IASIL JAPAN Newsletter
2006–2
International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures

June 2006

1. Plan for the 23rd IASIL JAPAN Conference
The 23rd IASIL JAPAN Conference will be held at Hoshigaoka Campus of Aichi Shukutoku
University on Saturday, 30 September and Sunday, 1 October 2006. We will be honoured by
the attendance of Mr. Brendan Scannell, the Ambassador of the Embassy of Ireland. Dr.
Michal Cronin (DCU), Mr. Theo Dorgan, Ms. Paula Meehan and Mr. Michael Crummey(Canadian novelist) will be our guests.
Hoshigaoka Campus, Aichi Shukutoku University
Address: Sakuragaoka 23, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya-city, Aichi 464-8671
Phone: 052-781-1151
Website: http://www.aasa.ac.jp/
SATURDAY	 

September 30

9:30-10:30

Registration

10:30-11:00

Opening Addresses

11:10-12:10

Guest Lectures: Dr. Michael Cronin: Future of Irish Studies
Introduction: Mitsuko Ohno

12:10-13:00

Lunch

13:00-14:00

PapersSession 1

Chair: Seishi Matsuda
1. Yoko Sato:“The Dreaming of the Bones: Yeats’s Dramatic Art of Visons
2. Kazuko Kawaguchi: “The Irish People’s Identity Expressed in Personal
Story Tellings: Brian Friel’s Faith Healer”

Session 2

Chair: Hiroyuki Yamasaki
1. Akemi Yoshida: “A Comparative Reading of George Moore’s Evelyn

Innes and George Sand’s Consuelo”
2. Masahiko Yahata: “Humor and Christian Ethics in George A.
Bermingham, General John Regan (1913): A View of the English
Appraisal and the Irish Riot”
14:10-15:10

Special Lecture: Michael Crummey: “Irishness in Newfoundland writing”
Introduction: Beverly Curran

15:20-17:30

Symposium: Big House Novels
Chair: Beverly CurranWith presentations by 1. Natsumi Amano 2. Mika Momoo 3. Yoko
Fujisawa 4. Kimiyo Ogawa 5. Haruko Takakuwa

18:00-20:00

RECEPTION Kumiko Yamada

SUNDAY October 1
9:30-10:00

Registration

10:00-11:00

PapersSession 1

Chair: Richard Kelly
Bryan Coleborne: “Jonathan Swift and “the Whole People of Ireland”

Session 2

Chair: Masami Nakao
1. Rie Kawai: “Hands as Reflection of Human Soul in Dharmakaya”
2. Saeko Nagashima: “But for the future, we’d have nothing left”: Memory
and Desire in Post-War Ireland in A World of Love

11:10-12:10

Poetry Reading: Theo Dorgan and Paula Meehan
Introduced by Nobuaki Tochigi, who will also be reading some of his own
translation into Japanese of their poems

12:10-13:00

Lunch and Annual General Meeting
Chair: Ken’ichi Matsumura

13:10-15:20

Symposium: Translating Ireland
Chair: Toshi Furomoto
With presentations by: 1. Naoko Toraiwa 2. Shigeru Ozawa 3. Tatsuo
Ohtsuka Commentator: Dr. Michael Cronin

15:30

Closing Address: Masaya Shimokusu*The programme and abstracts will be sent to members in the beginning of September.

2. IASIL Election
If you are a “regular” member including “married couples” of IASIL JAPAN in goodstanding, ie, those who have paid the 2005 membership fee by the end of February of 2006, you
may find a two-page ballot sheet, a declaration document and a blank envelope
enclosed. According to “Procedures for the 2006 IASIL Elections,” please complete the ballotsheet and post as soon as possible. If you are not in good standing, those documents are notenclosed.
The Chair of IASIL, Professor Riana O’Dwyer, wishes members of IASIL JAPAN to fullycommit to the election. Thank you for your cooperation.

3. The 2006 Membership Fee
The postal transfer sheet is enclosed. Please do not fail to send the 2006 membership fee.
Regular membership–8,000 yen
Married couple––12,000 yen per couple
Student membership––5000 yen. (Students who would like to receive IUR and toparticipate in IASIL conference as well as IASIL JAPAN conference have to pay 8,000yen.)Those who wish to use the bank rather than the post office remittance, please use the following
bank:
Name of Bank: Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ
Name of Branch: Nishijin (Branch No. 441)
Account No.: 3891501
Under the Name of: IASIL Japan Treasurer Shiho Sakuma

三 菱 東 京 UFJ 銀 行 （ 銀 行 番 号 0005) 	  	  	  西 陣 支 店 （ 店 番 441) 	  	  	  普 通	 3891501	  イアシル・ジャパン 会計 佐久間 思帆

NB: If “U” or “UU” is found under your name and address on the envelope, your 2005
membership fee has not been paid; you are losing the status to vote in the IASIL election and toparticipate in IASIL conferences.

