2nd EAJS Publication Workshop
University of Ljubljana
29 September – 1 October 2018

Reports by the Participants of the 2nd EAJS Publication Workshop
Attending the 2nd EAJS Publication Workshop (29 September–1 October 2018) in Ljubljana was agreat opportunity for me to exchange ideas with ambitious young researchers and also offered me
the unique experience of engaging in discussions with eminent scholars in the field. I gained
significant knowledge on how to write a good article and on the publishing and reviewing process.
These three days allowed me not only to improve my academic writing skills, but also to become apart of a promising academic network of young researchers. All participants were working on very
interesting and diverse research topics, thus I could learn a lot of new things. The feedback received
after each presentation was very constructive and focused on both general and specific aspects inorder to meet all participants’ needs. Receiving advice and feedback from such excellent andadmirable advisors was a great honour. After giving a brief presentation of my article,“Sociosemiotic representations of kawaii in Japanese print advertising discourse”, I received
comments and suggestions from my fellow PhD students, and from my advisor a full, detailed
report on my article and also additional bibliographic references to follow up.
I am extremely grateful to EAJS for making this workshop possible, especially to Prof em. Dr
Andrej Bekeš, who had the patience to read my article and to provide effective feedback. The
workshop was very well organised and it offered the possibility to interact with everyone
throughout the whole day. I especially enjoyed that it was a friendly working environment in which
we all had something interesting to learn and also that we were able to exchange ideas in order toimprove our research.
Oana Maria Birlea
Babes Bolyai University, Romania
The second European Association for Japanese Studies’ Publication Workshop took place in
Ljubljana, Slovenia, from 29 September to 2 October 2018. The event brought together PhD
candidates and young researchers from different backgrounds (academic and cultural), anddistinguished scholars from various fields of Japanese Studies. This in itself was one of the main
reasons for the workshop to be very constructive and fruitful. Rarely do aspiring academics, suchas myself, have the chance to exchange opinions and ideas with leading specialists in their field.
The engagement between presenters and advisors alone greatly contributed to the academic workof the young researchers. Each participant presented their accomplishments, and while each andevery project stood out as original and of high quality, the counsel of our experienced colleagues
seemed to add, in my opinion, the necessary final touch that would help us publish our work in the
future.
What was even more helpful was that the workshop included presentations by people from theother side of academic publishing – managing editors of leading academic journals in the field ofJapanese Studies. Not only did they explain how the whole process of getting one’s paper publishedworks, but they also gave indispensable tips on how to structure our work to meet the standardsof various journals, how to target specific audiences, how to make our work easier to find, how topolish our writing, etc.
In a nutshell, the workshop was a very fruitful event which covered a lot of ground in terms to its
main objective, but was also a good opportunity to enjoy the atmosphere of Slovenia’s delightful
capital city in the company of many new acquaintances.
Martin Milchev Dimitrov
Sofia University, Bulgaria

For me, the idea of publishing something was always accompanied by the irrational fear of
exploring a completely unknown territory. This led me to further delay the decision to wrap
something up and to start searching for a possible journal to approach. Therefore, the call for
applications for the 2nd EAJS Publication Workshop came at just the right time to push me to
finally overcome this fear. I was sure that it was much easier to face this new challenge in a guided
environment and with other colleagues in the same situation than to do it on my own. I was so
confident because last year I had a similarly encouraging experience at the 13th EAJS Workshop
for Doctoral Students. These workshops are also a great opportunity for researchers in JapaneseStudies to build a solid network and feel less lonely in the early stages of our professional journey.
The opportunity to meet scholars from different fields and to receive feedback from different
perspectives was once again extremely useful. My advisor (Prof Ivo Smits) suggested at least fivedifferent ways for me to rewrite my first article and package future ones. Moreover, the expertiseof Dr Isaac Gagné and Dr Meredith Shaw was invaluable in giving us insights into how the
publication process actually works. They also shared with us many tips on how to improve thechances of success with our manuscripts and warned us about common (but easily avoidable)
mistakes that they often come across as editors. Last but not least, our hosts from the Universityof Ljubljana were incredibly warm in their hospitality and we could not have hoped for a better
experience!
Elena Follador
Cambridge University, United Kingdom

