (Germany), University of Geneva (Switzerland), Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (Germany), University of Heidelberg(Germany), University of Zurich(Switzerland), Vienna University(Austria), Humboldt University Berlin (Germany), University of Edinburgh (UK), Ca Foscari Universityof Venice (Italy), INALCO (France),
Warwick Business School (UK),
Science Po Paris (France), andUniversity of Haifa (Israel).
As senior academic advisors, we
had the honour of inviting the following scholars to discuss the PhD
projects by giving the participating
students feedback and advice.
Reiko Abe Auestad (University of
Oslo)
Guibourg Delamotte (INALCO)
Eddy Dufourmont (Bordeaux-Montaigne University)
Masayo Fujimoto (Doshisha University)
Hélène Le Bail (Science Po)
Sébastien Lechevalier (EHESS)
Estelle Leggeri-Bauer (INALCO)
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney (Univer-sity of Wisconsin / Institut d’Études
Avancées de Paris)
Thomas Pellard (INALCO)
Mary Picone (EHESS)
Cécile Sakai (Paris Diderot University)
Daniel Struve (Paris Diderot University)
Bernard Thomann (INALCO)In addition, the following scholars
were invited to participate as junioracademic advisors to give students
advice from the perspective of
those who have recently completed
their doctorate.
Sophie Buhnik (Paris 1 University)
Naoko Hosokawa (CNRS)
Yannick Bardy (INALCO)
The workshop started on 4 July,
2016 with a keynote lecture by
Prof. Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Why
and How Did I Write Flowers that
Kill?: Some Future Directions ofJapanese Studies in Academia andbeyond. This talk included Prof.
Ohnuki’s anecdotal stories surrounding her latest book Flowers
That Kill: Communicative Opacity
in Political Spaces. Subsequently, Prof. Sébastien Lechevalier,President of the Fondation France
Japon de l’EHESS, introduced ninesessions of students’ presentations
and advisors’ feedbacks. In eachsession, one to three PhD students
presented their project for about 15

minutes and received constructive
comments from a senior scholar
and a junior scholar. The floor wasthen open for a discussion of the
project with all PhD students andother advisors.
In order to prepare discussions andfeedback, each PhD student had
submitted their dissertation summary that consists of their project
abstract and a report of around
5,000 words to explain the current
state of research, research question, theoretical framework andmethodological approach, hypotheses, preliminary results, and possible difficulties in their research
projects. These themes for the ninesessions included: 1) Japan in its
international context 1, 2) Japan in
its international context 2, 3) Japanin its international context 3, 4) Literature – Ancient and modern, 5)
History of media, 6) Ancient history& religions, 7) Language, 8) Cities& Society, and 9) Fukushima disaster and its aftermath. All the presentations were followed by many
inspiring comments and discussions.
Apart from the above nine sessions, there was time for a general
discussion at the end of each day.
PhD students had a chance to ask
questions to advisors or raise any
concerns or issues related to theirresearch projects, such as publica93

tion, funding, fieldwork, and so on.
These general sessions allowed
participants to share ideas andexperiences and was appreciatedby the participating students. The
workshop concluded with a culturalactivity to visit the Musée Nationaldes Arts Asiatique Guimet that had
an exhibition of Japanese art.
The participants and advisors actively engaged in the discussions
throughout the workshop. It is thus
our pleasure to report that the 12thEAJS PhD Workshop was a great
success, taking the tradition of thepreceding EAJS workshops while
introducing some new ideas. The
discussions from this workshop
gave a lot of new insights to PhD
students while senior scholars hada chance to know about the projects of upcoming scholars in theirfields.
Finally, but not least, we would liketo take this opportunity to express
our sincere gratitude to Toshiba International Foundation (TIFO), theJapan Foundation as well as PSL
Research University for their generous financial support which madethis workshop possible. We arealso grateful to the EAJS Office at
Freie Universität Berlin, particularly
Prof. Verena Blechinger-Talcottand Mr. Tim Herbort, for their kindadvice and assistance in organising this event.
94

Naoko Hosokawa
Research Associate
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales

Reports of the Participants
My research investigates erotic
literature (kōshoku-bon) in earlyJapan, primarily Edo period (16001868) erotic printed books andmanuals. Particularly, in my PhD
project I explore the literary rewritings and parody in the realm of
shunpon. Despite the huge production of shunpon during the Edo
period, until recently they haveseldom, if ever, been the object ofacademic study.
Even though the presence of somefew previous studies on thesetexts, until now focus has been put
mainly on images. Consequently,
texts and parody in shunpon canbe considered as a new project.
This can be both an opportunity todevelop my own ideas, but also achallenge, due to the lack of secondary sources and to the degreeof difficulty in finding the primarysources.
I was really interested in this Workshop because I hoped it would giveme the opportunity to discuss myresearch with other PhD students
and senior scholars from all over
Europe and with different academic
backgrounds. I was also very grateful to have the chance to present
and receive feedbacks on my workin such an intellectually stimulatingoccasion.
As a second year Phd student thisworkshop was really useful for myresearch, because we have beenasked to prepare a five-thousandwords report before the beginningof the workshop, stating the relevance of the project, hypotheses,
preliminary results and schedule.
This really helped me to think again
to the aims of my research, but also
to understand better the main findings I have achieved in these twoyears. Moreover, I received not
only very interesting feedback fromsenior scholars, but I also had thechance to meet some very talented
PhD students, creating a networkthat will be certainly beneficial in
the future.
Maria Lucia Bugno
University of Cambridge, UK+++
The workshop was an invaluable
opportunity for me at least for two
reasons. Firstly, for the extensive
and in-depth feedback fromsenior and junior advisors, andsecondly for various commentsoftheparticipateddoctoralstudents to my research, whichwere a great input to review myown work in a wider perspective,
and to consider how better torepresent the research findings
to people in different disciplines.
Additionally, the workshop was avery stimulating experience to me
to explore what kinds of topics
95

about Japan triggered academic
interestsofforeignyoung
researchers. It gave me a picture of
how Japanese society looks fromoutside. Furthermore, the reasonsand motivations why they choose
to study these topics were a goodclue to know the societies they
were living in. Gathering under theumbrella of Japan studies, I could
learn not only about Japan but also
about the fellow students’ countries
in the East and West. Last but
not least, the opening lectureof Professor Onuki was highlysuggestive to re-acknowledge theprocess how the meanings of thesymbolic flower of Japan has been
constructed, manipulated and usedby various socio-political powers.
I very much appreciate the efforts
of all the staff and the scholars
engaged to organise this uniqueinterdisciplinary workshop, which I
believe plays a crucial role for theprosperity of Japanese studies.
Heuishilja Chang
University of Oxford, UK+++
I applied for the workshop for anumber of reasons. Primarily, it
was to exchange ideas with fellow students before my fieldworkin order to improve on my researchmethods, establish contact withother researchers in the field, and96

receive advice regarding my stay inJapan. Secondarily, to present myresearch approach and its theoretical framework as a possible inspiration or tool for other doctoral students, especially those interested
in studies of ethics, mentality, andself-identity.
My dissertation project is a comparative study of possible factors
influencing the decision-making
process behind choosing allegiance among warrior clans during the Era of the Northern andSouthern Courts (1333–1392). In
my research I attempt to employ anovel, interdisciplinary method thatis rooted in psychology, statistics,
and linguistic studies.
The workshop was divided into
thematic blocks with up to threepresenters, each followed by a
feedback round from chosen specialists in the fields and a question
round afterwards. I found it to be avery stimulating environment thatassured one had the opportunity
to answer to people both familiar
and unfamiliar with the topic – anexperience invaluable towards adjusting future presentations and papers. Although the time constraints
limited room for discussion during
panels, the organisers provided aplethora of less formal occasions
to discuss at length our respective
projects.
I personally received some very
insightful feedback, both from mycoordinators and colleagues, thatmade me realise potential shortcomings and pitfalls that I need toaddress in the next stage of myproject. I was also fortunate tomeet wonderful people with whom
I intend to stay in touch with in the
futureSzymon Czerkawski
University of Bonn, Germany+++
The Ph.D. thesis suggests critic
analysis about the literary responses to Fukushima disaster occurredin Japan in March 2011: the attempt is to investigate the relation
between catastrophe, trauma andliterary works, underlining the roleof oblivion in the process of healing and mourning. The memoryoblivion dichotomy described in the
post-Fukushima literary works connects Fukushima to Hiroshima andNagasaki, digging up Japanese
genbaku experience comparing to
the 2011 nuclear fallout.
The participation at the EAJSWorkshop in Paris represented tome the great chance to get in touchwith other doctoral students whose
interests are focused on Japanesestudies. I was also looking
forward suggestions and advice formy research and the workshop provided me the best advisors I
could have in my field of study:

professor Cécile Sakai, well-known
translator of post-Fukushima
literary works into French and professor Reiko Abe Auestad. As a result, I got new ideas to develop
further in my research, such as theinclusion of other women writers
among the authors or theredefinition of the memory/oblivion
keyword.
The workshop also played a role in
my training as a Ph.D. candidate interms of professionallypresenting my topic of researchand being able to defend my thesisin an academic environment.
The possibility to learn more about
different research fields and discuss a huge variety of topics(from politics to geography, religion, history and so on) with other
scholars also was a plus point of
the workshop.

Veronica De Pieri
Ca Foscari University of Venice,
Italy
+++
My main research interest lies inthe social dimension of Japanese
new religious movements. In particular,
my project focuses on the social
care activities performed by thelay Buddhist movement Risshō
Kōseikai. I intend to investigate
the role that these activities play97

in shaping the interaction between
the religious organisation and thesurrounding society, as well as theinner dynamics among members.
For this purpose, I will conduct
fieldwork in Japan for the durationof 12 months starting from September 2016. I decided to apply for the
EAJS Doctoral workshop in orderto receive feedback on the project
before going in the field. In particular, I was hoping for comments
and suggestions that could help
me refine my theoretical and methodological approach. In this sense,
the commentary provided by thetwo advisers, Dr. Sebastien Lechevalier and Dr. Mary Picone, were
extremely helpful. I greatly appreciated the possibility to receive
detailed comments from scholars
coming from such different disciplinary backgrounds, and whose
observations complemented eachother very well. That provided mewith comprehensive feedback on
the entire scope of the research
project, which attempts to bridge
religious studies and research onsocial welfare.
Moreover, the workshop provided
me with the opportunity to engage
with fellow PhD students conducting research on Japan from a variety of perspectives, often crossing
the boundaries of several disciplines.
Hearing so many fascinating presentations and insightful observa98

tions encouraged me to rethink
Japan and my own research project from a fresh perspective. Finally, the event was also a valuable networking opportunity, since
it brought together PGR students,
early-career researchers and established scholars, encouraging
knowledge exchange and possibilities of future collaboration.
For all these reasons I regard myparticipation in the EAJS Doctoral
workshop an enriching experience
which I would recommend to all
PhD students. I would like to thank
EAJS, the Toshiba Foundation, theJapan Foundation, EHESS and theorganisers for the splendid opportunity.
Aura Di Febo
University of Manchester, UK+++
I am very grateful for having had
the chance to present my dissertation project about the dynamics
of social ties in communities thathave been affected by the 2011
Great East Japan Earthquake andits aftermath at the EAJS workshop
in Paris. My primary reason for applying for the workshop was to gain
feedback from experts in the area
as well as to gain new perspectives
by receiving comments from other
Ph.D candidates.
The workshop itself as well as therest of the programme were wellorganized, interesting and evenexceeded my expectations. I evenmet other Ph.D candidates fromvarious disciplines, who work ona similar topic and I was happy toengage in fruitful discussions withthem. It was challenging to introduce my project to an audience
with such an interdisciplinary background, but it is this very experience that will definitely help me a
lot in the future whenever I will haveto explain or defend my dissertation. Furthermore, I received a lotof very valuable feedback from myadvisors, which helped me to lookat my own research from a new angle. This positively influenced mypresentation skills on the one hand
and the dissertation itself on theother hand, as I already adjusted
some parts of my research outline
according to these comments.
I am more than thankful for having
had the chance to not only enhance
my network with young and seniorscholars who have attended theworkshop, but also to broaden myknowledge on Japan and engage
in current discussions stimulatedby young scholars on Japanese
history, economics, culture and society.

