The Remaining Days
TSUKIMOTO Masayuki (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities andSociology, Japanese Linguistics）

It's safe to say that, today, the average
Japanese―assuming they are not faced withspecial circumstances such as confronting theirown death or are in a life-threatening situation―
rarely speaks to others about their own views ofdeath and life. Although the same holds true forme, I would like to use this opportunity to daringly
explain part of my own view on death and life.
I was born in 1954 in a town in Fukuoka
prefecture that faced the Genkai Sea (genkai nada).
At the age of four I began to commute several
kilometers from my house to kindergarten. As thekindergarten was run by the Catholic church (eventoday one can see the chapel from the Kagoshimahonsen line), I was made to memorize thepaternoster. However, the place where we learned
this prayer was the chapel, and, perhaps due to thegreat height of the ceiling, it felt frightening to me,
as a child. It was as if I was standing in a deephole. Thus, I had a hard time memorizing theprayer and can recall often being left behind.
About two months after going tokindergarten, I contracted measles. The doctor,
however, diagnosed me with having a common
cold, and in the process of receiving treatment I
contracted pneumonia. Having a high fever andfinding breathing difficult, I saw the following
vision of which I could not tell whether was dreamor reality. The doctor, who carried with him a big
black bag, often came to treat me and, one time, as
he gave me an injection, solemnly stated,
Tonight will decide his fate. My mother, crying
by my pillow, said, If only I can take your place.
After some time, being in darkness, I saw a red,arched bridge and, at the far end of the bridge, anunfamiliar elderly women beckoning me with her
hand. Being wary of strangers, I decidedly did not
approach her. I don't know how long of a period
lapsed, but when I came to I was already
improving.
Of course, my story sounds as if it ismade up; or perhaps the reader will think that
adults told it to me later on; or perhaps I took thestory from a book I read as a child and then madeit my own. Further, this episode became taboo
between my parents, and we rarely spoke of it.
Several years prior, however, when I broached this
episode with my Mother―who will be 84 this year
―she said,
Well...maybe something like that didhappen.
Regardless, this experience took on a
profound meaning for me. Simply put, my entire
life after the age of four became my remaining
time. Further―and I can only mention this briefly

2

due to space considerations―when I was six, I
read a story in a young boy's magazine aboutchild with a terminal disease. I soon identified withthis story as I was often sick (I was absent fromschool 3 days a month) and came under the ideathat I would only live until I was 17. Actually, I
lived and nothing dramatic happened to me. Yet, I
continued to live as if was living on borrowed timewithin borrowed time. Next, and I don't know
exactly why, I came under the impression that I
would only live until I was 27. Again, althoughnothing happened, I was living my third bought ofborrowed time.
Perhaps the reader is thinking that this isa silly story. Regardless, in the 1970s―a period oftime in which financial matters were of utmost
priority―I went against this trend, and chose to
study language [at university]. Moreover, I choseto specialize in Japanese and, specifically, theJapanese readings of classical Chinese text (a field
in which there are about 10 specialists in theworld). In a sense, I had become enlightened to theidea of living my life as I chose. Among colleagues,
there are those that panic, thinking that once
reaches the age of 60 that they can no longer docreative work. I, however, feel as if I will continue
my research no matter what age I am, and I
continue to make research plans for the coming
decades. When one thinks like this, myawareness of what is left of my life
is notnecessarily a bad thing.
There is one thing that worries me,
however. I would like to ask my Father―he will be
87 this year―about that dramatic event that
happened to me more than half a century prior. I
worry that he might say the following:
Well....maybe something like that did happen.

Do Computers Die?
NISHIGAKI Toru (Professor, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies,
Information Studies and Media Theory)

Can computers actually die ? This
question probably comes across as quite silly on
first sight. The definition of death is an immensely
difficult task and the topic has been the subject of
frequent debates in Death and Life Studies.
However, at least in the life sciences, the term
death is used in relation to living organisms―
that is mainly multi-cellular organisms that
reproduce sexually. Therefore, it should be
impossible for a computer, which does not qualify
as an organism in the above definition, to die.
Having said that, why, then, is there talk of
the existence of the mind of a machine ?Scientists
working in the field of artificial intelligence arelaboring to create robots that can talk, philosophersengage in profound debates about the fine line
dividing a living organism from an electricmachine, and writers untiringly continue to
produce fantasies of cyborgs that blend cerebral
nerves and electronic circuits. In fact, amongscientists working in fields of the life sciences,such as molecular biology or brain science, there
are many who secretly believe in a model that
embodies an information-processing mechanism
similar to that of the mathematical logic used incomputers.
All of these considerations cast doubt on
the mutual foreignness of living organisms andmachines. This line of thinking is, in fact, thecurrent intellectual mainstream of contemporary
science. In this sense, then computers, too, have todie. Why? Because, as long as we are human, it
is impossible for us to banish the shadow and fearof death from our minds. Every one of us lives alife that alternates between joy and sorrow at the
shortness and length of life. Therefore, if, forexample, a genius engineer builds a computer
system that corresponds to such a mind of amachine, but it does not possess death s shadow
or anxiety towards death, then this computer
system would be nothing but a bad copy of aliving being.

operating on this concept, time stands completely
still. Computers, which react to various input
signals with output signals, may appear to bereacting dynamically within the passing of time,
but this is a misconception. In reality, computers
only naively perform static logical manipulations
that are pre-determined by a programmer.
Of course, as parts age, malfunctions occur
and computers break down. However, at the pointof break down, the computer ceases to exist as acomputer and turns into refuse. In short, acomputer should be understood as a heteronomous,synchronic existence manifesting a logicalstructure determined by a programmer―nothing
more and nothing less.
On the other hand, living beings areautonomous, diachronic entities that within theongoing passing of time incessantly adapt theirstructure based on their past in a self-reflexive
fashion. Living beings do look as if they arereacting to outside stimuli, but they do not in fact
react in any predetermined manner to such input
signals. They only give the appearance offollowing some kind of mechanical rule, since they
exist self-reflexively. Living beings exist within
the passing of time. Individual living organisms
may die, but it might be said that both birth anddeath are only strategies used to adapt throughreproduction to changes in the environment inorder for the species to continue to exist.
In short, computers do not die. Whythen, despite this fact, does modern science seek totake immortal computers as a model to explain
mortal human beings? I think that in this regard aperspective that will expose this fundamentallywarped view, not to say madness, of our time iscalled for.