It is really difficult to sum up in a few lines the wonderful experience that the 2nd EAJS Publication
Workshop, held at the University of Ljubljana, has been for me, especially taking the following into
account: it was my first workshop and it was my first time in Slovenia. That is also the reason which
explains my anxiety prior to the trip. However, as soon as I arrived in the city and met my fellows
and the organisers of the workshop, that anxiety faded away and I started to feel as if I was athome. The EAJS, together with Prof em. Dr Andrej Bekeš, Dr Luka Culiberg and Dr Nataša
Visočnik, all from the University of Ljubljana, arranged a workshop of the highest quality from anacademic point of view, but without forgetting the human component, so important in this typeof event. Thus, the interesting presentations held by the participants and the helpful tips on how
to improve our articles and how to get them published in indexed scientific journals given during

the sessions by the visiting professionals —Prof Ivo Smits, from Leiden University; Dr Mark
Hudson, from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Linguistic and Cultural
Evolution; Dr Isaac Gagné, from the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo, andManaging Editor of Contemporary Japan; and Dr Meredith Shaw, from the University of Tokyo, andManaging Editor of the Social Science Japan Journal— blended with the smell and the flavour of thepastries and biscuits kindly offered to everybody during breaks each day, and with the enriching
conversations on various topics held during lunches and dinners. All I can do is express my sincere
gratitude to the organisers of the workshop and the Japan Foundation, which kindly provided thenecessary funds for this inspiring and valuable initiative and, by accepting my proposal, gave me
this unique opportunity to have such an experience, which was fantastic not only from an academic
perspective, but also from the human point of view. I dedicate the following tanka poem —afarewell poem written on the very day of my return to Spain— to all of them and to my fellows asa small token of appreciation for those short but intensive days:
旅立ちや
愛しき日日の
思ひ出も
古町の如く
朝霧に消ゆ
Raul Fortes Guerrero
University of Valencia, Spain

The workshop provided me with an excellent opportunity to discuss fascinating research projects
carried out by the workshop participants and to gain insights on how to publish peer-reviewed
articles about my research. Since I had little opportunity to learn about publication strategies inacademia, it was very fruitful for me to share and learn from the publication experience of the otherparticipants. In addition, the comments and suggestions from the journal editors who attended theworkshop as advisors were particularly helpful. We have discussed a wide range of issues related
to publication. For instance, practical questions such as how to design your article depending onjournals and target audience, how to deal with critical comments from editors and reviewers, how
to choose keywords for your article, as well as what the abstract should contain. It was also helpful
for me to understand different systematic strategies for a successful publication.
Furthermore, the interdisciplinary nature of the workshop enriched my research perspective. Since
I am currently doing research in the field of Education and Gender Studies, the comments of theadvisors and other participants, who are specialists in other academic disciplines (e.g. archaeology,
religious studies, economics or philosophy), were all very inspiring for me.
I am very grateful to the EAJS and the colleagues in Ljubljana, who arranged the whole workshop.
My stay was very pleasant and exciting. I was also very happy to see colleagues I had met at the
EAJS PhD Workshop in Paris in summer 2016 again and to see how they were able to progressand develop their research projects. I sincerely hope we will maintain and develop this precious

transnational network further. All in all, it was a very encouraging workshop. Therefore, I hopethat these workshops will continue to be organised in the future.
Ami Kobayashi
Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Germany

I attended the publication workshop in Ljubljana with extreme pleasure and I learned a lot from it.
I found the organisation excellent on each possible level, both in terms of academic content as wellas in terms of logistics – venues, accommodation, the very generous lunches and dinners. I
particularly want to mention the great friendliness of the hosting members, beginning withProfessor Andrej Bekeš. I went back eager for many more occasions of such rich exchange.
I feel particularly grateful because I had also been selected as a participant for the EAJS PhD
Workshop in Lisbon in 2017. Together with my thanks, I would like to compare the two
experiences a little to share some hopefully constructive observations.
First of all: a smaller number of participants and shorter presentations helped us to stay focusedfor the entirety of the workshop, fostering lively conversations inside and outside the allotted times.
I understand that including more participants is also important. I guess that between the 20
participants of the workshop in Lisbon and the 11 in Ljubljana, 15-16 might be optimal.
I enjoyed the structured format of the workshop with short seminar-like presentations by expertson the topic before and after most individual presentations. I think this has helped to create a moregeneral sense of collegiality and to structure the workshop experience (it was certainly easier in thiscase, as the overarching theme of publishing was already defined).
It would have been impossible to read roughly 200 pages worth of articles before participating, butthere were a couple of articles I would have liked to read beforehand. I understand that someparticipants might be reluctant to share materials just before submission, but leaving the option
open (or perhaps just listing the article titles and e-mail addresses of the other participants a few
weeks before to allow individual communication) or compiling a document with only the abstracts
would have been useful in some cases to encourage deeper discussion.
On this line of thought: In the summer of 2018, I attended another doctoral workshop at Freie
Universität Berlin, at which each participant was also the discussant for another participant’s
project. I found the format interesting, because it allowed us to hear how easy it was for someone
else to adopt the basic ideas of our projects, who saw them with fresh eyes. The inclusion of a peer
discussant in a publication workshop (about 5 minutes) could also help foster a fruitful discussion.
Last notes: together with others, I had the luck of receiving feedback from Dr Isaac Gagné, themanaging editor of Contemporary Japan. Every commentator was accurate and helpful, but Dr Gagné
later also sent us his written comments. Given the very concentrated time of the presentations, it
was incredibly helpful to go through these comments later.
All in all, the workshop was a wonderful experience. Thanks to everyone who made the workshop
possible and for the brilliant organisation. I very much hope to be able to participate in other EAJS
events in the future.
Lorenzo Marinucci