The EAJS workshop held in Paris
was a stimulating and inspiringexperience. It was also a fantastic
chance to meet other Phd students
from all around Europe, and discuss my thesis with other scholars
from different fields.
The workshop was for me a fruitful opportunity to reflect on my dissertation project. It took place at atipping point of my Phd program.
After a challenging year reflecting
on my topic (i.e. history of media in
post-war Japan: the bashing of Konoe Fumimaro) from a biographicalstandpoint, I came to the workshop
looking for a way to reacquaint myself with my thesis through a fresh
perspective.

Julia Gerster
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

I was pleasantly surprised by thevalue of the workshop to students
at varying levels of progress.
This experience helped me build
more confidence and enthusiasm;
thanks to the advice and support
I received from senior advisors. I
was made aware of the strengthof my research, as well as how toclarify and explore new perspectives, I had not yet considered. I
would particularly like to thank Dr.
Ohnuki-Tierney and Dr. Hosokawa
for their positive and supportive remarks.

+++

The format of the workshop, em99

phasizing discussion, even thoughchallenging and rigorous, allowed
the atmosphere to remain friendly
and supportive. Seeing establishedscholars and fellow Phd students,
in different fields, apprehending thesame kind of difficulties, and taking
part in theoretical or methodological discussions helped me to critically reflect upon my own research.
Once again, I would like to thankour hosts in Paris for their excellent
organization, and all participants
for their kindness and interest in mywork. I sincerely hope I will be able
participate in future EAJS eventsand meet again the participants
growing into promising researchers.
Elsa Gonay
University of Geneva, Switzerland+++
When I first applied for the EAJS
workshop I simply thought of it asa channel to present my preliminary results of my first year of research and to get into contact withfellow researchers. Retrospectively
speaking however, it is far from an
exaggeration when I argue that the
EAJS in Paris turned out to be thepersonal highlight of my semester and consider myself proud tohave been selected to present. The
panels were well-tuned and ena100

bled the participants to engage indiscussions on topics of the sameor similar nature, deepening myknowledge in my specific field while
simultaneously getting interesting
insights from other directions.
The committee has done an excellent job during the selection process, as the overall quality of thepresentations can be consideredhigh, many of which broadened
my horizon in fields which are notdirectly linked to my own research.
What overwhelmed me the mostwas the amount of preparation,
which the commentators put into
preparing this workshop. The plentiful comments in a friendly andbenevolent atmosphere were theresults of thorough reading of thepaper in question as well as thechosen commentators being experts in their respective fields. As
a result, I was provided with fresh
perspectives concerning my research, which will definitely shape
my future approaches.
Considering the effort that musthave been put into organizing the12th EAJS workshop, ultimately,
I can recommend it to any young
academic researcher engaged inJapanese studies.
Michael Grieser
Ludwig Maximilians University of
Munich, Germany+++

I’m very grateful to have been invited to the 12th EAJS PhD Workshop
in Paris at the EHESS. My original
motivation for the application was
to have an opportunity to present
my PhD project “Nation-building
and Whaling in Northeast Japan”
to an academic audience for the
first time outside of Switzerland
and Germany. Even though I knew
beforehand that experts would givesome comments on my project, I
was completely taken by surprise
how thought provoking and on the
spot the comments of my advisors
were. In the discussion afterwards
I received again very interesting
input. Without a doubt my own project profited tremendously from theworkshop.
As I was the first presenter I hadafterwards the luxury to listen to
all the other excellent presentations without being distracted. This
gave me a very good understanding on the current issues discussed
and researched on and helped mefurther to put my own project into
perspective. The organizers of theworkshop really picked only topnotch projects and all PhD students
had been very committed in presenting their first results.
The breaks and the time during thedinner encouraged us in getting
each other better to know and I wasable to meet some very interesting
PhD students on which I intend towork with together in the future. It
goes without saying that the organization of the workshop was very
professional and we all felt very
welcome in Paris.
Fynn Holm
University of Zurich, Switzerland+++
Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the full workshop due to apersonal event that required me toreturn home on the evening of thefirst day. Nevertheless, I can say
without any reservations that theworkshop was an extremely intense
and fruitful experience that helped
me a great deal with my project.
As someone who is conducting aqualitative study on job satisfaction
in a Japan-based company (a topic
which is usually investigated withquantitative methods), I applied to
the workshop because it was difficult for me to find people who were
doing the same type of researchthat and that specialized in similar
topics, and I wanted to meet researchers who could give me inputthat I could not get within my existing academic network. With this inmind, the workshop turned out tobe exactly what I had hoped for. I
received input from fellow PhD researchers as well as from the commentators, and this input will be
crucial in completing my disserta101

tion research. I especially enjoyedthe conversation with the commentators, who gave me literature references and ideas that will be absolutely essential for me to integrate
my work into the existing body ofresearch. Additionally, listening to
the presentations of so many otheryoung, passionate researchers, allof whom were on a high academic
level, gave me a new perspectiveon the scope of Japanese studies
and was inspiring to say the least.
All in all, I am amazed by how productive the workshop turned out forme, despite my interrupted attendance.
Matthias Huber
University of Vienna, Austria+++
This year’s EAJS Workshop for
doctoral candidates in Paris was
the first workshop of its kind that I
participated in. I have had several
opportunities to present parts of
my dissertational research in otherformats such as conferences andpublic presentations in the past.
PhD Workshops, however, allow
for a more concentrated atmosphere and are concerned primarily
with young scholars’ research projects.
Accordingly, before my arrival I
had hoped for lively discussions,promising networking opportuni102

ties, constructive feedback and numerous interesting presentations.
In this, my expectations were morethan exceeded: My fellow PhD candidates were highly motivated, well
prepared, followed presentations
carefully and gave valuable advice
as I was trying to do the same.
I was even more impressed by theamount of work that the advisors,
who had been especially assigned
to each candidate, put into preparing their feedback. The organisingteam had selected established researchers to comment on our PhD
projects and give advice. For me,
who has specialised in the comparably small field of pre-modern
masculinity studies, this proved
to be extraordinarily helpful. For
the first time scholars other thanmy adviser had taken time to thoroughly deal with my current state ofresearch.
Besides the workshop’s dense program, several breaks made room
for additional individual discussions
and conversations related to experiences with our PhD projects andacademic life. Since the candidates
came from different Universities inand outside of Europe, we had theopportunity to establish ties that extended our existing network.
I am glad for the opportunity given
to me by participating in this workshop, the work that has been put
into organising, preparing and conducting, and the generosity of thesponsors without whom many of
us would not have been able to attend. Thank you very much.
Thorsten Stolzenberg
University of Bonn, Germany+++
In my PhD project I am exploring
political rituals (especially marching events) in Japanese and German schools (1870-1945). In thepolitical rituals the abstract conceptof ‘nation-state’ was performed andexperienced by students. As I amin the field of Education, History
and Cultural Studies, unfortunately
I have had less opportunity to discuss with young scholars in the fieldof Japan studies. Although scholars in and outside of Japan engage
in complementary research, there
isn’t enough exchange between
Japanese and non-Japanese researchers, at least in my field.
Therefore I was very happy to get toknow young and senior researchers, who are located in Europe anddoing research on Japan.
After my presentation I was able
to receive many constructive comments from other participants andfrom my senior and junior advisors.
These comments inspired and motivated me to develop my research
projects further. I will keep in touchwith the scholars whom I met during the workshop and would like toorganize small meetings in Japanor in Europe so that we can further
exchange our research. After taking
part in the workshop I realized thatJapan studies, a discipline which
does not exist in Japan, is actually a very interdisciplinary and richstudy field. I am very happy that I
attended the workshop and fromnow on I would also like to be active in the field of the Japan Studies. I’m already looking forward to
the next EAJS conference in Lisbon and seeing mycolleagues again.
Ami Kobayashi
Humboldt University, Berlin+++
I am a first-year PhD student in
the Department of History at the
University of Birmingham. Since
November 2015, I have been taking part in a collaborative project,“Children Born of War- Past, Present and Future” supported by theEuropean Commission. (www.chibow.org) “Children born of war” isdefined as offspring of local womenand members of an enemy, occupational or peacekeeping force
or prisoners of war, and there is a
growing body of academic works
on these children in various locales and historical contexts. My
research project focuses on life
experiences of children born of103

Chinese mothers and Japanese fathers during and after the Second
Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).
Currently, I am the only PhD student working on Japan and China
in my department, and I applied to
the EAJS workshop as it is essential for me to receive feedback fromexperts and doctoral students inJapanese Studies at an early stageof my research.
In the workshop, I presented my
topic, methodology, initial findings
from my fieldwork and challenges
for my research project. The atmosphere of the workshop wasvery friendly, and it was a great experience for me to receive detailed
feedback from experts and manythought-provoking questions fromfellow doctoral students. The feedback I received has significantly
helped develop my thinking andwriting. Also, I found presentations
by other doctoral students of all
stages very inspiring. Interestingly,
even though some topics seemed
remote from my topic, I could findsimilarities in our approaches andchallenges. I do hope to stay intouch with the participants of theworkshop, and I would like to thankeveryone who was involved in organizing this workshop.
Kanako Kuramitsu
University of Birmingham, UK+++
104