Therefore, believers in the existence of amind of a machine would probably answer thequestion posed in the first line of this essay in thefollowing manner: Of course a computer will die
when it has reached the end of its life span. Whencomputer parts get old, they will break. Isn't thisthe same as with humans?
Is this answer correct, then? In my
personal opinion, this answer is not valid. A
computer is an entity that forever repeats preprogrammed operations. The term programmeans to write in advance and for computers,

3

Faure s Requiem and Representations of Heaven
WATANABE Hiroshi (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Aesthetics)

Quite a while ago I happened to bewatching a random TV drama, when suddenly
Faures Requiem was played in one of the show's
scenes. The drama was a crime program with thetitle SP Keisatsuch Keibibu Keigoka Yon-gakari(SP National Police Agency Security Division, 4thUnit) and I found the inclusion of the religious
composition Requiem somewhat ill-fitting.
Among the many Requiem compositions of famous
composers such as Mozart or Verdi, Faur e s
Requiem is the one that most affirms a pure andinnocent beauty. The otherworldly realm that iscontrasted with this world mired in profanity isrepresented as paradisical and its image possesses
a unique popularity. With this in mind, I find that
Requiem did not really fit the story (if I remember
it correctly) of this drama with its scenes of people
dying, a fierce gun battle between an assassin
targeting the life of the Prime-Minister, and the
Security Police trying to protect the politician's life.
The Prime-Minister also turns out to actually havedirt on his hands.
It turns out that the number of movies
that have used Faure s composition is actually
exceedingly high. The director of the drama I
watched, Katsuyuki Motohiro (who seems to be ahuge fan of classical music), had himself alreadyused Requiem before in his movie Space Travelers(2000). Other Japanese movies that use thiscomposition are W's Tragedy (1984) and Kiri no
Shigosen (The Meridian in the Mist, 1996). If one
also takes foreign movies into consideration, there
are at least Godard's Passion (1982), Lord of
Illusions (1995), The Thin Red Line (1998), The
Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), and S1m0ne(2002).
The way in which Requiem is used inthese movies varies, but although it is acomposition that possesses the clear context of a
Catholic mass for the dead, it is frequently used inways that have nothing to do with death or
religion. The Legend of Bagger Vance is the storyof a golfer who had given up on himself beingbrought back by a mysterious caddy. In a scene inwhich the golfer miraculously hits a hole-in-one,
the flight of the ball in slow-motion is accompaniedby the finale of Requiem, In Paradisum. The movie
S1m0ne is the story of a movie director who
creates a perfect actress out of computer graphics,
lands a huge hit, but falls under the sway of theactress. It uses Requiem in a scene where thecomputer-generated actress appears and moves ona screen.
The ways in which Requiem is employedin these instances appears to deviate from its
original use, but judging from the Catholic
tradition, Faures Requiem itself was certainly notorthodox.
Faures composition emphasized the4image of paradise full of respite by removing DiesIrae depicting the terrors of Judgment Day, which
had originally been the centerpiece of Requiem
and adding In Paradisum to the end of thecomposition. This was a choice, which is said tohave been fiercely criticized by the bishops when
the composition was first performed at the Eglisede la Madeleine in Paris in 1888. Thereafter, thiscomposition was re-written into a full orchestralversion and performed at the 1900 Paris World's
Fair. It became popular alongside this additional
layer of secularization. The paradisical atmospherethat Faures Requiem possesses can be said to havebeen shaped as part of this process of
secularization. The background to thisdevelopment is formed by the overall situation ofthis period, in which images of religion and death
were separated from the Church and became
secularized and individualized.
In this sense, the way Requiem is used inmovies in recent years, which appears to be
separated from the realm of religion, probably does
not deviate from the context of this composition
when one thinks on the level of the connection
between images. The way in which Requiem isused is manifold, but in many instances it isrelated to scenes of movement in slow motion inwhich time appears to come to a standstill for a
moment or situations that appear otherworldly.
This music possesses the power to draw theviewer into a different dimension. The source of
this power lies in the fact that this composition has
come to be equated with paradise.
On the other hand, the fact that Requiem
continues to be used in various contexts meansthat the use of this composition layers the various
images of these movies intertextually and that thiseffect further adds a different layer to the religious
image of heaven itself. The state of the world of
today, which appears to have lost its religious
mentality, is also a condition of continuing
expansion into new territory in the multi-media
realm. The example of Faures Requiem drives thispoint home anew.

Saved Souls just before the End of Lives
KAMIBEPPU Kiyoko (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Medicine, Family Nursing）

I recently read Takano Kazuaki's [fictional
work] The Lifesaving Ghosts Four Japanese ghosts,
all who have committed suicide, are given a task
from God: within 49 days, they must save 100
people who are thinking of committing suicide andthen God will admit them into Heaven. Swiftly, thefour ghosts return down to our world with special
goggles that indicate how seriously a person iscontemplating suicide, showing red, yellow, andgreen bodies―just like traffic lights. Red indicates
those who have the highest risk of committing
suicide and the outlines of their bodies tremble tothe point of becoming blurred. As the group of foursave one person after another in the city, theycome to realize that even among in- and outpatients in hospitals that there are those who wish
to end their lives.
In the hospital, they discover an elderly
woman who emits the red signal. One of the ghosts
enters into the woman's body and begins tomonitor her psycho-somatic feelings, discoveringthat she has a great pain running from her stomach
to her lumbar area: the elderly woman is sufferingfrom algia caused by end-stage cancer. Further, theghost finds that she knows she has caused herchildren great financial burden due to her
hospitalization. In disparate sadness, but without
blaming anyone, the old woman says thank you,goodbye to herself and proceeds to pull out her IV
tube. The group of four ghosts argue whether theyshould save her in order to let her live out the restof her life; whether they should let her die as tofree her from further suffering; and whether it
would be wrong to let such a good person die alone
in a hospital. The ghosts encircle the elderly
woman who is about to commit suicide inloneliness in the hospital room and are faced with agrave dilemma as to what they should do. The
woman's hand stretches toward the IV tube. A
ghost whispers with her heart and soul into theelderly woman's ear, Grandmother, we know you
are suffering. But live a bit more, please, if you ask,
the doctor might be able to help your pain. The
elderly woman's hand stops and her
signalgoes from red to yellow, then to green, her blurrysilhouette dissipates, and the critical situation is
avoided. The woman's face seems at peace. She
passed away. The four ghosts cry. The woman'ssoul, which has left her body, now stands among
the four ghosts. Peace is there in her eyes and evena slight smile can be seen on her lips. The elderly
woman is liberated from the temptation of dying
and able to complete her life. When her daughterand grandchild come to visit they notice herchanges. The grandmother's soul looks at themwith loving eyes.