Universita di Roma Tor Vergata, Italy
Despite the lack of information and confusion prior to the workshop, the event itself was very wellorganised, engaging and intellectually stimulating. It was lovely to catch up with some familiar faces,
but also to make new connections, which will hopefully provide the basis for futurecommunications. I found the feedback that I got for my paper to be very helpful, as it broughtsome issues to my attention that I had not considered before. It also made me feel more confident
about my manuscript, which I will hopefully be submitting to a journal soon. I learnt a lot fromthe presentations of other papers and the feedback they received, which I could also apply to myown draft. In particular, the information we received about the publishing process, how to submit
a manuscript and how to avoid common mistakes, was extremely useful.
The workshop presents a unique opportunity to discuss one’s own work in a very friendly
atmosphere and to interact with other scholars in the wider field of Japanese Studies. It was
fascinating to learn more about the other projects and comforting to realise that most people deal
with similar issues when publishing their first manuscript. Thanks to this intellectual exchange, I
feel very motivated to work on my own project again and to finally submit my manuscript. I
sincerely hope that these kinds of workshops will become regular events in the future and I would
like to express my gratitude to the organisers, hosts, supervisors and fellow participants for making
this such a wonderful experience.
Nathalie Phillips
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

First of all, I would like to thank the EAJS for the wonderful opportunity to participate in the 2nd
Publication Workshop in Ljubljana, Slovenia. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to meetestablished academics from the field of Japanese Studies as well as the managing editors of scientificjournals. It was informative to receive first-hand information about the process of journal
publishing as well as to get advice from outstanding researchers about the publication process.
The publication workshop was a great chance to get useful feedback for my draft paper and listen
to the comments given to the fellow students about their articles. The workshop was held in a very
friendly and supportive atmosphere. I would like to pass my cordial thanks to all the participants
and organisers of the workshop: especially to Lorenz in Berlin and Luka, Nataša and Prof em
Andrej Bekeš in Ljubljana. It was an enriching time both for building academic relationships aswell as for making new friends among the fellow PhD students. As there is no Japanese Studies
department at Tartu University, I was very grateful for and fascinated by being among people whoshare my interest for studying Japanese culture and history. If possible, I would like to participate
again at a future EAJS workshop.
The workshop gave me useful feedback (particularly from Prof Mark Hudson and otherparticipants) as well as strength and faith to carry on with my research. It could have been evenmore beneficial for all of us if the draft articles had been available to all participants beforehand inorder to better prepare for the discussion.

Last but not least, Ljubljana University was very hospitable and I left with many new ideas foradvancing my studies.
Ene Selart
Tartu University, Estonia

I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank the EAJS and Ljubljana teams for their
hard work and commitment. The workshop was very productive, intriguing and useful.
There are three essential things the workshop offered and which I deem important:
1. Showcasing, learning and engaging with each otherParticipants had the opportunity to present their research topic and draft article. We shared ourconcerns and doubts about our work. At the same time, we also learned from, supported andengaged with each other. Of course, we also received a lot of productive feedback from the advisors
and the colleagues from the University of Ljubljana.
2. Scholarly network
I had the pleasure to meet two of the workshop participants already at the EAJS PhD Workshop
in Paris in 2016. Because of my presentation and academic background, Dr Isaac Gagné offered
me to write a chapter and be a part of the reviewers for his book. I was also able to expand my
network with other participants and workshop advisors. This is important, especially if your home
university does not have extensive Japanese/Asian Studies, such as my home institution, theUniversity of Warwick. A strong scholarly network is important for junior researcher like ourselves,as it also provides confidence and moral support.
3. General advice and information on academic publishing
I was able to both deepen my understanding of Japanese Studies publications and to share someof my experiences with my fellow participants. At Warwick, I underwent publication training in
the business and management journal publication outlets, and learned the basic dos and don’ts inregard to publishing in academic journals, e.g. referencing, the ‘one-paper-per-one-journalsubmission-rule’, and about publication scam/fraud. Equally importantly, I learnt that, as an
author, one should have a certain amount of confidence, strategy and self-reliance in order to get
one’s work published.
I would also like to provide three pieces of feedback that may be helpful for future publication
workshops:
A. Pair participants and let them comment on each other’s draft articles
In my experience, it is a good idea to pair participants. The general idea is that all participants haveto read and give feedback on another participant’s paper. The commenting participant is the firstto have the opportunity to give comments after the presentation. This is followed by commentsfrom a senior advisor. This would improve interaction between participants and allow allparticipants to engage in scholarly feedback and discussion.