The 12th EAJS Workshop for Doctoral Candidates that took place inParis this year was an intensive
and intellectually stimulating experience, and I feel very fortunate
to have been invited. It was wellorganised and provided many opportunities for interaction and conversations not only with the fellow
participants but also the advisors.
What I enjoyed most about theworkshop were its atmosphere andits multidisciplinary approach, andthat it brought together so many
people from all over Europe who
are working on projects relating toJapan – Especially since one canfeel quite isolated in this field ofstudy, which is all the more true forthe area my project relates to which
focuses on meta-physical beliefs inthe Heian period, and it is nice to
get a sense of the broader community.
I have benefitted from the workshop in many respects and believethat it will be a valuable source ofinspiration for the further development of my project. The workshop
presented an occasion to introduce
one’s project to a wider audienceand receive feedback from diverse
angles. It has helped me determine
which parts of my project need to
be articulated more clearly in order to become more accessible,
although I would have appreciated some more constructive criti-

cism which would have helped me
tackle the more specific problems
I have with my project. It was also
encouraging to see that many other participants were facing similar
problems and confronted with thesame struggles, and to realise that
it is just part of the process. I wasvery impressed by how hard everyone is working on their projects
and their enthusiasm, and it has
motivated me even more to do thebest I possibly can. I also found thegeneral discussion on publishingstrategies, conferences and careerdevelopment among the advisors
at the end of the day particularly interesting and enjoyed hearing theirdifferent opinions.
I would like to thank everyone formaking this workshop an unforgettable experience and I look forward
to seeing you again, whether atother workshops, conferences, ormaybe even in Japan.
Nathalie Phillips
University of Edinburgh, UK+++
My doctoral thesis is entitled: Women in the Maze—Gender, Crime,and Space in Kirino Natsuo’s writings. This thesis studies space andhow it underscores the issues ofgender and crime in Kirino Natsuo’s
writings. The study focus on female
characters’ urban/ spatial experi-ence, particularly how women face
threats and challenges as they
make the transition from the private
sphere (i.e., feminine domain) tothe public sphere (i.e., patriarchal/masculine domain).
This is my second year as a doctoral student. I am at the intermediate phrase of writing. With fivechapters of draft, I wanted to take abreak and review the work in orderto improve. EAJS workshop offeredan opportunity for me to present mywork and receive feedbacks fromadvisers and fellow students.
At the workshop, Prof. Dr. Reiko
Abe-Auestad and Prof. Dr. Cecile
Sakai were my advisers and Dr.
Sophie Buhnik as junior adviser.
As scholars of the literature discipline, the two professors commented on my project and answered to
my confusions. The suggestions
were response to the difficulties I
encountered so far (written in the
project report for application). Dr.
Buhnik specializes in urban studies. She gave me advices on theurban/ spatial aspect of my writing.
These were constructive and valuable comments.
Since the workshop, I have been incorporated the advices into my writing. The advices at the workshop
consolidated the theoretical framework, which was also the greatest
benefit for me. The network was avery close second.
Therefore I would also like to ex105

press my gratitude to the programorganizers, all participants—advisers and my fellow students, andorganizations which fund this workshop.
I am going to Tokyo, Japan for field
trip next year, and I will take theseexperiences with me to conduct
further research.
Mina Qiao
Ludwig Maximilians University of
Munich, Germany+++
My PhD project examines the applicability, implementation and impact of Japanese management
systems, such as knowledge transfer, spill-over and adaptive capacity to the host-country context. This
studies the work, employment andorganisational practices adopted
by Japanese multinational corporations (JMNCs) in Indonesia. It isbased on three Japanese-Indonesian joint-venture automotive firms
operating in Indonesia: Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indonesia (TMMIN), a car manufacturer; Astra
Honda Motor (AHM), a motorcycle
manufacturer; and Astra Auto Part
(AOP), an auto parts firm.
Most Japanese research studies
have focused on mainstream advanced and emerging market economy countries, namely the USA,the EU, China and India, while a
106

research gap remains regarding
newly emerging market economies, in particular in the Southeast
Asian region. This is particularly
prominent in the case of Indonesia,
which has been the largest Japanese FDI recipient since the 1950s
and is the largest Japanese automotive market in ASEAN.
JMNCs’ management systems in
automotive firms appear to differ
according to their level of investment, length of presence and involvement in management operations in Indonesia. While much of
the existing literature has focusedon Toyota and other car manufacturers, this study offers a more dynamic and comprehensive pictureof Japanese automotive practices
and their outcomes in the automotive industry in Indonesia by covering a cross-section of automotive manufacturers: TMMIN (cars),
AHM (motorcycles) and AOP (autoparts).
Warwick University has reachedpremium quality in research in UK
higher education and is internationally reputable. The University
is located on the outskirts of Coventry and Warwickshire. While theuniversity has provided very supportive research assistance yielding fertile ground to develop mystudies, unfortunately, the university does not have centre of Asian/
Japanese studies and the library islacking with a limited collection of

Japanese materials and academic
activities. EAJS academic activities, in particular workshop for doctoral student is important to develop
my research and academic career.
The workshop was well-organised,very friendly and interactive. Expert
panels committed to give comprehensive feedback and guidance.
The workshop also enables participants to learn from each other.
I was empowered to hear that Professor Lechevalier in making a recommendation for the participants
to read the section of my paper“the art of negotiating access”. My
discussion was able to offer some
practical insights for those participants who have experienced somedifficulties to obtain access.
The diversity of the participants andpanels truly make the workshop intellectually motivated. Intellectual
exchanges prepare me for my second phase data collection in Japanin September 2016. Moreover, academic networks make it possible
for me to explore other Japanese/
Asian studies activities within the
EU. All in all, the workshop has
deepened my commitment to makea substantial contribution to thebody of knowledge from two perspectives: to synthesise Japanesebusiness management studies
from a more international perspective (e.g. ASEAN), and to produce
new knowledge on the host country
through public scholarly public en-

gagements and publications. EAJS
provides a network of high-calibre
international Japanese scholars
dedicated to promoting Japanesestudies in the EU and beyond.
Joey Soehardjojo
Warwick Business School, UK+++
I was very happy to be able to attend the 12th EAJS doctoral workshop at the EHESS in Paris in July
2016 for several reasons. First of
all I was able to present not only
my current PhD research projecton Japanese foreign politics, butalso to get valuable feedback fromtwo senior researchers specializing in my field. What makes thisworkshop particularly helpful is thefact that we do not necessarily present final research findings, quitedifficult at the beginning of a PhD,
but rather our methods and also
challenges that we are facing as
PhD candidates. It was very useful to see that other PhD students
from all over Europe are in similar
situations, having similar questions
and experiences. I also appreciated very much the opportunities toexchange among us in an informal
way; I believe it is important to be incontact with other young researchers so that we can hopefully collaborate in future research for which
we laid the foundations during this107

workshop. At the same time, I was
also impressed and very happy
about the presence of a number ofwell-known professors from various
fields working on Japan. I learned alot on several subjects and appreciated their accessibility especiallyduring coffee breaks. I applied forthis workshop mainly in order to exchange with and receive feedback
from senior and younger scholars
specializing on Japan, since myuniversity is rather focused on political science; and this was definitely the case at the workshop.
All in all I am very grateful to the
EAJS, Toshiba International Foundation, Japan Foundation and theteam at EHESS for organizing thisvery inspiring and helpful doctoral
workshop and can only encourageother PhD students to apply for thefollowing one next year.
Sarah Tanke
Sciences Po Paris, France+++
I am a first year doctoral student
and a trained psychologist, conducting a research of “Childhood
Narratives of Mass Disasters survivors in Asia: A Psycho-Cultural
Study of the Great East Japan
Earthquake (GEJE).” In one of themost natural disaster prone countries in the world, my research asks
to holistically explore psychologi108

cal implications of disasters duringchildhood. Childhood narratives,
which stand in the heart of my research, represent an encounter
between individuals’ identities andtheir socio-cultural context. Thus,
these narratives create an integration of a personal and collective
memory of historical events, suchas the GEJE, which in turn, is aseminal event in nowadays Japanese society.
My research is inter-disciplinary,leaning on psychological literature
while integrating varied bodies ofknowledge (such as cultural, religious and disaster studies). Hence,
I was delighted to be accepted to
the EAJS workshop, regarding it asa unique learning opportunity.
The workshop indeed offered amulti-disciplinary meeting with bothadvanced students and leading
scholars of Japan. Together witha serious academic, yet friendly,
atmosphere, it allowed an enriching experience. I found students’presentations to offer updated, innovative and critical perspectivesof research, and thus, I could also
reflect on my research and learn
from them. Presentation my own
research contributed greatly bothto the research itself and to my academic experience. Others’ comments were a source of reflection
and some were even integrated
to my dissertation. Above all, formal and informal discussions, inmy opinion, enabled to learn of
nowadays most updated research
topics, trends and ‘vocabulary’ regarding Japan, the importance ofbalancing between one’s own disciplinary field and Japanese Studies
and how to take part in an international academic discourse. All in all,sharing my interest and passion forJapanese Studies with other doctoral students, the new generationof researchers, was a valuable experience, one to cherish and hopefully to continue in the future.
Shira Taube Dayan
The University of Haifa, Israel+++
The EAJS workshop is a uniqueexperience for PhD students inJapanese studies in Europe.
The workshop showcased someof the current research trends
and the body of research used indeveloping them. It gave me thechance to present my research
to a large audience of students
in a similar position to me, understanding what they find relevant
and interesting about my topic.
As someone working in linguistics, it
was a great exercise to understandhow to frame my work and make itinto a potential tool for Japanologists working on Classical literature.

The workshop was a rare opportunity for people working withsources in Classical Japanese to
discuss the role these have in their
PhD, and how to deal with them,
particularly when they are written
in less familiar scripts. I was happy
to see other students were keen
to learn more about manuscripts
and hentaigana from each other.
I am also grateful for the feedback I received on my project by
the two supervisors. I do not often
have the occasion to discuss myresearch with specialists outsideof my university. Especially useful were comments on the needto highlight quantitative evidence
and to contrast my project withother works on the similar topics.
The workshop was a useful, enriching and inclusive experience.
I would encourage any PhD student in Japanese studies to apply.
Federico Manglavite
University of Oxford, UK+++
The 2016 EAJS PhD workshop
was so well organized and provided such a stimulating atmosphere as well as opportunities to
network with scholars and fellow
students, that the workshop easily
ranks among the most helpful and109

memorable experiences that I
have had in graduate school sofar. Director Lechevalier and his
team organized the workshop
with every important detail inmind and deserve credit for creating something that everyone
can agree was an exceptionallyproductive event where everyone involved benefitted andcame away with something tothink over and include in theirown work. In fact, if given theopportunity, I would jump at the
chance to do it again next year.
I personally received feedback
and constructive criticism frommy two advisors and my peers
which will guide a lot of revision
in my research going forward
and I hope that it will be the startof continued dialogue with thesetwo professors who are experts
in my field. Thanks again for all
the hard work and preparation.
The workshop is a great asset
for aspiring scholars of Japan.
Bruce Grover,
University of Heidelberg, Germany110

1st EAJS Publication Workshop, Berlin, Germany
16-18 November 2015
Report of the Academic
Organizer
For many years, the European Association for Japanese Studies has
supported the career developmentof young scholars of JapaneseStudies by hosting workshops for
doctoral students on a regular basis.
At all PhD Workshops, organizers
include the opportunity for doctoralcandidates to provide feedback
and to state requests or recommendations for future PhD workshops. One request that was madevery frequently was for information
about publication options and related strategies, not only in the context of book publications, but also
in the context of scholarly journals
and the peer review processes.
Such requests were often madeby PhD students from non-English
speaking countries.
Academics in Europe and elsewhere are increasingly set into acompetitive environment in theearly stages of their careers, andresearchers feel more and moreobliged to try and publish their research in peer reviewed interna-

tional journals early on. For many
young scholars, the peer review
process is not transparent and they
feel insecure about how to bestproceed to publish their researchfindings.
To respond to this need, the EAJSCouncil decided to organize aworkshop dedicated to the academic publishing process, with afocus on peer reviewed academic
journals in English.
The aim we set out for the FirstEAJS Publication Workshop wasto equip doctoral students andyoung postdoctoral researcherswith essential knowledge about
the academic publication process
by providing advice about how tofind the right journal for their work,
how to write letters to the editor at
the stage of manuscript submission and also in the process of revisions, and how to address criticalissues raised in the review process.
The workshop took place at Freie
Universität Berlin from 16 to 18 November 2015. Project leader wasProfessor Verena Blechinger-Talcott from the Institute of East AsianStudies – Japanese Studies at FU
111