This story recalls one of my patients Mr.
A to my mind. Mr. A was a gentle salesman who,
near the age of 60, was diagnosed as esophageal
cancer. As Mr. A's preference matched thesurgeon's opinion, he underwent a combinatory
treatment of radiation and chemotherapy, which led
to a temporary recovery. In the process oftreatment, he developed esophageal and tracheal
stenosis which led to difficulty with the
expectoration of sputum. He further suffered frominsomnia. At about this time, he began to express
that he wanted to die with dignity. At times, when
he suffered breathing difficulties, he began to say
let me die and get me a rope. Although he also
had a stent inserted, it had little effect and a direct
invasion of neoplasm exacerbated the tracheal
stenosis. Accordingly, as a means to prolong his
life, the doctors argued that it was necessary to
perform a tracheotomy and intubation in order tomaintain his breathing. When his attending
physician asked Mr. A about his will, Mr. A statedthat he did not want any form of artificial lifeprolonging treatment. Mr. A's female partner wasalways silently by his bedside. Although Mr. A hada daughter with his prior wife, the daughter was
now nearly out of the picture. She had visited him
once during his admission, but it was a very brief
visit for the sake of showing up. One day, when the
primary nurse assisted him with showering, hemuttered, You're like my daughter. I'm so happyand smiled. Two days later his heart rate declined
and, with that, he passed away. Nine months had
passed since being diagnosed as esophageal cancer.
Like the elderly woman in Takano's story
and Mr. A, some patients express the wish to die as
they approach the end of their lives. Although I
don't believe that one can describe thepsychological states of those facing death in a few
lines, there is no doubt a desire to be liberated fromalgia, respiratory difficulties, the fear of death, andisolation. At the same time, one also hears people
saying, I don't want to die. Further, many thinkback on the hard spots in their lives and on theirregrets. First, palliation of algia and respiratory
difficulties must be performed. Many healthprofessionals often believe palliation of familial pain
is something beyond their working. The cases of
Mr. A and the elderly woman, however, show usthat repairing family relationships can beundertaken by nurses in daily practices.
The four ghosts, by the way, succeeded insaving 100 people's lives. Although it is a very
serious topic, it is also a rewarding story that
doesn't foist anything upon the reader.

5

Psychiatric Treatment and Death and Life Studies
MATSUMOTO Satoko (Specially Appointed Researcher in the G-COE Death andLife Studies Program, Mental Health Studies)

A person once claimed to see
hallucinations of decapitated heads from whichblood was dripping here and there.
In conversation following thepsychological examination, this patient talked
about the hallucinations she was seeing. As thisparticular patient had been in treatment for aconsiderable amount of time, she realized
herself that the decapitated heads appearing so
vividly in front of his eyes were in fact
hallucinations. In a certain group of mental
ailments including schizophrenic disorder,
patients experience visual and auditory
hallucinations as well as delusions. Although
the sights and sounds appear as real to thepatient, others do not perceive these sights andsounds. In this sense, there exists a world forthe patient, which he or she cannot share withothers. Likewise, the world in the eyes of people
suffering from depression, in which they can nolonger enjoy the things they used to enjoy, also
likely has a different guise than the world they
perceived before.
In recent years, medical interest in
Death and Life Studies in the area of palliative
treatment is growing. I have hardly ever heard
anything about his work from my father, aneurologist, a field that also deals with
progressive diseases such as muscular
dystrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS) in which methods of treatment are notknown. However, I have seen him leave when
he is sometimes called to his hospital ward late
at night to look after a patient whose state hassuddenly worsened. I believe I have also
witnessed him several times tell my motherafter returning home the next morning howthat patient had passed away. Working in suchan environment means that whether one likes itor not, one is forced to think about one s own
death as well. However, whether the fact thatmy father became baptized as a Catholic when
he turned sixty had anything to do with hiswork environment, I do not know.
In my line of work as a psychologist
working in neuropsychiatry, it seldom happensthat one comes face to face with death. It isespecially rare at the hospital at which I am
employed to come into direct contact with thedeath of a patient. This is for a number ofreasons, including the fact that it is thepeculiarity of my hospital that most patients aredischarged within three months; the fact thatmainly patients with conditions that can beadequately treated until discharge are admitted;
the fact that because there are a sufficientnumber of staff to look after patients incidents
such as suicides are not likely to occur; and thatpsychologists only come into contact with outpatients for psychological examinations.
However, it is also not as if there is no6

connection between psychiatric treatment andDeath and Life Studies. As an easy-tounderstand example of this relationship, in thecase of grief care one can point to treatment
given to patients who have suicidal impulses.
Still, even though I have never come into
contact with cases involving death, I believethat dealing with the various kinds of emotional
injury, insecurity, or fear that people aresuffering from and the aforementioned
subjective worlds that are inaccessible to others,
it is possible to come into contact with various
ways of life and reflect on Death and Life
Studies.
People live their lives in two worlds. In
a material, objective world and an internal,
subjective world that exists within their minds.
Even if we share the same space and coexist
within the same material world, our mental
worlds perceived through the filter ofsubjectivity can never entirely overlap. This istrue even in the case of intimates such as
family members or lovers with which one
shares much emotional understanding. For
example, one method of treatment that has
become widespread is cognitive psychotherapy,
which propagates the view that the guise of theworld reflected in our eyes is multi-shaped andbased on the way we see things, that is our
habits of perception.
The earth now has a population of
more than 6.8 billion. While the stories that are
spun by the lives of people all end in death andthe return of the physical body to the earth, thevarying mental worlds possessed by people
spread into different directions. They seep into
the memories of the deceased person's
offspring. They enter into the minds of those
who have come into contact with the ideas, art,
technology, or knowledge produced by thedeceased. In this way, fragments of the mental
worlds of the dead are incorporated into thelives of the living and are passed on.
Life, carrying within it the fragmentsof the lives of the dead and the living,
conglomerates and constitutes society. Thereis no death without life, and neither is there lifethat does not already harbor death within it. Do
not all of the manifold guises of life that one
comes face to face with as a mental healthpractitioner give evidence of this?
Next year, I am reaching the end of myterm as specially appointed researcher in the
Death and Life Studies program, but working asa psychologist I want to continue to deepen myunderstanding of and considerations concerning
Death and Life Studies.