B. Create an online EAJS resource platform pooling general advice and information onacademic publishing
It would be a good idea to gather information from previous workshops, participants, journal
editors and senior commentators in order to compile and share it. It is understandable that there
are different rules for each scientific journal and research field. However, there are basic generalskills, knowledge and institutions for publishing that authors should generally be familiar with. This
platform could also serve as an online platform for resources and information about publishing for
all EAJS members or even beyond. It could also provide a list of Japanese Studies journals andpublishers, including, for example, the journal’s objectives, research areas and/or rank.
C. Greater outreach and coverage
It is important to have diverse participants from different stages in their career and experience withacademic publishing in the workshops. We can and should learn from each other. For example,
learning from my own colleague at certain times can boost my self-confidence and facilitate
discussion. Furthermore, in general, it is equally important to have senior scholars and journal
editors in the workshops, as they have more experience and knowledge in this regard, which they
can pass on to the next generation.
Perhaps it would be good to hold the publication workshop during the triennial EAJS International
Conference. For instance, many other conferences, namely, AOM, AIB, EGOS and International
HRM have both a 3-day PhD and a 3-day publication workshop. These activities are very much
helpful to support early career scholars, e.g. doctoral and postdoctoral candidates. I remember thata session on academic publishing was held during the EAJS conference in Lisbon, where editors
gave presentations and answered questions. If time and resources allow, such a meet-the-editorsession could be combined with a publication workshop.
Joey Soehardjojo
Warwick University, United Kingdom

I am very thankful to have been selected to participate in the 2nd EAJS Publication Workshop. The
workshop gave me the opportunity to focus on publication skills, which is such an intrinsic aspectof academic writing that PhD students such as me often shy away from it.
The strong point of the workshop was that both parts of the publication process came together:
The author could meet the editor.
On the one hand, actual editors of Japanese Studies journals gave us hard facts about how
important journal publication is for academic success and how the publication process works. The
editors encouraged me to see publication as a serious opportunity to gain external perspectives on
my work even before completing my dissertation. One memorable piece of advice was that theinclusion of an article in a subsequent book publication is permissible, but much more caution isrequired when turning parts of a book into an article. Much was said about how search engines andkeyword tagging influence academic writing nowadays. The editors gave good practical advice, e.g.
about the length and nature of good titles (be clear, not clever!) or including citable passages.

On the other hand, I was given the opportunity to experience the peer-review process of a
submitted article myself, as all participants received a thorough comment on their draft article.
Despite the commentators’ focus on different aspects, common issues and problems soon
emerged, such as the need to sufficiently explain the importance of a topic to a wider audience, or
to focus and limit the arguments of a paper.
The overarching theme to me was that the outside perspective is always valuable and necessary inorder to realise several viewpoints that may have eluded the author, but would enrich the paperand further publication prospects. The warm atmosphere of the workshop as prepared by the staffof the University of Ljubljana, the opportunity to come together at lunch and dinner, not tomention the life-saving coffee breaks, all contributed to an exchange of opinions and informationthat would not be possible in any other format.
Franziska Steffen
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

The 2nd EAJS Publication Workshop was an intensive four days of presentations, discussions,encounters with fascinating people and enjoying the small, picturesque city of Ljubljana, wheremeals are served copiously.
Publishing is challenging, so an opportunity to spend several days to explore this topic is invaluable.
First of all, I would like to thank the professors for spending their scarce time reading the papers
and commenting on them. The constructive criticism I received will help me greatly in rewriting
my article with more focus and to develop my argument with greater clarity.
The two lectures on publishing by two journal editors were most enlightening, too. An overview
of some common journals and publishers and their characteristics, reasons or possibilities to selectone or the other journal, the peer-review process, some tips on choosing of keywords and titles, aswell as an insider’s view of the concrete workings of a journal and experiences of journal editors
also provided a well-needed framework to approach academic publishing more strategically and,hopefully, more successfully.
The chance to meet with colleagues and learn about their stimulating research in a variety of fields,
ranging from Heian literature over modern religion to post-war politics and economics, was also
invaluable. Since I am based at a Japanese university, the workshop allowed me to connect withresearchers in Europe, discuss academic matters with them and learn from their experiences andinsights.
Last but not least, I very much appreciated the friendly atmosphere in which all workshop
participants could mingle and talk. This workshop, as well as the EAJS activities in general, arecharacterised by a pronouncedly positive, encouraging spirit towards PhD candidates and younger
scholars. I am most grateful for this. I would like to extend my thanks to all workshop participants,
the EAJS and the Toshiba Foundation for realising this unique event.
Pieter Van Lommel
Tsukuba University, JapanWe gratefully acknowledge financial support for this event from: