October 4th, 2014.
Re: Application for funding to the English Literary Society of Japan
F.A.O.: Professor Sasaki, Chair of the English Literary Society of Japan
Dear Professor Sasaki,
Please distribute among the appropriate officers of the English Literary Societyof Japan this application for funding towards an international conference.
Application category: Overseas Research Invitation, Sponsored Business
Application submitted by: Peter Cheyne (Kyoto Notre Dame University); Saeko
Yoshikawa (Kobe City University of Foreign Studies)
Event: International Conference: Coleridge and Contemplation
Dates: 27th-29th March, 2015
Venue: Faculty of Humanities, Kyoto Notre Dame University (KNDU)
www.kyotocontemplation.org
Committee: Organizer and Chair: Peter Cheyne (KNDU); General Advisor: James
C. C. Mays (University College, Dublin); Tokyo Representative: Kaz Oishi(University of Tokyo); Facilitators: Jun Kobayashi (Dean of Humanities, KNDU),David Vallins (Hiroshima University), Saeko Yoshikawa (Kobe City Univ. ofForeign Studies), Izumi Sugawa (KNDU); Representative: Yuko Yamamoto(KNDU); USA Representative: Mark Lussier (Arizona State University); Project
Administrative Assistant: Ayumi Onaka, MPA
Sponsors: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS: please refer tohttp://kaken.nii.ac.jp/d/p/26370036.en.html ); Kyoto Convention Bureau;
British Association of Romantic Studies.
Purpose: The ambition of this international conference is to recover acontemplative direction in Literary Studies and Philosophy, and returns
to the poetic works and philosophical writings of S. T. Coleridge in the serviceof reflections on contemplation. The event continues a growing tradition ofinternational collaboration in Coleridge Studies, and British Romanticism
generally, hosted by Japanese institutions. Naturally, the colloquium aims tostrengthen these bonds of scholarship. Moreover, as the prominent philosopher
and theologian, Douglas Hedley (Cambridge University), and the prominent
philosophers David E. Cooper (Durham University) and Andy Hamilton (DurhamUniversity) will add important and original papers to further the conference
aims, this event co-ordinates the kind of interdisciplinary Humanities approachneeded in Coleridge Studies to foster groundbreaking new work.
Theme: Contemplation has recently received attention in the aesthetics of art
and natural environments. It nevertheless remains a neglected area, despite the1fact that it was a theme of profound importance to authors such as Plato,Aristotle, Philo, Plotinus, Proclus, the Desert Fathers, Aquinas, and so on until themodern era. Serious thinking about contemplation resurged with the Romantics,
but unlike some other Romantic themes which remain with us, contemplation
became something of an abandoned ideal, returned to wholeheartedly only
occasionally, for instance with T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets.
This forgetfulness of contemplation contrasts with the shared attitude of Platoand Aristotle, reflected in writers such as Aquinas, that contemplation is theultimate end and good of the human soul. Understood thus, contemplation is akind of noetic, synthesizing stillness that aims to commune with or participate inTruth, Goodness, and Beauty. It is not the opposite of, but rather the currently
neglected complement to the discursive, analytic tendency ascendent in Englishlanguage Philosophy, and to a lesser extent other Humanities for the last
hundred years, to finessing distinctions and divisions.
Keynote speakers (plenary lectures): (1) James C. C. Mays (University CollegeDublin), editor of the Princeton Bollingen Coleridge edition of Coleridge’s PoeticWorks, vols 1-3, and author of Coleridge’s Experimental Poetics, Palgrave 2013, as
well as numerous articles and chapters on Coleridge; (2) Douglas Hedley (ClareCollege, Cambridge University), author of Coleridge, Religion and Philosophy,Cambridge University Press, 2000, and numerous articles on Coleridge’s relation
to imagination, Plotinus, Platonism, etc.; (3) David E. Cooper (DurhamUniversity), editor of the A Companion to Aesthetics, Blackwell, 1997; The
Measure of Things: Humanism, Humility and Mystery, Oxford University Press,
2002; and World Philosophies: A Historical Introduction, Blackwell, 2002.
Other invited speakers (plenary panels): (4) David Vallins (HiroshimaUniversity); (5) Andy Hamilton (Durham University); (6) Kaz Oishi (TokyoUniversity); (7) Setsuko Wake (Kobe College); and (8) Joseph S. O’Leary (SophiaUniversity, Tokyo).
Other speakers (parallel sessions): (9) James Kirwan (Kansai Univ.); (10) Mark
Lussier (Arizona State Univ.); (11) Saeko Yoshikawa (Kobe City Univ. of ForeignStudies); (12) Jonathan Parker (Miyazaki International College); (13) Peter
Cheyne (KNDU); (14) Philip Aherne (King’s College London); (15) Eamonn Wall(Univ. of Missouri-St Louis); (16) Jonathan Britten (Nakamura Gakuen Univ.);(17) Leesa Davies, (Deakin University); (18) Ve-Yin Tee (Nanzan University)(19) Osmond Chien-Ming Chang (Graduate Student, National Cheng ChiUniversity, Taiwan); (20) Elaine Spoonholtz (Graduate Student, University ofFlorida); (21) Fujie Masako (Graduate Student, Kyoto University). A considerable
number of these speakers are ELSJ members. Other potential participants areexpected to submit their abstracts by 20th October, 2014.
Speakers’ publications: Details of the relevant main publications of eachparticipant, including their academic affiliation and professional positions, areavailable under the ‘Confirmed Speakers’ headline tab on the event website:www.kyotocontemplation.org.

