Developing and Systematizing Death and Life Studies
Masao Tachibana (Dean of Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology/
Faculty of Letters, Psychology/ Visual Neuroscience)

The Global Center of Excellence
Program,Development and Systematization of
Death and Life Studies (DALS)
builds on the
results of the 21st Century COE Program,
Construction of Death and Life Studies
concerning Culture and Value of Life
(20022006). The aim of the 21st Century Program wasto compare views about life and death in the pastand present, East and West, and by taking into
account theoretical studies about values
concerning life and death, to seek answers to the
myriad issues that arise on the ground whereclinical medicine and medical care are performed
and where life and death come to the forefront inmodern society. In so doing we have developed
and formed a cutting-edge line of inquiry which
we believe has met the highest international
standards. The team of scholars and young
researchers from the Graduate School of
Humanities and Sociology led by Professor
Susumu Shimazono, gained familiarity withresearch being done in the Graduate Schools of
Medicine and Education and deepened theirinterchanges with practicioners on the ground
involved in patient care and medical treatment.
Their enthusiasm and energy have helped carveout the new academic field of Death and Life
Studies. In April 2007, the Uehiro Chair on DALS
was established as part of the Center for Evolving
Humanities, set up by a grant from the Uehiro
Foundation on Ethics and Education, under the
charge of Professor Tetsuro Shimizu and Hiroshi
Yamazaki, lecturer. This has functioned to promotefurther the success of the 21st Century COE
Program. The high marks received by the DALS
project has led to its being selected for the Global
Center of Excellence (G-COE) Program,
Development and Systematization of Death andLife Studies (DALS)
in 2007. The Program's
central aims will be the further development of
DALS and the training of young researchers.
We have decided on the English
translation of
Death and Life Studies
ratherthan the more commonly used
Thanatology
because our program is not concerned only withdeath. DALS looks directly at issues arising fromthe cutting-edge of Life Science and fromcontemporary practical clinical medicine, such as
gene therapy, regenerative medicine, Assisted
Reproductive Technology (ART), cloning
technology, anti-aging medicine, and terminal care.
However, it is unsurprising that there should beinconsistencies between the (still unformed)
concepts of life and death according to the rapidly
expanding fields of Life Science and Medicine andthe common-sense understanding about themdeveloped by human beings over the centuries.
Even with the enormous amount of knowledge

2

What is DALS?
that is being accumulated, we remain ignorant
about the dramatic emergence of material being,
life, and consciousness; modern Life Science is still
asking how life was created from matter andneuroscience cannot even explain consciousness.
Under these circumstances, there is no meaning inquestioning which is superior, the old-fashioned
humanities or modern science. With thedevelopment of DALS, it is necessary to tackle in adown-to-earth way the task of clarifying theconceptual differences between the two.
How the concepts of life and death are
understood differs vastly according to civilizationand culture. In clarifying these differences it isextremely important that we engage in academic
exchanges with countries not only in Europe andAmerica but in Asia as well. I am delighted
therefore that this program will include short
research trips abroad for young scholars.
Rather than trying to understand Life andDeathorDeath and Lifeas temporary
phenomena marking the beginning and ending oflife, we have to come back to the question asked
by the Humanities and Social Sciences, What is ahuman being?
if we want to comprehend thebroader question, How should we live our lives?
Hence we must attempt to deepen our
understanding of the meaning of both life anddeath, through an active interchange between
DALS and the traditional Hhumanities and Social
Sciences. Also essential in this is dialogue with thefields of philosophy, ethics, and law over ethicaland legal issues arising out of current practices. In
this sense, the development of DALS through the
Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology isclosely concerned, not only with connections
between other graduate schools at the university
and society, but with the way we expect the
Humanities and Social Sciences to grow in thenext generation. I have great hopes for the healthy
development of this program as it tackles thesediversified and important issues.

Initiating the Global Center of Excellence
Development and Systematization of Death and Life
Studies (DALS) Program
Susumu Shimazono (Leader of the COE Program, Professor, Graduate School of the
Humanities and Sociology, Religious Studies)