Berlin.
In organizing this workshop, the
EAJS cooperated closely with FU
Berlin’s Graduate School of East
Asian Studies, which allowed us tomake use of university facilities andother local infrastructure.
The workshop’s main events were
hosted at Harnack House, a conference venue run by the Max Planck
Society which is conveniently located within walking distance of
FU Berlin’s Institute of East AsianStudies.
All participants stayed at Motel One
in Berlin-Charlottenburg, near oneof the city’s major junctions with excellent public transport connections
to the university.
The workshop brought together
young researchers at the doctoraland postdoctoral level on the one
hand, and a team of senior academics who have experience asreviewers, as editorial board members or as editors of peer-reviewed
journals on the other hand.
The advisors and areas covered
were:•
Stephen Dodd, SOAS,
University of London (member ofthe Editorial Board of Japan Forum, flagship journal of the British
Association for Japanese Studies)•
Stanca Scholz-Cionca, Tri112

er University (literature and cultural
studies)•
Verena Blechinger-Talcott,Freie Universität Berlin (social science)•
Urs Matthias Zachmann,
University of Edinburgh (history)
The workshop participants wereselected by the team of advisors
based on online applications which
included the applicant’s CV, a letter of motivation, and an abstract ofthe manuscript intended for publication.
We selected candidates primarily
based on the academic quality ofthe proposed article. At the sametime, we took special care to selectresearchers who displayed highpotential for research and whose
native language is not English.
During the application period from
1 August to 1 September 2015, the
EAJS office received a total of 22
applications, out of which the selection committee chose 11 candidates for participation.
In terms of nationality, the final
group of participants comprised
three researchers from Japan, twofrom Poland, and one each from
Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain and Italy.
All selected participants were required to submit a full article manu-script intended for publication in ajournal in advance of the workshop.
All manuscripts were circulated
among all advisors and participants.
The workshop used two formats:first, Steven Dodd as editor of thejournal Japan Forum introduced
the various steps of the peer review
process and explained from theperspective of an editor which information was needed from authors at
each point in time. The discussions
focused on how to select the best
journal for one’s research, how totell a peer reviewed journal from a
non-peer reviewed journal and how
to get more information about ajournal’s focus and policies.
Verena Blechinger-Talcott and Stephen Dodd explained the various
steps of the review process andaddressed possible pitfalls authors
should avoid (for example multiple
submissions at the same time).
Participants also received sample
letters to the editor intended toclearly communicate the pointsof the manuscript submitted, thus
ensuring that journal editors could
find the most suitable reviewers.
We closed the first day of the workshop with an evening reception at
Restaurant “Alter Krug” near theuniversity, thus giving participants
the opportunity to get to know eachother and to learn more about eachother’s research.
The second and third day of theworkshop were devoted to the intensive discussion of the individual
article manuscripts. The conceptualidea was here to simulate the peer
review process. Authors did notpresent their work, but senior advisors and later other participants
played the roles of peer reviewers,
summarized the points of each article manuscript and discussed themanuscript’s strengths and weaknesses. At the end of each discussion, recommendations for revisionwere given by all advisors and participants.
The papers were grouped into thesections “history”, “literature andcultural studies” and “social sciences”, in line with the respective expertise of the advisor who chaired
the discussion.
Each manuscript was discussed
for about 45 mins. Senior advisors
would take the lead in the discussion, followed by participants.
At the end of the discussion, authors were allowed to answer questions or respond to the comments
received. Each session also ended
with recommendations about whichjournals in the field of JapaneseStudies or area studies might besuitable outlets for manuscript submission.
113

The presentation of a second setof general guidelines later on in
the program supplemented the individual sessions, with Verena Blechinger-Talcott and Stephen Dodd
discussing strategies on how todeal with problems in the submission process and how to respond toreviewer’s comments. Issues discussed here were strategies for revision and for communicating withjournal editors about how to address which revisions were madeto a manuscript. Considerable time
was also used on strategies in cases where manuscripts were rejected, given the high rejection rates ofmany academic journals.
Initial reactions by workshop participants were highly positive. On the
one hand, participants were grateful for comments and suggestions
received, but they also highlighted
that they had a better understanding of the peer review process
and related communication strategies. All participants spoke out infavor of making such publication
workshops a regular EAJS event,maybe taking place every two to
three years to complement the PhD
workshops.
The organizers and participants
would like to thank the JapanFoundation for generously providing funds for travel and accommo114

dation during the workshop. Moreover, many thanks go to the EAJS
Office staff for organizational support.
Verena Blechinger-Talcott
Institute of East Asian Studies
Japanese Studies
Freie Universität BerlinReports of the Participants
I am very glad to have received thepossibility to visit FU Berlin for the
EAJS Publication Workshop. The
three-day-event in Berlin, while
being hard work, offered me a lotof new information and skills. The
advisors, who represented different
thematic fields in JapaneseStudies, gave great feedback to allparticipants and encouraged young
scholars to present their researchin renowned English-language
peer-reviewed journals.
First of all, I really appreciatedthe concept of the workshop. As
a researcher based in Poland,
I usually publish my papers in
Polish academic journals, both inPolish and in English. Receiving
information concerning the processof publishing in international
journals is a great opportunity forme to promote my research amongscholars who do research on Japan
all over the world.
Secondly, the way the workshop
was organized deserves emphasisin this report. Receiving all thearticles before the workshop
enabled me to become familiar
with other participants’ work andencouraged me to comment andask questions during the workshop.
It was very helpful for developing myknowledge not only on Japanese
history and politics, which are partof my field of interest, but also inJapanese culture and literature.
Regarding my paper, receiving
feedback from so many scholars(both advisors and participants)
was something that wouldn’t havebeen possible during a regularconference or seminar. Additional
discussion was possible during
the breaks and made me gain
valuable,
specificknowledge
regarding my research and mypaper. An additional benefit was
to be introduced to other scholars
who are at the beginning of theiracademic career. It was great tomeet them all and to find people
who have similar academic
interests. This enabled us tostart thinking about international
research projects on Japan thatcan be jointly conducted among
our universities.
I am really grateful to the JapanFoundation for the financial
support, to the advisers for their
help and feedback on my paper,and to the participants for many
fruitful discussions. I look forward
to other activities that will help
advancing research on Japan in
the future.
Olga Anna Barbasiewicz
Institute of Mediterranean andOriental Cultures, Polish Academyof Sciences, Poland+++
115

First of all I would like to thank you
for inviting me to the 1st EAJS
Publication Workshop.
It was a great pleasure and, atthe same time, a very challenging
event for me. The workshop was
one of the most useful experiences
I have had during my PhD studies.
During only three days I was given
a lot of constructive feedback andkind advice that had a positive
impact on my motivation and selfconfidence.
One of the most valuable featuresof the workshop was undoubtedly
the possibility to learn how to write
a proper paper in English that may
be chosen by academic journals
for publication. I believe that thisis really important knowledge foryoung scholars without an Englishspeaking background who want topresent the results of their research
in English.
I also appreciated the form of theworkshop and its interdisciplinary
approach. All the papers werediscussed as if they were presented
to the editorial board that decides
whether the paper is publishable
or not. Each author received anumber of comments not only
from supervisors but also fromother participants. This process
may help the author to see whatkind of problems there were in
the discussed paper and indicate
possible ways of improvement.
116

The interdisciplinary facet of theworkshop gave me a chance tolook at my paper from different
angles and taught me how to
combine different aspects of myresearch to create a more complex
methodological framework. Breaks
between sessions and time formeals were nice opportunities toshare and exchange ideas withsupervisors
andparticipants,
enabling a fresh look at our work.
The
1st
EAJS
Publication
Workshop was a very wellorganized academic event. I reallyappreciate the friendly atmosphereof the workshop. I would like toexpress my deepest thanks to the
EAJS, especially the organizersof this workshop at FU Berlin,
and to Professor Stanca ScholzCionca for the instructive feedback
that I received not only about my
submitted paper but also on themethodological framework of my
PhD project. I would like also to thankProfessor Stephen Dodd for all his
constructive advice. This workshop
was an invaluable experience forme. Last but not least, my gratitude
goes also to the Japan Foundation,
whose generous support made thisworkshop possible. Thank you verymuch!
Karolina Broma-Smenda
University of Warsaw, Poland+++

I attended the EAJS Publication
Workshop and received advice
on publishing my article titled“‘Self’ and ‘Other’ in Language:
Ideas of ‘East’ and ‘West’ in theDevelopment of the National
Language in Japan”, which is an
overview of the evolving notion of
the national language in the recent
history of Japan. I also benefited
from learning about publishingin the field of Japanese studies
more generally. The opportunity
was given to me at an ideal timeas I was just considering where to
publish my article and I wanted toget some experts’ comments andadvice before submitting it to any
journal. It was a rare occasion forme to get feedback from the ‘mock
editorial board’ and the assistanceprovided by the advisors was
extremely useful in improving myarticle and identifying potential
journals for submission. It was also
very inspiring to have discussions
with other young scholars fromvarious disciplines. As my article
is highly interdisciplinary, thediversity of the participants was
valuable in helping me understanddifferent points of view from acrossthe academy. Furthermore, I
appreciated that the workshop
provided us with an opportunity toread our own articles in a criticalway, placing a very strong focus
on writing itself. I now have muchclearer ideas about academic
publication and greater confidence
in writing journal articles. I would
like to take this opportunity tothank once again the EAJS and theJapan Foundation, the sponsors,organisers and advisors who
made the workshop possible, as
well as fellow participants for theircomments and advice.
Naoko Hosokawa
University of Oxford, UK+++
First of all, I would like to thank theorganizers for enabling the first
EAJS Publication Workshop to takeplace, as well as the EAJS and theJapan Foundation who provided
financial support. During the courseof my short career as an academic
and time as a PhD student I haveattended many conferences andworkshops which have allowed
me to share my research withfellow academics and benefit fromtheir feedback. Nonetheless, theformat of fifteen to twenty minutepresentations followed by brief Q&A
sessions is the norm, and in many
ways limits the depth of discussion.
Furthermore, whilst the standard
workshop format does provide
young scholars with the opportunity
to polish their presentation skills,
when it comes to writing-up andeventual publications, workshops
117

based on oral presentation have
limited value. This is why the first
EAJS Publication Workshop wasan especially useful and enjoyable
experience. All participants shared
written work in advance, andwere assigned mentors, receiving
detailed comments and advice
on their written work, specificallywith publication in mind. Without
presentations, each paper wasaddressed as if by an editorial
board and in this way really gave
each participant—who have until
now limited experience in how
academic journals operate—astrong sense of the publication
process, what journal editors arelooking for, and how to address
their concerns. Overall, I would
say that this workshop was a great
success and of great value toparticipants, serving as a practical,“hands-on” introduction to theworld of publishing. For later stage
PhD students and postdoctoral
researchers this workshop strikes
me as particularly beneficial, and I
do hope it will be organized again.
Steven Ivings
Heidelberg University, Germany+++
Having recently completed my PhD
thesis and now looking to submit myresearch to peer-reviewed journals,
this opportunity to participate in the118

EAJS Publication Workshop could
not have come at a better time.
Although I had felt a bit uneasy
about how the proposed format of
the event would play out, my initial
doubts were soon removed andthe experiment to initiate a mock
editors’ meeting turned out rather
enjoyable. I believe an overall goodbalance was maintained between
addressing the shortcomings ofthe participants’ work by honest
and sometimes harsh criticism
and at the same time friendly andsupportive atmosphere in whichsuggestions to improve were laidout. If anything could be improved
about the current format perhaps
it could be made clearer next timethat an advanced, proof-read draft
is required: this would save sometime and enable focusing thediscussion solely on the content
level. The prohibitively broad rangeof topic discussed in these morethan dozen papers which fell undervarious fields of inquiry seemed
like a lot of work at first but I was
happy to find out that each oneof them offered some points andinsights to relate to within a wider
field of Japanese studies. From
this experience I would strongly
argue that this pattern of bringing
together scholars from different
fields in the humanities and social
sciences should be maintained for
future workshops as it seems truly
crucial for one’s development as ascholar to have a grasp of ongoingdebatesandmethodologicaloptions currently employed inadjacent fields of study. I also thinkthat a significant benefit of such
events is the chance of meeting
fellow emerging young scholars
while being guided by a team of
more experienced colleagues in arelaxed yet professional milieu.
Lauri Kitsnik
University of Cambridge, UK+++
For the first EAJS Publication
Workshop in Berlin, I presented
a paper about my PhD research
about illuminated scrolls and books
and the pictures of the Bunshô sôshi
tale in the 17th century. As I am in
my fourth PhD year and haven’t
yet had the chance to submit apaper, it was my first paper written
in English. Therefore this first EAJS
Publication Workshop was a good
opportunity to introduce my work to
the European research community
and to learn the methodology
about how to write a paper andhow to submit it to a journal.
Actually, before the workshop my
publications were papers written
in Japanese for university journals
and not academic papers.
The EAJS workshop was precisely
what I was searching for: agroup of young researchers andexperienced scholars who shared
their experience in publicationand human relationships in the
research community. They rebuilt
my confidence in the relevance of
my research and taught me how tomake my research more appealing
and understandable for publication.
It taught me particularly to notcompress all of my research in
one illegible paper. I also havelearned that my struggle was very
common for researchers and thisworkshop let me see the future
more peacefully.
Taking to heart the lessons I havelearned in this workshop, I willcomplete the writing of my PhD
thesis next year and would likein the very near future to publish
some of those results.
Delphine Mulard
INALCO, Paris, France+++
I was privileged to participate in thefirst EAJS Publication Workshop
in Berlin. During the three days of
the workshop, I learned a great
deal about how to publish an
article in an academic journal andhow to improve my own writing.
This experience would not havebeen possible without the financial
support from the Japan Foundationand the EAJS.
119

I am a second year PhD student andthe topic of my PhD thesis is longterm community reconstruction
after the tsunami of 3.11 in Tohoku,
Japan. I concentrate mainly on
local understandings of placeand community building and myresearch is a case study of the town
Yamamoto, where I conducted myfieldwork of eight months between
October 2014 and May 2015. During
the fieldwork, I collected qualitative
data for my thesis research.
This included 66 interviews
with local actors in Yamamoto,observation of local activities andevents as well as acquisition of
locally produced textual material
concerning community building
after the 3.11. Differing from themonograph PhD thesis concept,
my thesis will most probably be acompilation thesis, which consistsof three or four articles publishedin international journals and of
introduction, methodology andconclusion chapters. The article
draft I submitted to the workshop
was the first article I have written
for the thesis.
Aiming at finishing this form ofthesis, the call for applications
for the workshop seemed morethan welcome. I am grateful tobe accepted and the workshop
met all my expectations and evenmore. The first and last sessions
by the senior advisor Stephen
Dodd accompanied by other120

advisors gave practical advice
on publication, something that atleast my home university does
not deal with explicitly or in depth.
The format of feedback sessions
was well functioning and I learned
a great deal not only from thefeedback on my own paper, butalso from comments made aboutother participants’ papers.
To summarize, I gained much during
the three days of the workshop:
practical awareness about how topublish, scholarly advice on thecontent and form of article writing,self-confidence to pursue my path
towards the compilation thesis,
and also valuable contacts with myfellow workshop participants.
Thank you for the workshop. I truly
look forward to seeing the second
EAJS Publication Workshop beingorganized.
Pilvi Posio
University of Turku, Finland+++
My preference for narrative
approaches that aim at providing
interpretations of Sino-JapanU.S. interaction prompted me toshy away from traditional Political
Science peer-reviewed journals
that demand a minimalistic structure
and mandate limited wording.
Moreover, I have shied away frompublication in major peer-reviewed

international journals for fear ofgetting bogged down in a tiresome
editing and submission processthat would have compromised the
freshness of my research.
Thanks to the substantial feedback
provided by senior and juniorcolleagues at the EAJS Publication
Workshop, I was able to learn the“rules of the (publication) game.” I
was able to learn how best to frame
and how to pitch-sell an article toan international journal devoted
to the International Relationsof Japan and East Asia morein general. Through the skilledguidance of Professor Verena
Blechinger-Talcott, I was able toacquire the skills to devise a social
science journal article, with a lean“research puzzle” and a pertinent
structure that doesn’t get bogged
down into details. I now consider
myself able to bring portions of
my PhD research as contributions
to the field of Japanese foreignand security policy-making, to thequestion of leadership, and the like.
Given the substantial feedback
received during the conference, I
have also acknowledged the input
in one of the articles I have recently
submitted for consideration ata major Poli Sci journal. I owe
an eventual (fingers crossed)
successful publication also to the
EAJS and the Japan Foundation.
Thank you very much for your kind
support!

Giulio Pugliese
Heidelberg University, Germany+++
The workshop promised to address
almost all of the possible difficulties
in the publication process, whichhave actually made me shelve
an idea of sending articles toacademic journals. In fact, theworkshop provided me with arather unique opportunity to getpractically familiar with the journal
publication process. Firstly, theworkshop introduced the concrete
steps of the publication process.
It was a valuable experience todiscuss each step with experienced
and actual editors and also to hear
their own experiences. I was very
honored to receive an actual review
from experienced editors at theworkshop site. Every participant’s
article was reviewed and discussed
individually in a similar manner as
an actual peer review. On this point,
I really appreciate the amountof time and effort spent on each
paper for discussion and for review
prepared prior to the workshop. It
was interesting to recognize that
we participants share, more or less,similar problems in writing for theparticular purpose of publication. I
found that the common structuralprematurity for the specific purposeof journal publication was not simply
121reducible to the fact that different
disciplines have different writing
styles. I believe that a continuationof the publication workshop will beespecially beneficial for the further
advancement of Japanese Studies
as an interdisciplinary discipline.
If I may suggest a possibility of
improvement, it will be one pointthat we did not explicitly learn
how to review an article from a
reviewer’s perspective, though
it was observable in the actual
review sessions. I believe that it will
be helpful for the future participantsbecause it will enable them tosee their own or others’ articles
from the reviewers’ eyes. Finally, I
would like to show my gratitude to
the Japan Foundation regarding
their generous financial support,
which made my experience intheworkshopmulti-cultural,inter-disciplinary, and therefore,
meaningful.
Kie Sanada
Humboldt
Germany

University,

Berlin,+++One of my academic aims whilepursuing a PhD in the UK is to
publish the results of my researchbased on my fieldwork in Japan.
While my aim is clear, as I haveprogressed through the PhD it has
become evident that the process
122

of publishing is complex, including
selecting journals to approachand navigating the review andediting process. I am very gratefulto have been able to participate
in the EAJS publication workshop
together with a stimulating groupof junior and senior scholars, andan editor. Substantially, I learnt
how we should think about what
academic publications are, how
to approach the processes ofpublications and so forth throughthe direct experience of other
scholars and the written samplesof the participants. In parallel tothe group sessions, the workshop
offered the great opportunity toreceive feedback and commentson our own individual paper
from an assigned tutor. The tutor
system provided a great chance
to discuss more individual issues
and solutions. Lastly, I would liketo express my gratitude for all otherparticipants and senior scholars
for their critical comments andfeedback in a friendly collaborative
atmosphere, and the JapanFoundation,
Freie
Universität
Berlin and EAJS for their generous
funding to support this valuable
workshop.
Hiroko Umegaki Costantini
PhD candidate, University
Cambridge+++ofI was very fortunate to be selected
for participation in the 1st EAJS
Publication Workshop in Berlin.
It provided me with a great
opportunity to receive feedback
on my article manuscript and tointeract with PhD students andpostdocs from different branches ofJapanese Studies.
I had already published somearticles in edited volumes but
never submitted a manuscript
to a peer-reviewed journal. The
workshop provided me withanswers to general questions like:
What journal is appropriate formy article? How do I approach
the journal? How does the review
process work? And: How do I react
to the reviewers’ comments?
However, the most valuable
experience for me was to receive
detailed individual feedback on mymanuscript by the advisors and theother participants. The comments
helped me to rethink my publication
project and sharpen my line ofargument. I received valuableadvice on which journals toapproach and was encouraged toaim for publication in a prestigious
journal. Throughout, the workshop
was characterized by an open andrelaxed atmosphere. Participants
were not expected to present theirown papers since the manuscripts
should speak for themselves.
Only at the end of the discussions

were authors allowed to answer
questions and reply to the others’comments. In this way, the peerreview process was simulated. In
my opinion, this procedure helped
to focus on the texts and to keep
the critiques impersonal.
The workshop convinced me that
it is important to receive feedback
from persons one can trust before
submitting an article. For thisreason, some participants of theworkshop agreed to critically readeach other’s manuscripts in the
future.
All in all, I received invaluable advice
and important suggestions on how
to revise my manuscript. I am surethat I will profit from this advice not
only for the manuscript which was
discussed at the workshop but also
for future publication projects.
David Weiß
Eberhard
Karls
Tübingen, Germany

Universität

123Toshiba International Foundation Fellowships
Reports by the 2015 TIFO Fellows
Report by Hai Guo
University of Leeds, UK
Subjectivity
andDiscourseof War History: A LacanianAnalysis of the Sino-Japanese‘History Problem’
Research Description
My PhD research project aims
to account for how and why the‘history problem (rekishi mondai
歴史問題) discourse in SinoJapanese relations emerged andpersisted. Informed by Lacanian
psychoanalytic theory, the analysis
focuses on the ideological condition that premised the emergenceof the ‘history problem’ discourse
before the 1982 Textbook Issue
and the transformation of the
discourse thereafter (i.e. 1982 –2015). The research understands
the ‘history problem’ not as an
isolated event that caused thedeterioration of Sino-Japaneserelations, but as a pathologicaleffect resulted from the national
trauma repressed and re-activatedin a series of historical development in Japan and China’s modern
history.
124

Fieldwork Briefing
My fieldwork in Tokyo mainlycomposed of two parts: first,
the elite-interview research withmembers of the Japan-China Joint
History
Research
Committee;
second, the archival research
regarding Japan’s relations toInternational Society. The fieldwork, conducted from 1st February
to 15th April, has produced
substantial
breakthroughsasfollows:
1)
I have managed to reachand conducted semi-structured
interviews with 10 elite-interviewees.
2)
I have conducted archival
research in major archives inTokyo on a daily basis and haveobtained key documents regarding
Japan’s ‘history problem’ with
China.
3)
I
have
also
generatedsocialimpactthroughacademic presentation and social
networking.
Details of my activities will be
described as follows.

Research Activities and Findings
Elite-Interview
The fieldwork in Japan is dedicated to an interview research
regarding the Japan-China Joint
History Research, which is a politically significant scholarly project
initiated by Japanese Prime
Minister Abe Shinzo and the thenChinese President Hu Jingtao
in the Beijing submit in October
20061. The aim of the project, as it
is stated officially, is to alleviate the‘history problem’ as a deteriorating
effect in Sino-Japanese relations.
The joint research can be seen
as a product of knowledge, andthus it is imperative to examine
the process of production – that is,what topics have been discussed,
disputed, cancelled, negotiated,
or/and censored. This way, thefieldwork will help to explore theboundaries of the contentious‘history problem’ discourse throughobtaining context in addition toexisting textual materials, contributing to a more comprehensive
yet critical account of the postwar Sino-Japanese relations forthe studies of East Asian modern
history and International Relations.
___________

1

For an introduction on Japanese Ministryof Foreign Affairs, please see: http://www.
mofa.go.jp/mofaj/area/china/rekishi_kk.html

With networking and snowballing
techniques, I have managed toreach 10 elite-interviewees andconducted semi-structured interviews with them. Most of themwere members who worked for
The Japan-China Joint History
Research Committee, including:• Kawashima Shin (Tokyo University)• Takahara Akio (Tokyo University)• Tsuruma Kazuyuki (Gakushuin
University)• Kikuchi Hedeaki (International
Christian University)• Kojima Tsuyoshi (Tokyo University)• Kasahara Tokushi (Tsuru University)• Shoji Junichiro (The National
Institute for Defense Studies)• Wakayama Kyoichi (The Japan
Institute of International Affairs)• Hatano Sumio (Tsukuba University)• Tobe Ryoichi (Teikyo University)
The interviews conducted mainly
concern the following questions:• What were the major conflicts
and sources of disputes in theacademic activities carried out by
the members of The Japan-China
Joint History Research?

125

• What contents or topics were
censored, revised, or cancelledduring the research?
• What are the collective norms
that dictate the joint research?
• What is the impact the joint
research had on the Sino-Japanese relations?
After my interviews, so far I havethe following findings:• Surprisingly, academic clashes
occurred in the medieval/ancienthistory research team was no lesssevere than that in the modern
history. The dispute in ancienthistory mainly focuses on whether
China and Japan as nationstates actually existed before
the modern period (i.e., the late
19th century). Whilst Japanesescholars argue that both Japanand China as nation-states did
not exist until they came to be
gradually constructed recently inthe late 19th – early 20th century,
the Chinese scholars disagreed
with this, arguing that China andJapan should be studied as nationstates, because deconstructing
their ‘nation-state-ness’ does notserve the core purpose of the joint
research.
• The joint research consists ofthree parts: the ancient/medieval
history, the pre-modern/modern
history, and the post-war history.
Noticeably, the part of post126

war history was withdrawn frompublication, because this part
touches upon many issues still
considered to be political sensitive by the Chinese authority.
Japanese scholars laid considerable emphasis on the 1989 Tiananmen Incident/Massacre andtreat it as a historically significant
event in Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations, for it is considered
the turning point from which theJapanese perspective towards
China become increasingly deteriorated in the post-normalisationera (i.e. since 1972). From the
Chinese perspective, however,
the Tiananmen Incident/Massacre
remained a political taboo to be
discussed in academic discourse.
•
Although the academic
exchange between the two sides
had been described as fruitfully liberating in general, when
the research was about to be
published, the Chinese scholars
seem to have received politicalpressure from the Chinese foreign
ministry, who at first demanded towithdraw the whole project frompublication. After a series of difficult negotiations between the twosides, the Chinese conceded, on
the condition that the comment
part (in which scholars made on
their counterpart’s paper) and the‘Post-war History Part’ to be withheld from publication.
• The
Chinesegovernment
seemed to be much more politically vulnerable, and also slightly
less active in promoting the joint
research, than its Japanese counterpart in history-problem-related
academic activities initiated at theofficial level. One of the reasonsaccounting for this is the politicalsystem. Whilst the maintenanceof legitimacy of the party-stateauthoritarianism of the Chinese
government relies heavily on theinterpretation of Chinese national
history, Japan, as a democracy,
is decidedly less susceptible to apluralist approach to the national
history.
Archival Research
Apart from conducting interviews,
I also collected textual materials
in major archives located in Tokyo,
including
Diplomatic
Archivesof the Ministry of Foreign Affairsof Japan, Tōyō Bunko, National
Diet Library, and Waseda University Library. Through the archival
research, I have been collecting
textual materials regarding thefollowing topics:• Japan’s response to the International Society on the diplomaticand intellectual level in Meiji era(1968 – 1912), Taisho era (1912– 1926), the pre-war Showa era(1926 – 1945), and post-war era(1945 – present), with reference tothe keywords of ‘civilisation (文明)’,‘International Society (国際社会)’,and ‘world history (世界史)’.
• The textbook issue between
Japan and the Republic of China
from 1914 to 1937.
• Letters, diaries, and articles
written by the ‘reformist officers (革新官僚)’ in the MOFA, mostnotably including Shiratori Toshi (白鳥敏夫), Kurihara Masashi (栗原正), and Satō Tadao (佐藤忠雄),
etc.
• Government and media documents regarding the Tokyo Trial.
• Diplomatic Documents regarding
the normalisation of Sino-Japanese relations with reference to
key words of ‘historical understanding (歴史認識)’ and ‘International Society (国際社会)’.
• ‘Slip of tongue’ by various Japanese officials and ministers withreference to the issue of ‘historical
understanding’, including former
Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro(中曽根康弘) and former Ministerof Education Fujio Masayuki (藤尾正行).
My findings suggest the following
points:• Interesting, the textbook issue
happened between Japan and127

China (Republic of China) in 1914
resembles the textbook issue
between Japan and PRC in 1982.
However, in 1914 the criticiser
was Japan and in 1982 the criticiser was China. I suggest that acomparative study between thetwo events should be done to illustrate the interactive structure of the‘history problem’ in Sino-Japaneserelations since 1982.
• Mutually exclusive nationalist
ideology between the two states
was one of the major conditions
that premised the textbook issue
from 1914 to 1937. Especially,
after the Mukden Incident in 1931,
Japan’sforeignpolicymaking
became increasingly dominatedby a right-leaning philosophicalthinking, which saw the emergence of a ‘new world order’
distinct from the International
Society of which China was infavour. Japan’s changing perspective on International Society wasespecially evident in the text ofJapan’s Inherent Foreign Policymaking Guiding Principle (日本固有の外交指導原理綱領) written by
the Investigation Department of
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan(外務省調査部) in 1936.
• The Tokyo Trial is yet anotherunneglectable factor to the emergence of the ‘history problem’.
As announced by the chief pros128

ecutor Joseph Keenan, the Tokyo
Trial was the ‘Demand of Civilisation’. This effectively defined thenationalist side of Japan’s national
subject as an offender of ‘civilisation’ embodied by the internationallaw. Also, it simultaneously brought
Japan back to the hierarchy ofInternational Society. The result isthat Japan was imposed a reconfigured identity, which was essentially inscribed with an awarenessof Japan’s subjection to the International Society. It thus creates a
symptom that the ‘history problem’
and ‘historical understanding’ in
diplomatic occasions have to beconstantly re-addressed.
Academic Conferences
During my stay in Tokyo I also
participated in academic andmedia activities which have generated social impact.
• On 27 February 2016, I participated as a discussant in the panelof Japan-China Education andCultural Exchange Symposium (日中教育文化交流シンポジウム) heldby the Japan-China International
Education Exchange Association (日中国際教育交流協会). The event
was reported by Shimbun Akahata.
I am the person in the middle ofthe picture.

• On 10 March 2016, I was invitedby DIJ (Deutsches Institut fürJapanstudien) to deliver a presentation in DIJ History & Humanities Study Group. The talk wasthemed ‘Collective Subjectivity
and Apology Under the Gaze of
the “International Community”: A
Lacanian Analysis of the Apology
Issue in Japan-China Relations’,
in which I discussed how Japan’s
apology issue was ideologicalconditioned by the discourse ofInternational Society. Around 10
participants involved in the dissussion .
Acknowledgement for TIFO
I hereby acknowledge that thisfieldwork was supported by the
Toshiba International Foundation.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions,orrecommendations
expressed in this report are thoseof the author and do not reflect theview of the Toshiba International
Foundation.
Also, I would like to express mygreatest appreciation for TIFO,
without whose support the fieldwork could not have been done.
I also wish to personally thank
Ms. Kuwayama Mariko and Mr.
Shirai Makoto, who not only gaveme support throughout my stayin Tokyo with professionalism
and compassion for the ideal ofacademic enterprise, but alsooffered me kindness and friendshipon a human level. This is indeed arare generosity a researcher could
receive from a funder. I sincerely
hope the enterprise of TIFO will
become increasingly thriving andprosperous with each passing day.
_________(see: http://www.dijtokyo.org/events/collective_subjectivity_and_apology&lang=en).
2

Report by Bernhard Leitner,
University of Vienna, Austria
Toshiba International Foundation Scholarship 2015 Report
Thesis Outline
My dissertation project focuses on
a complex of questions concerning
the impact of psychiatrists andneurologists of the second Vienna
School of medicine in the late
19th and early 20th century on
the initial development of psychiatric discourse in Japan. Fromthe very beginning of its formation
Japanese psychiatry was largely
influenced by medical thought of
the German-speaking world. The
most famous psychiatrists of theirtimes like Emil Kraepelin, Richard
von Krafft-Ebing and Wilhelm
Weygandt, only to name a few,
were among the teachers of the129

first cadre of professional Japanese psychiatrists, referred to as
the “Three Musketeers” of institutionalized modern psychiatry inJapan: Sakaki Hajime, Kure Shuzoand Miyake Koichi. All of themwent to Berlin, Munich and Vienna
to study medicine. What motivated
my research project was the factthat a Viennese institution was amajor player in forming the direction of development of Japanese
psychiatry: the then world-famous
Neurological Institute of the
University of Vienna. A fact that is
widely acknowledged by historiansof medicine, but a detailed accountfor this scientific transfer is still
missing to this day. This institute
was above all associated with its
founder and mastermind, Austrian
neurologist Heinrich Obersteiner
and was even commonly called
the Obersteiner-Institute. It revolutionized psychiatry by trying
to fortify its foundations with astrong scientific neurological basis.
From a methodological perspective this required the introductionofcomprehensive
anatomicaland physiological analysis of thecentral nervous system. Thisendeavor in turn called for an
accordingly equipped neurologicallaboratory, which did not exist atthat time. Hence in 1882 Heinrich
Obersteiner himself initiated thecreation of the first interdisciplinary research facility for neurology
130

using private funds only: the Institute for Anatomy and Physiologyof the Central Nervous System.
Subsequently in 1900 Obersteiner
handed the institute over to the
University of Vienna and it was
renamed as Neurological Institute.
From the outset this presumably
first proto-neuroscientific researchlab heavily drew scientists andstudents from all over the globe;
among them many of the first
generation of Japanese psychiatrists. This not only contributed
to the education of individuals,
but through the participation ofJapanese psychiatrists in cuttingedge neuropsychiatric research
Japanese psychiatry overall wasquickly elevated to the Olympus
of the international scientificcommunity. A number of these
Japanese doctors even publishedin notable psychiatric journals likethe Centralblatt für die gesamte
Neurologie
undPsychiatrie[Central Journal for Neurology andPsychiatry], a remarkable matterfor two reasons: first, papers byscholars outside of Europe wereconsidered very seldom, whereas
articles by Japanese researchers
were published on a regular basis
from the 1920s on; second, psychiatry as a modern medical profession in Japan had only existed forabout 30 years, not to mention
that in terms of funds, personnel
and facilities, Japanese psychiatrywas still in its infancy. How did theAustrian-Japanese collaboration
enable these tremendous achievements of specialized medical
knowledge production over sucha short period of time in Japan?
In my dissertation I will focus on
this virtually untouched transfer
of knowledge between Austria
and Japan around 1900. The
additional benefit of the presentinterdisciplinary research project,which draws on Japanese studies,
history of medicine as well as on atheoretical framework derived fromscience and technology studies,
lies not only in the opportunity toeven-handedly shed new light on
Japanese and Austrian history ofpsychiatry, but also in exposing
the necessary preconditions forknowledge production in a laboratory giving birth to a new scientificdiscipline.
Research in Japan
When I first started researching
the history of Japanese psychiatry
for my BA and MA theses morethan six years ago, I faced an all
too familiar problem for scholarsof Japanese studies working on
interdisciplinary topics outsideof Japan: Resources at the local
libraries are usually scarce.
Through a one year study abroadas an exchange student in Japan
from 2009 to 2010, I started tobuild up my own library for thehistory of Japanese psychiatry,
consisting primarily of secondary
literature monographs. So when I
started to conceptualize my PhD
thesis, the situation was a little bitbrighter. First: I could still draw on
the stock of material I brought fromJapan, and second: as my new
topic was also rooted in Vienna,
a lot of the primary resources
I needed were located at the
Medical University of Vienna.
But I soon began to encounter
serious problems concerning thoseresources: All the publications
and records of Japanese psychiatrists and neurologists studyingin Vienna around 1900 werecollected, compiled or publishedby Austrians, who had no experience with the Japanese language.
Hence, a lot of these data, especially records of names and institutions, are incorrectly transcribed.
They are often ambiguous as towhich person was actually meant,since there are no written records
in Japanese characters.
Subsequently I began to search
for a solution to this problem andI found it: The Medical Library andArchives of the University of Tokyo.
Not only did the vast majority ofJapanese students of psychiatry
and neurology in Vienna camefrom University of Tokyo, where
Kure Shuzo had already estab131

lished a lasting network witheminent scholars from Universityof Vienna, but on top of that, thefirst academic society of psychiatry
and neurology was also founded
at, and throughout its entire history
has been deeply rooted in this very
institution, thus holding almost
all the records I was in desperateneed of. Additionally, since I am
focusing on the transfer of knowledge between University of Vienna
and University of Tokyo, it was ofutmost importance for me to know
how these visiting scholars fromJapan disseminated the knowledge through Japanese medical
journals after they returned toJapan, most importantly throughthe Nihon Seishin-shinkeigaku
Zasshi (=Psychiatria et Neurologia Japonica). So what I reallyneeded was an intensive shortterm research trip to Tokyo inorder to complete my records withthese essential data. The Toshiba
International Foundation Scholarship seemed to be perfect for myendeavors and I could not havebeen happier on the day I got theletter of acceptance.
On the 9th of September 2015
I started my journey to Tokyo. I
found a nice apartment in ShinOkubo (Shinjuku district). Not only
did I have excellent access to thecampus of the University of Tokyo
from there, but in addition to being
132

accommodated in the very centerof the city it is also a lively andmulti-ethnic environment, which
I really enjoyed. After setting up,
I immediately started with myresearch. Although I did not have aformal affiliation to the University ofTokyo, the Central Medical Library
granted me free access to all the
resources I needed. I spent almost
every day in the library reading,
excerpting and copying material.
Comprehensive publications like
Tōkyō Daigaku Seishin-igakukyōshitsu 120 nen (2007) [120years of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Tokyo],as well as Nihon Seishin-shinkei
GakkaiHyaku-nen-shi(2003)[The Hundred Year History of theJapanese Society for Psychiatry
and Neurology], not available inEurope and out of print, were ofvery special help collecting crucial
data. Furthermore, the libraryholds a special digital databasefor the Seishin-shinkeigaku Zasshi
that allowed me to observe thecourse of development of knowledge production of the journal in
only a few days, which saved me
weeks of valuable research time.
Through biographies and primaryarchival materials, on the other
hand, I became aware that certain
data concerning dates, as forexample periods of stay of Japanese scholars in Europe, werein fact often vague or sometimes

erroneous. As a consequence I
found that my research might evencontribute to consistently recordingthese personal transfers between
Japan and Austria for the first time.
In addition to acquiring written
resources, I was able to visit institutions I am researching, as forexample the Tōkyō-toritsu Matsuzawa Byōin [Tokyo Metropolitan
Matsuzawa Hospital] that functioned as a university clinic for the
Department of Psychiatry of the
University of Tokyo. The hospitalmanagement preserved a building
in its original condition after major
refurbishments in the 1960s,
which now hosts a special historicmaterial collection. Not only wasit possible to see the actual structures and plans of the early 20th
century institution, but the staff
also kindly explained therapeutic
as well as research instruments
and even allowed me to lookthrough original publications stored
in closed displays.
But the Toshiba International
Foundation Scholarship did not
only support the progress of mycurrent research, it also granted
the opportunity to extend anddeepen my academic network inJapan. Shortly after my arrival I
was able to join a workshop on
the History of Medicine, Society
and the Body at Keio University

organized by Prof. Suzuki Akihito.
I was introduced to a number ofscholars researching in relatedareas to mine and had the chance
to catch up with colleagues I met
at other conferences. Furthermore
Prof. Suzuki kindly encouraged
me to submit a paper proposal
for the annual conference of theJapanese Society for the Historyof Psychiatry [Nihon Seishin-igakushi Gakkai] at Shinjuku Park Tower
in the beginning of November. I
had already learned of this conference from Prof. Hashimoto Akira
at a previous meeting in Vienna.
My proposal was accepted and
I was actually able to present
my research project to a professional Japanese audience forthe first time. My presentation
was very well received and evenProf. Okada Yasuo, the “father”
of historiography of Japanese
psychiatry, personally commented
on my paper, giving me invaluable
feedback. He even highlighted theimportance of my research, as
Austrian-Japanese relations in thehistory of psychiatry have been
overshadowed by the focus on
German-Japanese transfer. Moreover Prof. Suzuki and Prof. Hashimoto introduced me to several
eminent historians of psychiatry
like Nakamura Osamu and mostimportantly Prof. Okada himself.

133

On 25th of November 2015 I
returned to Vienna. I was accompanied by literally kilogramsof material. I brought a load of
up-to-date secondary as well as
antiquarian
primary
literature,
excerpts, copies and photographs.
The amount of resources I could
collect in this relatively short periodof time was so massive that I am
still busy analyzing it.
Acknowledgements
First of all I would like to extend
my sincere gratitude to the Toshiba
International
Foundationforgenerously funding my research
activities in Japan. In particular
I would like to thank Mr. Shirai
Makoto, president of the foundation, and Ms. Kuwayama Mariko,
who welcomed me warmly at the
Toshiba headquarters upon myarrival in Tokyo and supported meduring my stay. In addition I am
deeply thankful that the European
Association for Japanese Studies
supported my application for the
Toshiba International Foundation
Scholarship. I would also like tothank Prof. Dr. Verena BlechingerTalcott and Mr. Tim Herbort for
their support before, during andafter this trip. Last but not least I
would like to express my gratitude
to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Ingrid
Getreuer-Kargl for continuously
fostering my research endeavors.
134

Report by Anita Németh
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Newspaper coveragemediums in Japan

of

folk

If you planned to visit Aomori
Prefecture, and within that the
Shimokita Peninsula – say, at theend of July or in mid-October –and opened the brochures of Japanese travel agencies, among thearticles praising the natural beauty,
gastronomy, and cultural heritage
you could find an event that may
seem slightly odd: experience inperson the itako kuchiyose ritual!
Although only for a short time, notonly the local newspapers but also
national press publications regularly report on the summer andautumn matsuri of the Bodai-ji,
the temple of Mount Osore, in thecentre of the Shimokita Peninsula.
These publications also never failto mention that you may request
kuchiyose from the itako.
___________________
Itako: the usually blind, female folk
medium shamans of Aomori Prefecture.
1

2

Kuchiyose / hotoke no kuchiake: the itako

summons the soul of the deceased into her
own body and delivers their messages.

In my previous research, I had
examined how the reputation
and role of the itako has changed
from the end of the 19th century
until the present day, and how thisphenomenon responded to thechallenges brought on by modern
society in the new millennium.
That is, I investigated what factors
contributed to that the itako - who
before 1945 were condemned
as hindering modernization andmaintaining superstitious misconceptions, and therefore were tobe persecuted - became a ‘local
spectacle’, a tourist attraction afterWorld War II.
Undoubtedly, mass culture and themass media have played crucial
roles in this process. Starting in
the Meiji period, newspaper articles, reflecting the official religious
policy, often depicted not only
the itako, but all folk mediums,
healers, oracles etc., who wereoutside of the state-controlled
shintō system, as criminals.
However, following 1945, theshock caused by the world war
defeat, the disillusionment, andthe shattered social, political andeconomic life gave rise to a ‘spiritual revival’. Taking advantage ofthe freedom of religion ensured
by the new Constitution, sects and
New New Religions (Shin shinshūkyō) were formed one after theother, reshaping ancient symbols,
rites and values. The mass media
jumped on this bandwagon ofturning to the ‘ancient Japan’ and‘self-discovery’, and rediscovered the itako for itself, depicting
it as ‘the representatives of thespirit of ancient, traditional Japan’and creating a ‘well-marketableproduct’ from a by then virtuallycompletely marginalized folk religion phenomenon.
Thanks to the strong media pull,
the itako phenomenon crossed theborders of Aomori Prefecture, andin the 1960s tourists from all overthe country came to Mount Osore
to request kuchiyose from theitako.
_______________
Although the media is not devoid of prejudices and biases, I think it can still be avery useful source of information.
See 奄美大島の民間宗教 ノロとユタについて（小口偉一）, Yomiuri Shinbun, 31.
08.1955.
文化の源流ひめるイタコとユタの差＿研究
ノート （桜井徳太郎）, Asahi Shinbun,
14. 03.1968.
[質問箱]「イタコ 」と「ユタ」の違い ,Yomiuri Shinbun, 19. 07. 1970.
ユタ遅れた精神病対策
・暮らしをむし
ばむ占い ・ユタ＿沖縄報告（第４部）,
Asahi Shinbun, 7. 9.1969.