2Attendance: besides the speakers, around 70 others are expected to attend,
making a total of around 90 attendees. A majority of attendees are expected to be
ELSJ members.
Graduate student support: The conference team agree that it is important toencourage graduate students to participate in the conference, so a student travelbursary for domestic costs has been donated by KNDU English Department.
Should anyone reading this application form know of any graduate students who
might wish to participate in the conference and apply for the travel bursary,please contact Peter Cheyne in English (cheyne@notredame@ac.jp) or KNDU
Dean of Humanities, Prof. Jun Kobayashi, in Japanese (jkoba@notredame.ac.jp).
Subsequent development: In August 2014, Conference Organizer Peter Cheyne
was invited to meet with the Head Literature Publisher at Bloomsbury Academic,London. He explained his plan to edit a volume on Coleridge and contemplationcollecting essays developed from the conference, and Bloomsbury expressed awish to publish the book. They also noted that the conference theme is focusedenough for this to be a successful book that fits in very well with their series onliterature and philosophy in Coleridge’s oeuvre (see Paul Hamilton, Coleridge andGerman Philosophy, Bloomsbury (Continuum), 2007; Ve-Yin Tee, Coleridge,
Revision and Romanticism, Bloomsbury (Continuum), 2011; Monika Class,
Coleridge and Kantian Ideas in England, 1796-1817, Bloomsbury, 2012; and eds
David Vallins, Kaz Oishi, and Seamus Perry, Coleridge, Romanticism and theOrient, Bloomsbury, 2013).
Rationale for funding request: The British Association of Romantic Studies isan affiliate to this conference, but could only provide 50 GBP because of rules
governing overseas funding. Kyoto Convention Bureau have kindly agreed toprovide 150,000 JPY worth of Kyoto handicraft souvenirs for our guests, as they
are unable to provide monetary funding.
The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) are providing the majorityof funds. This JSPS three-year project is entitled ‘Contemplation in Philosophy
and Literature: developing Coleridge's influence’. The Kaken Research Project
Number is 26370036. 2,600,000 JPY of JSPS funds have been allocated to the tothe first-year part of the project, i.e. the international conference. These funds
are covering the travel expenses of eight invited guests: the three keynote
speakers and the five other invited guests. Four of these guests are travelingfrom the British Isles, and four from within Japan. Other international guests aretraveling with funds provided by their own institutions, and in some cases withself-funding and scholarly awards.
The budget has been kept extremely tight, and it has taken a considerable degreeof co-operative effort, planning, and imagination to organize such aninternational conference with this funding. We therefore make this application
requesting assistance in the form of a 140,000 JPY grant from the ELSJ, of which
Society we are members, along with several other participants in the conference.
Should the award be granted, ELSJ will certainly be gratefully acknowledged on3the conference website, literature, and subsequent publication as a generous
sponsor of this international colloquium.
The 140,000 JPY would go towards the hotel expenses of the eight invited
speakers, providing 17,500 JPY per head for the three-day conference. The grant
would be a considerable assistance, even though some additional funds for thehotel would also need to be sourced. The Dean of Humanities at KNDU, Prof. JunKobayashi (also a member of ELSJ), has assured me that special funds from theFaculty budget would be provided to cover the shortfall regarding the hotelbudget.
Further request for support: The conference committee request that anadvertisement for the event be posted on the ELSJ website, and that an e-mailgiving up-to-date information be sent to the Society mailing list. Theadvertisement would be written and designed by the conference committee.
Yours sincerely,Peter Cheyne, Saeko Yoshikawa
Peter Cheyne, M.Phil., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
English Dept, Faculty of Humanities
Kyoto Notre Dame University

Saeko Yoshikawa, M.A., Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of English Studies
Kobe City University of Foreign Studies

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