Paying the 2006 membership fee will regain your“good-standing” status. Please do not miss the opportunity to join the 2007 IASIL conference
at UCD!

Paying the 2005 or 2004 membership fee will be welcome, of course. The back issuesof IUR and JIS will be sent when the office confirms your remittance. The office has stopped
sending newsletters to those who have not paid membership fees for three years. If you arepaying the 2005 or 2004 membership fee, please write that down on the postal transfer sheet.
If “6” is found under your name and address on the envelope, your 2006 membership fee
was already paid: if “7” is found, your 2007 membership fee was also paid

3.

IASIL 2006

General Theme: "Those images that yet/ Fresh images beget" (W.B. Yeats 'Byzantium')
Venue: University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Dates: Thursday 20 July to Sunday
23 July 2006
Website: http://www.iasil.org/sydney/index.html
Plenary Speakers: Prof. Denis Donoghue (New York University), Mr. Thomas Keneally(novelist), Mr. David Malouf (novelist) and Mr. Les Murray (poet)*According to the results of the election, new executives and representatives will be announced
at the conference.

4. Posters of Next Conference
In order to economize budget and work, posters of our next conference will be posted on a
website (of which the URL will be announced in the next newsletter). It will be formatted as a
Microsoft Word file.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Obituary~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mr. John McGahern, the leading Irish writer, died on 30 March. He wrote six novels,
four collections of short stories, one memoir, and others. It is well-known that his second novel,The Dark (1965), was banned as obscene by the notorious censorship. He was dismissed fromhis teaching job, and he went to England. He returned to Ireland in 1973, and lived in Co
Leitrim. His fifth novel, Amongst Women (1990), was shortlisted for the Booker prize, and won
The Irish Times/Aer Lingus Fiction prize.
He was invited to Japan by the Embassy of Ireland, with his wife, in November 2004 as
part of the EU-Japan Literature festival. He gave a reading at Waseda University from his shortstories. He came to Kyoto with his wife, and I had the pleasure of taking them to Katsura Palace.
This trip left me an unforgettable impression. We talked about the life of the people ofcontemporary Ireland, and he described how a man, who was thought to be poor, invited all hisrelatives, even those in Australia, to a wedding party. During his stay in Kyoto, he was rather
quiet and not so talkative. But this time he talked so vividly and with such humour and irony
that he looked a different man. He gave me his sixth (for me, the third) novel, By the Lake,
which was first published with the title, That They May Face the Rising Sun. When I read it, I
knew that I was again facing the man who talked to me so brilliantly. This novel has no overallplot. It is a chronicle of a quiet place by a lake in Co Leitrim. There is a man who retired from ajob in London, and came to live on a farm here with his wife, who also worked in London.
There is a man who has lived here with his wife for many years without ever spending a nightaway from the lake, and is always eager for news of the people he knows. There is a man who
never finishes what he begins. There is an IRA man who runs a pub and who is always watchedby two (three, on a market day) detectives posted before his shop. All the characters come andgo in a small local community, with intermittent ripples coming from Dublin or London,
disturbing their complacency ever so little. Like Chekhov, McGahern watches them withsympathy and detachment, and portrays them with a sure hand. The lives of these people areshown through hay-making, cattle-raising, lamb-selling, weddings, funeral rites, with subtle
descriptions of the change of seasons. The nature surrounding this place is not a background of
the novel. It is an integral part of the story. One passage will be enough to show that:As they ate and drank and talked, the huge shapes of the trees around the house
gradually entered the room in the flickering half-light, and the room went out, as if in a dream,
to include the trees and the fields and the glowing deep light of the sky.
All the characters impress us with their unforgettable personality, and we know thatthey lived, still live, and will continue to live in this small community.
This book makes us realize how great a writer we have lost.
--Tetsuro Sano~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~IASIL JAPAN OFFICE
c/o Dr. Masaya Shimokusu
Shizuoka University of Art and CultureChuo 2-1-1, Hamamatsu-city, Shizuoka 430-8533
tel&fax: +81-(0)53-457-6143

e–mail: shimox@suac.ac.jp*The office will be closed from 19th to 24th July (for IASIL 2006 conference) and 29th July to
27th August (Secretary will be on duty abroad). Thank you for your understanding. Looking

forward to meeting many of you at our conference in Nagoya!