135

But what role – if any – didthe mass media have on othershamanistic phenomena of theJapanese islands? Did or do those
get the kind of support the itako
did? This is one of the central
questions that I pursue in my PhD
research project.
Thanks to the Toshiba International Foundation, I was given theopportunity to spend three unforgettable months in Japan in late2015. The National Diet Library
became almost my second home,and I was able to add further valuable data to my research. Continuing my earlier approach, I used
print media as primary sources, inparticular articles from daily newspapers such as the Asahi Shinbun,
Yomiuri Shinbun, and Mainichi
Shinbun.
I was interested primarily in thepress coverage of yuta, the folk
medium of Okinawa as, on the one
hand, to this day the yuta plays
an important role in the lives ofthe locals, and on the other hand,as the yuta has a similar role as
the itako in Tōhoku: the yuta is ahealer, a spiritual advisor; people
turn to the yuta with their everyday
problems; and the yuta delivers
the messages of the deceased.
However, one could say that
following World War II, the print
136

press showed little interest in the
Okinawa folk religion traditions.
Up until the 1980s, I found merely
four articles in the national daily
newspapers about the yuta. Threearticles comprised rather generaldescriptions of the folk mediumsof the region; two of these articles
explicitly discussed the difference
between the itako and the yuta.
It is definitely worth to mention anarticle published in 1969 in the
Asahi Shinbun, which details thatcompared to other parts of Japan,
the number of people sufferingfrom mental problems is high inthis region, and that the affectedpatients still preferred to turn tothe yuta with these kinds of problems. The article is noteworthy
also because it demonstrates well
the roles the yuta had in the livesof the locals.
Although the number of articles onyuta – at least compared to thosepublished about itako – is remarkably low, this may be regarded
as a positive change comparedto their former press coverage:
they had enjoyed considerably
more vivid interest before 1945,
but the press did not treat them
gently. Moreover, the pre-1945
articles showed that the authorities acted more strictly towards
them, as they did towards the restof the shamans and folk healers of
the island state – the police evencarried out several large-scale
raids, or ‘yuta-hunts’.
One reason behind the differencein treatment could be that the
Okinawan shamanism and ritual
system originated in the traditionsof the old Ryūkyū Kingdom. As
such, it stood in sharp contrast to
the official Japanese mythology,
and could be integrated neither
into the system of the state shintō
nor the emperor cult. By contrast,
in Aomori, although the folk beliefs
also had deep ainu roots, they
had already been japanized, andsyncretized with the institutionalized level of Japanese religious
customs.
Around the early 1980s, theshamans of Okinawa achieved amajor breakthrough on the pagesof national daily newspapers,___________For example, the yuta were sentenced to
20-days of confinement if they were caught
in the act of carrying out prohibited activity.
In contrast,in Aomori the length of thissentence was 3-7 days. One could say thatin Aomori, local folk mediums were often
treated with a more lenient attitude: they
did not occasion man-hunts, sometimes noteven in spite of ‘healings‘, exorcisms that
ended in death in many cases.
In connection with the oppression
regarding the yuta , a study of Ōhashi
Hideshi provided me with great help.

which have continued to givecoverage to the phenomenon eversince. A detailed analysis of thearticles goes beyond the framework of this report – however, thefact that the press picked up the‘yuta topic’ around the 1980s and1990s may correlate with the factthat the bubble economy wasnearing its final days around thattime and early post-war trends,
centred around self-searching,enjoyed a revival. This spiritualboom, as well as the travellingboom deriving from the selfdiscovery movement, eventuallysolidified the itako’s place in massculture.
It would be the topic of anotherresearch project to investigate
how much energy and money
local governments, cultural andtraditional organisations invest inpromoting the local (folk) traditions
outside the region. With regard to
the itako, the local governments(of Aomori Prefecture, and alsoof the city of Mutsu therein) madeuse of the local legendry in orderto stimulate the regional economy
and to boost tourism. Publications
promoting the prefecture (such as
Aomori or Kensei no ayumi) havebeen featuring the itako regularly as early as the beginningof the 1960s, and the tourism of137

Shimokita Peninsula and the cityof Mutsu still relies on them.
Although the primary objectiveof my research was the analysisof newspaper articles, of course
I could not miss the autumn
festival of Mount Osore (Aki mairi,
10th -12th October), and experiencing in person the kuchiyose.
Maybe due to the bad weather (atyphoon was passing by at thattime, bringing cold wind to thepeninsula), or maybe because
the summer festival is of greater
significance,
surprisingly
few
people climbed up to visit the
temple. Merely a few people were
waiting in front of the tents of the
itako (they were three in total), andit took only approx. 30 minutes
until it was my turn, and I had thechance to hear what messages I
was sent from the afterlife throughthe itako. The licence plates of
the cars waiting in the parking lot
however suggested that the place
and the event gains interest not
only in Aomori: visitors arrived
from Kantō, Kansai, and even from
Hiroshima.
Although it did not relate closely
to my present research, it seemed
like a great opportunity to experience firsthand at least a smallpart of the culture related to
Mount Iwaki, the most important symbol of Aomori’s Tsugaru
138

region. Therefore I could not missthe autumn pilgrimage of themountain also known as Fuji ofTsugaru: the Oyama sankei (11th13th September). In addition to the
fantastic experience, it inspired me
to consider further research topics.
I would like to express my thanks
and gratitude to the European
Association for Japanese Studies
and the Toshiba International
Foundation for allowing me toexperience these three memorable
and inspiring months. On the partof TIFO I am especially gratefulto Kuwayama Mariko and Shirai
Makoto for their support and theirkind hospitality.
I also have to express my gratitude
to Professor Ikegami Yoshimasa of
Komazawa University, for taking
time to share with me his valuable
experience gained in the courseof his research, and for motivating
me to conduct further researchwith his advice.
__________
I did not carry out any survey on where theowners of the cars from other prefectures
originally come from; therefore the possibility that they originally were from Aomori
cannot be excluded.
Mount Iwaki is an important symbol forthe kamisama, the other folk medium of
Aomori.

I am also thankful to Professor
Yumiyama Tatsuya of Tokyo Institute of Technology for making
arrangements with Ikegami sensei,
as well as for the continuous
support he provided during mystay in Japan.
To Murakami Aki (Tsukuba University), for the tremendous help,
support and advice.
Last but not least, I would like tothank Oyama Shinkichi, the headof secretariat of Iwakisan Tourist
Association, for the warm welcome
and the experience of a lifetime on
the Oyama-sankei.

139

Toshiba International Foundation Fellowships
2016 TIFO Fellows
Application for the 2016 TIFO Fellowships opened on 01 April 2016 andclosed on 16 May 2016. After a careful evaluation of the 19 applications
that the EAJS has received this year, the EAJS Council has selected thefollowing three PhD candidates as recipients of the 2016 TIFO Fellowships:
Sigfrid Östberg (University of Oxford, UK)• Dissertation title: Diplomatic practice in nineteenth-century Japanese–
Korean relations, 1811–1882
Lewis Bremner (University of Oxford)• Dissertation title: Magic Lanterns in Japan: The Making of a Public
Communication Technology, from the Late Eighteenth to the Early
Twentieth Century
Kristýna Vojtíšková (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic)• Dissertation title: Time, Space, and Ethics in Watsuji Tetsuro´s Thought

140

News from our members
Brucksch, Susanne; Wagner,
Cosima (eds.): Technikstudienand STS: Launching a Research
Initiative Regarding Intersections
between Technology and Society
in Japan (Asien: The German
Journal on Contemporary Asia,
vol. 140, July 2016).
Chiavacci, David; Hommerich,
Carola (eds.) (2016): Social
Inequality in Post-Growth Japan:
Transformation during Economic
and Demographic Stagnation,
London: Routledge.
Geilhorn, Barbara; Iwata-Weickgenannt, Kristina (eds.) (2017):
Fukushima and the Arts: Negotiating Nuclear Disaster, London:
Routledge.
Grinberg, Miriam (2016): The
US-Japan alliance and the relocation of Futenma: sites of discursive
exchange in the reproduction of
security alliances. PhD Thesis,
University of Warwick. Downloadable at http://wrap.warwick.
ac.uk/84449

Hein, Ina; Prochaska-Meyer,
Isabelle (eds.) (2015): 40 Years
since Reversion: Negotiating the
Okinawan Difference in Japan
Today (Beiträge zur Japanologie,
vol. 44), Vienna: University of
Vienna.
Huebner, Stefan (2016): PanAsian Sports and the Emergenceof Modern Asia, 1913-1974, Singapore: NUS Press.
Kouamé, Nathalie (2016): Le
christianisme à l‘épreuve du Japon
médiéval ou les vicissitudes de lapremière mondialisation, 15491569, Paris: Editions Karthala.
Sakaki, Atsuko (2016): The
Rhetoric of Photography in Modern
Japanese Literature, Leiden: Brill.
Palmer, Edwina (2015): Harima
Fudoki: A Record of AncientJapan Reinterpreted, Translated,
Annotated, and with Commentary,
Leiden: Brill.

Miriam Grinberg is a former TIFO
Fellow and recipient of a TIFO
Fellowship in 2013.

141

EAJS Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

Items received
Between September 2015 andDecember 2016, the EAJS officereceived the following items.
Please contact the EAJS office inBerlin for further information.
Conference & Incentive Management: cim, vols 1 (February 2016)
through 5 (October 2015)
HakuhoFoundation(Hakuhōzaidan 博報財団): 12th Hakuho
Foundation Japanese Research
Fellowship (Dai-12-kai Hakuhō
zaidan kokusai nihongaku kenkyū
ferōshippu 第１２回 博報財団
国際日本研究フェロ－シップ)
IUDICIUM Verlag: Neuerscheinungen 2015
Japanisch-Deutsches Zentrum
Berlin: jdzb echo, vols. 112(September 2015) through 117(December 2016).
Japan Foundation: Kulturprogramm, Nov-Dez 2015, Apr-May
2016, Jun-Jul 2016
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Nihon gakujutsu
shinkō kai 日本学術振興会): JSPS
2014-2015

142

Kōekizaidanhōjin kyōtō nihongo
kyōiku sentā kyōtō nihongo gakkō( 公益財団法人京都日本語教育セ
ンター京都日本語学校): Japanese
Language Course Guide andApplication Information 2016
National Institute of Japanese
Literature (Kokubungaku kenkyūshiryōkan
国文学研究資料館):
The Translation of Time (Jikan wo
honyaku suru 時間を翻訳する)
Dai-39-kai kokusai nihonbungaku
kenkyū shūkai 第３９回国際日本文学研究集会
Nakano, Mitsuhiko (2016): Financial Crisis and Bank Managementin Japan (1997 to 2016): Buildinga Stable Banking System, London:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Nichidoku sangyō kyōkai: nichidoku nettowāku 日独産業協会: 日
独ネットワ－クŌnichi gakujutsu kōryūkai: Minikomi. 墺日学術交流会: ミニコミ,
vol. 85 (March 2015)

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eajs Bulletin No. 87 | December 2016

ISSN 0308-5139