Conference Report: Japanese-Taiwanese Conference
Towards an East Asian Death and Life Studies
TAKEUCHI Seiichi (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Ethics)
KOZAI Toyoko (Specially Appointed Researcher in the G-COE
Death and Life Studies Program, Sociology/History of Medicine)
The Japanese-Taiwanese conference Towards an East
Asian Death and Life Studies, organized by the G-COE
Program Development and Systematization of Death andLife Studies and the Graduate Institute of Religious
Studies at National Chengchi University was held on
Friday, October 30 th, 2009 at National Chengchi University
in Taipei, Taiwan. This conference was held as part of the
G-COE program s focus on Death and Life Studies in East
Asia, following a similarly themed conference convened in
Beijing, People s Republic of China, in February 2008.
Apart from the ten participants from Japan and the fifteen
Taiwanese presenters and chair-persons, a further eighty
persons attended as audience members. Since interest in
attending the conference went beyond capacity, we wereforced to choose audience members by lot. In an
atmosphere of academic excitement and curiosity, theconference began at nine o'clock in the morning. First, thepresident of National Chengchi University Se Hwa Wu andthe dean of the College of Liberal Arts Hui-min Chou
welcomed the Japanese participants and pointed to the highlevel of interest that exists in Taiwan in Death and Life
Studies and the philosophy of death and described their
excitement for the conference. Next, Yen-zen Tsai, head of
the Graduate Institute of Religious Studies, and I opened theconference by mutually ascertaining our understanding of
the conference theme: Towards an East Asian Death andLife Studies. Throughout the morning, the Japaneseparticipants gave their papers. Starting things off, I gave apaper entitled On the Views of Death and Life of theJapanese, pointing out the subtle difference in usage thatthe character ji― denoting self ― has in Japanese where
it can be both read onozukara and mizukara. In this regard
the Japanese usage differs from the nuances the character
possesses in Chinese and Taiwanese thought. I thendiscussed the issue of views on death and life based on thissubtle difference of nuance by mainly focusing on the
figure of Norinaga Motoori. Next, Masaru Ikezawa (Religious
Studies) gave a paper with the title Bio-ethics as Modern
Religiosity―From the Perspective of the Chinese Case inwhich, based on a consideration of bio-ethics in mainland
China, he argued that any discussion of ethics related to lifeand death inevitably needs to be founded on a certain
religiosity. He further stressed that in this case, a situation
occurs in which a religious tradition will be consciously
employed or in which such a tradition unconsciously
influences discussions regarding bio-ethics. Following
Ikezawa, Osamu Kanamori (Philosophy of Science) from the
Graduate School of Education at the University of Tokyoand also affiliated with the G-COE program gave a paperwith the title Sickness and Death in the Works ofMiyazawa Kenji. Based on the works of Kenji Miyazawa,
for whom sickness and death were constant companions,
Kanamori argued that while the subjective first-person
death (one's own death) is casually narrated in Miyazawa's
works as merely amounting to a tiny blip within the vast
natural world, this is contrasted with the gravity attached todeath in the second person (the death of a person to whom
one is emotionally close).
After the lunch break, the four Taiwanese presenters gave
their papers. Fong-Mao Lee from the Institute of Chinese

Literature and Philosophy at Academia Sinic,a who is also apracticing Daoist priest, presented on the topic Zhulian(hauntings) and Jiechu (exorcism): Views on Unnatural
Death in the Daoist Badu Ritual. In the paper, Lee gave adetailed introduction to a ritual and its intellectual
background that is still conducted in Taiwan and Hong
Kong for those who died unnatural deaths. Next, Shu-wei
Hsieh from the Graduate Institute of Religious Studies at
National Chengchi University talked about Death and Lifeand Ritual: The Concept of Liandu (salvation throughrefinement) and Salvation after Death. Hsieh discussed theconcept of salvation after death and the transformation ofritual seen in medieval Daoist texts, focusing in particularon the relationship between body and soul. Then, Yen-zen
Tsai, also from the Graduate Institute of Religious Studies at
National Chengchi University, delivered a paper with thetitle An Analysis of the Views of the Afterlife of the
Taiwanese People―Observations Based on the 2009
Preliminary Survey'Comparative Research into Religious
Experience in Taiwan'. Based on the findings of a survey
conducted as part of a project that he is participating in,
Tsai discussed in detail the current state of perceptions of
the afterlife in contemporary Taiwan and the changes thathave taken place within these perceptions. Last, the scholarof Japanese thought Hsiang-sheng Hsu (Department ofJapanese, National Chengchi University) talked about
Differences in Chinese and Japanese Views of Death andLife― The Concept of Lover's Suicides (Shinju),
comparing Chinese and Japanese literary works that deal
with the topic of lovers suicides and analyzing thedifferences in views on death and life in the two groups ofworks as well as the their background.
Incorporating the above topics, the concluding general
discussion addressed the differences and similarities in theway that death and life are viewed in Japan and Taiwan
and the intellectual background of these differences andsimilarities, the transformations brought on bymodernization, and the potential contributions that an East
Asian Death and Life Studies can make. The discussion
carried on long after the originally planned end of theconference and finally came to a close at 18:30.
Through the conference, it became clear to me that
research in Death and Life Studies is flourishing in Taiwan,
and it was an important gain to have had the opportunity to
discuss these matters in a way that also differed inimportant ways from the discussions we had in Beijing. We
are planning to publish the conference proceedings later
this year.

7

International Symposium:
Dialogue on Death and Life―Views from Egypt
OHTOSHI Tetsuya (Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology
at the University of Tokyo, Department of Oriental History)

Two international conferences wereconvened under the above title from September 29
to October 4 of 2009 in the cities of Cairo andAlexandria in the Arab Republic of Egypt. They
were jointly organized by the Egyptian Ministry of
Culture (Supreme Council of Culture), theBibliotheca Alexandrina, the NIHU Program:
Islamic Area Studies, the JSPS Cairo Research
Station, the Center for Social Research and Studies
at Cairo University, and were convened with thefull support of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture andthe Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
At least as far as the Humanities outside
the field of Japanese Studies are concerned, thiswas probably the first occasion on which Japanand Egypt organized an international conference on
entirely equal terms. The term equal also
encompasses here the financial burden. In thisregard, this occasion should be praised as marking
a turning point in Egypt-Japan cultural exchange
and academic cooperation. It was also the first timethat the GCOE Life and Death Studies program had
the opportunity to engage in a joint project with the
Muslim countries of the Middle East. Egypt, which
possesses a rich environment of scholars andacademic achievements as well as a global
intellectual presence, was selected as the place forthis occasion.
After arriving at Cairo Airport on the nightof September 28, we used the next day for
intellectual acclimatization by visiting several
mosques and the Egyptian Museum, where we let

8

our thoughts travel back in time to the culture oflife and death in ancient and medieval Egypt. In theevening, we proceeded to the conference venue, theinternational conference hall of the Supreme
Council of Culture located inside the Cairo Opera
House area, attended the reception organized by
the Egyptian Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, andheld the opening session of the conference. The
anteroom of the venue had already been
overflowing with people, but the venue itself waseven more so brimming with an atmosphere ofintellectual eagerness and enthusiasm. Apart from
Egyptian scholars, the local media was also present
in large number. The session started with an
opening address on behalf of the Minister ofCulture given by Emad Abou Ghazi. Our fears of atense atmosphere caused by reports in the local
media about the decisive role played by Japan in
Minister Hosni's failed bid in the election for
Director-General of the UNESCO, turned out to becompletely unfounded. Next, Shimazono Susumu(professor of Religious Studies at the University ofTokyo and then-head of the GCOE project) andKishimori Hajime (Director of the Information andCulture Centre at the Embassy of Japan) addressed
the audience. There was a multitude of questions
from the assembled print, radio and television
media and it was impossible to respond to every
single of them. I believe that the conference
participants were able on that day alone tosignificantly deepen their scholarly exchange.
October 30 began with an opening
speech by the Japanese ambassador to Egypt, His

Workshop: Death and Life Studies on War and the War Dead
ICHINOSE Masaki (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology,
Department of Philosophy)

Excellency Mr. Ishikawa Kaoru. Following,
Shimazono Susumu gave an introductory talk,giving an overview of Death and Life research andits aims. Next, Ahmad Zayed (Sociology, former
dean of the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University) andMachida Soho (Religious Studies, Hiroshima
University) gave two keynote speeches. The
speeches focused on Egyptian and Japaneseexamples respectively, employed many images, andin giving an overview of the entire conference,
raised many points for discussion. Hasan Hanafi(Philosophy, Cairo University) and myself
functioned as commentators to these speeches.
The first proper session had the title ThisWorld and the Other World: From Philosophical,
Theological and Comparative Religious
Perspectives and consisted of Suzuki Izumi(Philosophy, The University of Tokyo), Hala Fouad(Sufi philosophy, Cairo University), as well as
Yoshida Kyoko (Shia Thought, GCOE). Yanagihashi
Hiroyuki (Islamic Law, The University of Tokyo)
functioned as chairperson. Despite the differences
existing between western philosophy, Sufi
philosophy, and Shia thought, the session showed
the possibilities of philosophical dialogue acrossacademic and national boundaries.
After a two-hour lunch break, the second
session Souls, Spirits, and Life After Death
started. From the Egyptian side, Ahmed Morsy(Sociology and Folklore Studies, Cairo University)and Sameeh Shallan (Folklore Studies, Higher
Institute for Folk Arts at the Academy of Arts)
presented. The Japanese panel participant was
Shimauchi Hiroe (German folklore studies, GCOE).
This panel was one of the key elements of theconference and received the largest extent ofinterest and praise from the local participants.
Although Egyptian folklorists and anthropologists
have been very interested in issues of life anddeath and have accumulated a rich body of data
concerning this field of inquiry, they have so far
only had scarce opportunity to engage in academic
discourse with Japanese or western colleagues,
since their work has been mostly conducted andpublished in Arabic. The conference can therefore
be called a trailblazing event for further substantial
academic exchange in this area.

A reception was held after the conference, andcontinued on a chartered yacht. We spent theevening cruising up and down the Nile until late in
the night, thanking the Egyptian organizers andparticipants for their efforts and deepening thefriendship between the two countries. With thenight breeze gently blowing over the Nile,
participants and organizers bonded cordially.
The following day, October 1, and our last
day in Cairo, was spent with an extensive programof visits to religious and historical sites. Until theevening, the conference participants roamed thecity divided up into the three groups City of theDead, The Culture of Eastern Christianity, andRemains of Ancient Egypt. Everyone met up
again in front of the Husayn Mosque, followed by ajoint visit to a neighborhood of booksellers andtheir extensive collections. Especially the group
visiting the City of the Dead saw sites rarely evenvisited by the locals, such as the shrine dedicated tothe brothers of Yusuf (Joseph) and the tombdwellings of grave diggers. The participants also
witnessed the grave makers at work. Furthermore,
we had the opportunity to talk to other residents ofthe graveyard.
On the morning of October 2, we moved
on to Alexandria and in the afternoon took part in a
special tour organized for us with great kindnessby the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. First, Mr. Yusuf, an
Egyptian Jew, functioned as our guide through the
Jewish graveyard and its underground burial
chambers. This was probably the first time that the
Jewish graveyard in Alexandria received Japanesevisitors. Next, we visited a Coptic graveyard, agraveyard for westerners from the period of theFirst and Second World Wars, and then a Muslim
graveyard and shrine to Muslim saints. Actually,
the graveyard serving the Coptic faith, which evenpredates Islam in Egypt, is difficult to visit even for
scholars, and our visit to it therefore was a very
precious opportunity.

Last, functioning as chairpersons, Ahmad
Zayed and myself opened the floor to questions andgeneral discussion and in the face of an unending
stream of comments of questions from theEgyptian side, finally closed the session only due totime restrictions. I subsequently gave the closing
address in Arabic, thanking the organizers andeveryone who had cooperated for their efforts.

9

In the evening, we attended the opening
ceremony of the conference at the Delegates' Hallin the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, which functioned as
the conference venue. The library was built in theimage of the ancient library of Alexandria.
According to one theory, the term symposium
itself is derived from the ancient Greek term
symposion, which were gatherings conducted at
the library of ancient Alexandria. It can be said that
we therefore followed the convention at the birthplace of the symposium. The venue was filled withthe excitement of around one-hundred and fifty
persons. Upon inspecting the list of participants, I
discovered that many had even come from thecities outside Alexandria and as far as Cairo.
At the start of the conference, Khaled
Azab (Islamic Archaeology, Bibliotheca Alexandrina,
director of the Media Department) gave the opening
address, followed by an informative talk by Yehia
Halim Zaki (head of the Academic and Cultural
Affairs Sector at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina,
former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at
Alexandria University), based on his experiences
as a medical practitioner. Ashraf Farrag(Linguistics, Dean of Faculty of Arts at Alexandria
University) gave a further thought-provoking talk.
On the Japanese side, after Shimazono Susumu's
speech, director of the JSPS Cairo Research Stationu addressed the assembled audience.
Oishi Yuji
On October 3, Galila El Kadi (Urban
Engineering, French Institute of Research forDevelopment [IRD]), who had been invited from
Paris, gave the keynote address, discussing the10urban planning and development of Cairo's City of
the Dead from a historical perspective. A Frenchmade film about the City of the Dead was also
shown as part of the talk.
The first session of that day was entitled
Death and Life relating to Visual Culture. Its
participants were on the Alexandrinian side, Lovay
Mahmoud Saied (Archaeology, Director of the
Calligraphy Center at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina)
and Khaled Azab. The Japanese session participants
were Akiyama Akira (Art History, The Universityof Tokyo) and Tomizawa Kana (Indian Religions,
GCOE). As many of the panelists employed images
as part of their talks, we were able to make gooduse of the library's Lecture Hall s splendid
audio/video equipment. The varied subjects of thetalks, ranging from ancient Egypt, to Islamicarchitecture, to western and Japanese art as well asobelisk architecture in India, generated a lot of
discussion and received much praise.
After lunch at the refectory for honored
guests located in the lecture hall building, thesecond session was held. The title of this session
was Dealing with the Dead and Their Bodies, andits participants were Morikawa Tomoko (IranianHistory, Hokkaido University), Fujisaki Mamoru(European Medieval History, GCOE), Faruq Mustafa(Social Anthropology, Alexandria University), andMaged El-Raheb (Coptic Architect, Society of
Egyptian Heritage Conservation). It was a great
gain to have had the opportunity to engage inacademic exchange with Faruq Mustafa, for whom
this was the first academic contact with Japandespite his fame, and the Copt Maged El-Raheb.

Also, the Egyptian conference participants showed
great interest in the Japanese papers.
The ambitious third session, Legal Aspectsof Death, was chaired by Sàid al-Daqqaq (Law,former vice-president of Alexandria University),and brought together specialists in Islamic law witha talk on legal aspects of Coptic Christianity. The
participants were Yanagihashi Hiroyuki (Islamic
Law, The University of Tokyo), Muhammad Kamal
al-Din Imam (Islamic Law, Alexandria University),
and Magdi Girgis (Coptic History, Kafr al-Sheik
University).
After the panels, Dr. Mansur̀Uthman(Archaeology, The Supreme Council of Antiquities)
had organized a slide show about remains in thewestern oasis region of al-Bagawat. Lastly, theclosing discussion under the chairmanship ofMachida SMhM and Lovay Mahmoud saw anunending stream of questions from the audienceand was ended only by the time limit, as had
already been the case in Cairo. I brought theconference to a close with a final address.
On the morning of the following day, a
VIP tour had been organized for us at the library.
Without even having the time to take a proper
farewell from Alexandria, once the tour of thelibrary was over, we had to drive straight to Cairo
Airport, from where most of the participants
returned to Japan.
As already mentioned in the beginning of
this report, the two conferences held in Egypt marka turning point that necessitates a rethinking ofacademic exchange between Egypt and Japan.
Therefore, the attention paid by the Egyptian mass
media to the Japanese visit was extraordinary.
Shimazono Susumu appeared on four TV channels(including news programs) while I appeared on six
channels (including a two hour long talk show).
The Egyptian participants appeared on more thanfour TV channels and also responded to requests
from two radio stations each, but we had to turndown all other requests due to time restrictions. I
believe that the visit was also covered by morethan thirty newspapers and magazines, including
the London-based Asharq Alawsat andrepresentative local newspapers, such as Al-Ahramand Al-Gomhuriya. Coverage of the conferences
extended even to Reuters and Saudi-Arabian aswell as Moroccan newspapers. The interest of themass media exceeded our expectations by far and
we realized that next time we will need to plan our
response to media interest beforehand. Since theconferences were reported about in such a large
number of newspapers and magazines, theconferences themselves will likely be studied in the
future in regard to contacts between Egypt andJapan. Also, the fact that this occasion marked thefirst attempt at a solid exchange with a range of
Alexandria-based scholars has to be evaluated very
highly.
Since our conferences got full publicity
and coverage, we have been contacted byresearchers across the Middle East who haveexpressed their hopes to read papers at ourconferences, or take part in the Death and Life
Studies project. Moreover, some of them expressed
their wishes for investigating the Death and Life
studies in Japanese institutions. We have to find away to respond to these requests.
In face of the astounding response to theconferences, Shimazono Susumu has announcedplans to organize a follow-up event in Japan to beheld in 2011. That event will need to be conceived
as an extension of the conferences that were heldin Egypt, addressing the points of contact that havebecome clear during the course of our intellectual
explorations at the conferences as well as fields ofinquiry that have not been addressed yet.
In closing, I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude
to all the presenters, the Egyptian conference staff,
the specially appointed researchers who worked
hard in the background, and most of all the morethan three-hundred local participants fromacademia, the mass media and general society.

11

The 15th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society
for Clinical Thanatology
SHIMIZU Tetsuro (Uehiro Chair, Philosophy―Clinically oriented Death and Life Studies)

On December 5-6th , 2009, the 15 th annual
meeting of the Japanese Society for ClinicalThanatology was held at the Hongo campus (themain forum was the Yasuda Kodo). Although thismeeting was not held under the direct auspices of
Death and Life Studies (DALS), we were able toreceive their full assistance in holding this forum.
Simply put, following the end of the first day ofour meeting, a special lecture sponsored by Deathand Life Studies (see the accompanying articles)
was held in the space of this forum and thus
allowed for a large number of participants. Further,on the second day, three specially invitedresearchers and clinicians from the United States―
who also gave public lectures for our annual
meeting―held individual workshops as part of
Death and Life Studies continuing education
program. (This is a course designed to teach thefundamentals of Death and Life Studies forclinicians and caregivers). A number of COEaffiliated professors also kindly participated in our
JSCT meetings. Further, many of our speciallyappointed researchers spent some 10 months
graciously helping with preparations for thismeeting and also assisted in the meeting itself. In
other words, we received a great deal of assistancefrom Death and Life Studies. Remembering that
this meeting could not have been accomplishedwithout this support, I would like to take theopportunity to offer my profound gratitude to all
who kindly helped. Of course, through thisassistance, it is true, that we were able to make an
appeal for the value of DALS' activities and thefruits of our research to many participants who
hold an interest in clinical death and life studies.
That the 15 th annual meeting was
successful is attested to by the following figures:

12739 paying participants attended and, when one
includes speakers and staff members, some 860
people in total were involved. Further, the public
lecture by Aoki Shinmon (see accompanying
article) was attended by some 1050 participants.
Such a number of attendees, including mostly
professionals in medical and nursing care, shows
the intense interest in what Death and Life Studies
can provide for them.
As this was a meeting of the JapaneseSociety for Clinical Thanatology, we felt it
necessary to merge it with Death and Life Studies.
We decided on the theme of Death and Life
Studies: Active and to be Activated in ClinicalSettings. Our aim was to elucidate how thepraxis-based knowledge of Death and Life Studies
is alive in clinical settings and also to inquire as
to how this field can further its various areas ofresearch so that this work can be of use in thesesettings. My particular goal was to deepen thediscussion on experiences of loss in which one's
own existence is threatened with the anticipationof death and for those bereaving the traumatic lossof their beloved ones). In reality, however, thequality of the public lectures and symposia waswell beyond what we had planned for. To cite an
example, our first symposium―on the grief of
bereavement―and our second symposium―on the
lives of those who suffer from severely impairing
medical conditionsallowed us to better understandthose individuals who face the experiences of loss
and to recognize the need to stay with these people
in spirit through a multi-faceted discussion.
Further, a great number of participants came toour general forum, which allowed for a variety ofpresentations and lively discussion.
To conclude, through this annual meeting,
I was able to confirm the relationship and directionin which Death and Life Studies has taken withthe clinical field. First, I was able to confirm that
our continuing education program has met theneeds and expectations of clinicians, and I also
understood the need for the further developmentof our program. Second, I felt that although many
involved in our COE program spend their days
focused on research that is at times detached fromclinical settings, the results of such forms ofresearch hold the possibility of resonating withproblems in the clinical field. Hence, such research
is of great importance. My hope, in the final two
years of our program, is to further such work.

Public Lecture: Aoki Shinmon
The Relay of Life: On the Film Departures
SHIMAZONO Susumu (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities andSocial Sciences, Religious Studies)

The 15 th annual meeting of the JapaneseSociety for Clinical Thanatology was a meaningful
event for our COE program. Notably, as the main
event for the Death and Life Studies component of
this meeting, a public lecture was held by Aoki
Shinmon on December 5 th (4:20-6:00 PM) in the
Yasuda Kodo.
The film Departures (2008), which
received the 81st Academy Award for Best Foreign
Film, was based on Aoki's novel Coffinman: The
Journal of a Buddhist Mortician. The novel depicts
the story of a young man who takes on theoccupation of performing rites for the departed,and offers us the chance to rethink the meaning ofdeath and life. The film, which depicts the process
by which this young man comes to find profoundmeaning in this line of work, received global
critical acclaim. This work also offers a number of
insights for those of us in contemporary society to
examine our own views of death and life and also
provides a chance to reconsider the cultural
aspects of death and life in Japan.
With great humor, Aoki explained how
Motoki Masahiro, the main actor and originator of
the film's conception, was deeply moved by his
novel and how the two came to meet. Aoki also
talked about how he was dissatisfied with thefilm's script and how ultimately he refused toallow his name to appear in the credits. Further,while drawing on various episodes from his own
life and his personal views on death and life, Aoki
explained how he came to become a coffinman
and how he came to write his work; he also spokeon the problem of how Japan's culture of deathand life is growing fainter in contemporarysociety. The 90-some minutes in which he spoke
flew by due to the profundity of his talk. Those inattendance (it was a packed house) were deeply
moved and listened with great interest.

bankrupt. When Aoki began to work at a funeral
home, the above-mentioned practice was alreadybeginning to be outsourced to professionals
Although in Departures Daigo [literally,
great enlightenment ], a failed orchestral celloplayer, becomes a
coffinman,
such a line ofwork is not common. Such an occupation,
however, shows how the funeral industry often
comes into contact with so-called death pollution.
When Mika, Daigo's wife, learns of his new
profession, she calls him
filthy[i.e., polluted]
and then flees to her family home. This scene, inwhich the wife rejects her husband ( You're
filthy. Don't get near me. ), is exactly the same asthat found in Aoki's novel. For Aoki, the question
as to how humans can overcome the supposed
taboo-nature of death is a crucial dilemma. In his
novel, [one scene depicts] the coffinman having todispose of a decaying body. As he rounds up themaggots [infesting the cadaver], he becomestransfixed by the movement of each individual
maggot and realizes that they, too, are filled withlife. Through this experience, the maggots seem toemit radiance.
Listening to Aoki speak, we had thechance to reconfirm that contemporary society has
indeed attempted to keep death at bay. At thesame time, one also gained the feeling that many
today are aware of this fact and seek to reconfirm
death as something close at hand. In his
conclusion, Aoki spoke of the importance of beingat hand for the death of one's family members andfriends. The title of his talk, The Relay of Life,
clearly contains this message. Our physicalpresence at the moment of the death of those close
to us can awaken in the desire to live fuller andmore meaningful lives. In this sense, Aoki's deep
conviction greatly moved the audience.

There was much in his talk that provided
food for thought from the perspective of Death andLife Studies. The Departures' script depicts thatritualists who perform the clothing of the dead [i.e.,
placing them in their funerary garb] andencoffinment are a separate entity from general
funeral homes. Originally, the dressing of the deadwas undertaken by family members and those
close to the deceased, and was seen as a form ofablution. Aoki, who left Waseda University before
graduation, returned to his home in (what wasthen part of) Toyama prefecture, where this rite
was still practiced. Of course in the past suchpractice was obviously done by families, but times
changed. Aoki, who was primarily interested inliterature, opened a pub, which ultimately went

13

The 15th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for
Clinical Thanatology: Seminar
Ryan WARD (in order)/ DALS Specially appointed researchers
MATSUMOTO Satoko (in order)/ DALS Specially appointed researchers
ITO Yukiko (in order)/ DALS Specially appointed researchers
Lecture 1:
What Death and Life Studies can give to sitesof Clinical Practice Shimazono Susumu
Lecture 2:
Understanding and Responding to the Dying
and the Bereaved Donna L. Schuurman
On December 5 th , 2009, as part of the 15 thd
annual meeting of the Japanese Society for ClinicalThanatology, lectures by Shimazono Susumu(Global COE Death and Life Studies project leader,
2007-2010) and Donna L. Schuurman, Executive
Director of The Dougy Center for Grieving
Children and Families (www.dougy.org), Portland,
Oregon, USA, were given. Wakabayashi Kazumi of
Yamanashi Eiwa University served as chair forboth lectures.
Professor Shimazono began his lecture byintroducing various facets of spiritual care aspracticed in clinical settings in Europe and North
America. He expressed that such care was anecessity in the Japanese medical system, as well.
That said, however, Shimazono noted that theestablishment of such methods of care in Japan
faces a number of hurdles. Notably, Japan does nothave a resident chaplaincy system and that
Buddhist hospitals, for example, are not common in
Japan. Thus, although such a system is truly
needed, we will have to overcome or transcendcertain sectarian biases or bases as found in theWest. In terms of what is needed, Shimazono noted
1) the complex nature of how Death and Life
Studies can contribute to clinical practice; 2) how
Death and Life Studies can serve as a facilitator of
dialogue for contemporary society; and 3) how
Death and Life Studies can contribute in a specificfashion for clinical sites and in a broader fashion
for civil society in general. Shimazono's lecture
allowed attendees and those involved with ourprogram for the chance to reconsider how Deathand Life Studies can contribute to theestablishment of new forms of care in Japanesesociety.
Following this lecture, Doctor Donna L.
Schuurman a leading international figure in griefand bereavement work for children, first
introduced the conception behind the founding of
the Dougy Center, a Portland-based organizationthat offers clinical counseling for youth.
Schuurman then offered an insightful comparison
between North American and Japanese ways ofgrief support for children. Schuurman noted:
In comparing students scores in math,science and literacy, students from the Japanese

14

school system dramatically out-perform theircounterparts in the United States. Yet thecomparisons in understanding of death, and deatheducation lag behind.
Schuurman also discussed a number ofguiding principles for how clinicians can help
children overcome grief and bereavement. Four
guiding principles were particularly introduced: 1.)
grief as a natural reaction to death; 2.) within each
person is the natural capacity to heal.; 3.) the
duration and intensity of grief are unique to eachindividual.; and 4.) that caring and acceptanceassist in the healing process, is based on the belief
that our society is not accepting of death and does
a poor job of equipping people to comfort the
bereaved.
Finally, along with emphasizing the needfor expanding global grief work for children,
Schuurman concluded by stating that grief andbereavement work cannot be a one-way street.
She concluded that the true experts are thechildren themselves, and if we listen―really listen―they will show and tell us what they need. But
first, we must educate ourselves.

(WARD)

Lecture 3:
The Supportive Care Model―Helping the
Caregivers, Elizabeth Davies
The third lecture, entitled The Supportive
Care Model―Helping the Caregivers,
was given
by Elizabeth Davies (Kashiwagi Tetsuo ofKaneshiro Gakuin University served as lecture
chair). As quantity is more valued in our current
medical system, direct and human time spent
went with patients and their family members is
not highly valued. Davies spoke on how thiscurrent state creates a great number of dilemmas
and dissatisfaction for many caregivers. While
discussing specific examples concerning palliative
caregivers, she noted how this dilemma leads to agreat deal of physical and emotional stress. Davies
also noted how this problem makes it difficult for
many caregivers, who hold the ideal of caring fortheir patients, to continue with their work. She
also noted the need for more sensitivity and for
spiritual care, as well. In closing, Davies also
pointed out how it is necessary for thesecaregivers to also care for one another―not only
for their patients(MATSUMOTO)

Lecture 4:
Catching our Breath in Grief, Thomas Attig
Lecture 4 was given by the renowned
scholar of grief care, Thomas Attig. Attig, who has
more than 30-some years of work in this field,
talked about how the bereaved can overcome thegrief caused by the death of a loved one(Hirayama Masami of Seigakuin University served
as chair). In the first part of his talk, The Breathof Life, Attig spoke on the sanctity and mysteryof birth and death. He also noted how humanbeings seek to keep their inner beings in synchwith the rhythm of the universe. It is this Breathof Life which keeps humans alive. In the second
part of the lecture, When Loss Takes our BreathAway,
he noted how the death of a loved one
causes us to lose this sense of balance andharmony. In the third part of the lecture,
Catching Our Breath,
Attig explained how we
can obtain a new desire for life through facing ourgrief, establishing a new relationship with theworld, and learning to love the departed. It wasalso of interest for me how the process ofovercoming grief in Attig's magnificent worldview
is applicable―and how it may differ―in othercultures, such as Japan.
(ITO)

15