Death and Life Studies (DALS) is a new fieldof study. It seeks first of all to be a point of linkage
between medicine and the humanities and social
sciences. Modern hospitals have to expend a lot ofcare on patients facing death, yet they do notreally know how to, being familiar only withmodern medicine based on the natural science
approach. The Hospice movement has made rapid
strides in the west since the 1960s, encouraging
education and research into thanatology in order
better to meet the needs of both patients and theirfamilies.
At the same time, though, a number of ethicalissues have arisen concerning bioethics. Organtransplantation, in vitro fertilization, and genetic
diagnosis are all possible, greatly increasing thefeasibility for people to realize their desires bysurmounting difficulties that were unconquerable
in the past. However, as medical treatment
becomes more and more potent, we have to ask
ourselves the difficult question whether we needat some point to draw a line on its intervention.
This has meant that ethical judgments based on
how life and death are to be understood are now
being asked routinely of those working in clinicalmedicine and medical research.
Concerns have been raised demanding that
educational institutions conduct death education
to instruct children about respect for life. Certainly,
modern people have lost sight of the need toconfront death, and seem to be bewildered by it.
Funerary rites and the burial system have beenchanging rapidly in recent years and people are
perplexed. Disputes have erupted too overmemorial services and mourning. The relationshipbetween the living and the dead varies according
to culture, and this is a fact strongly recognized
today. Also, since life and death are the reverse
and obverse of the same coin, it is a concern of
DALS to think about issues related to how we face
the critical events of life, such as conception andbirth, as well as illness and old age.
But DALS is more than simply questions
about how such crises are tackled. It cannot avoid
the basic human questions of what is life and whatis the meaning of life and death. While for the
moment we are linking DALS to practical,
contemporary issues, we need also to study thephilosophies and religions of both East and West,of the past as well as the present, in order topursue a new method of understanding. It is
important for us to inquire again into thephilosophical and ideological dimensions of themodern, new scientific knowledge regarding views
about life and evolution. Issues revolving aroundenvironmental ethics and the relationship between
human beings and animal and plant life, andpractical philosophical questions about war andpunishment are also part of its area of concern.
As early as 1904 a book called Views of
Death and Life
(Shiseikan) was published inJapan, and so in one sense Japan led the West in
research into life and death. Under the influence ofWestern culture at the time, there was a strong
consciousness of how East Asians, and theJapanese, viewed life and death. Today people
from all parts of the world are seeking to confront
these new conditions by comparing varying views
about these issues.
Such were the circumstances under which
the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology
at the University of Tokyo instigated in 2002, withthe cooperation of the Faculties of Medicine and
Education among others, the 21st Century COE
Program, Construction of Death and Life Studies(DALS).
The Global COE Program,
Development and Systematization of Death andLife Studies (DALS), scheduled to run from 2007
to spring 2012, will be based on this project,emphasizing the systematization of a strong
educational and research program with the aim ofdeveloping a new field of study and educating
young researchers in it. It thus has a heavy
responsibility as the second stage of the Universityof Tokyo DALS project.
I have already mentioned that this second
stage is regarded as the developmental andsystematization phase of the project, building on
the construction phase of the first stage, and inorder to secure the long-term growth of DALS,
there are a number of topics that should be
addressed. Three in particular stand out: (1)comparative research into the culture of life anddeath; (2) theoretical and philosophical inquiry into3

4

the ethics and actuality of life and death; and (3)how to apply DALS in modern, practical terms to
the humanities. Regarding the first two points,
DALS seeks a specific direction of research inorder to develop, based on the accumulation of
results gained from previous education andresearch conducted by the Graduate School of
Humanities and Sociology. The aim is to describe a
new horizon by bringing together non-Western
traditions with theoretical and cultural studies on
the theme of life and death undertaken throughthe initiative of Western thought and scholarship.
Calling what is known in the West as Death
Studies or Thanatology Death and Life Studies
suggests a way that this new horizon may be
drawn. The third topic involves a large number of
new concerns for the Graduate School of
Humanities and Sociology, since they involve
active issues about practical care, meeting theneeds of patients facing death, people saying their
goodbyes to the dying, those who wish to be withthe dying, those who are feeling the pressure oflife and death crises and decisions, and those whocare [i.e., medical care] for all of these people. DALS
thus seeks an interchange with on-the-groundmedical treatment, education, and care. The
example of palliative care for cancer patients is acase in point. In particular, there should becontinuing education for those working at the forefront of treatment. DALS should consider what it
can contribute to society from the study ofhumanities, while learning a great deal from theactual issues which the Faculty of Medicine andpeople in charge of medical treatment in theuniversity face in their work. There is the prospect
too that such studies will revitalize these fields ofscholarship.

As we move from Stage 1 to Stage 2 of theProgram, we would like to stress the following
two points: (1) putting serious effort into educating
and training young scholars, and (2) deepening
scholarly interchange with other regions of Asia.
First, we want to stimulate the participation ofyoung researchers and graduate students inconstructing academic knowledge concerning
DALS, taking seriously into account the kind of
human resources society needs. We will create, orlook for possibilities of doing so, DALS as a new
specialist field of academic knowledge,
contributing at the same time to the strengtheningof traditional specialist knowledge. We will also
aim to communicate our research results throughpublic relations activities in foreign languages.
Second, there is a clear indication that there is a
growing interest in DALS in China and Korea. At
the same time, we will of course continue ourresearch exchanges with Western countries andseek to expand them further. Our aim is tocontribute to the development of DALS on a global
scale, taking into consideration the situation inIslamic countries and in the various regions ofAsia.
I am not optimistic that we will be able toachieve in five years a complete blueprint for the
future of DALS. Forming and bringing tocompletion a new field of study necessitates a long
period of time and the efforts of a great many
people. However, we will work to create a roughsketch for the long term development of DALS in
the time allocated to us. Despite these limitations, I
hope we will be able to form a field of study andan approach to scholarly exchange, that are new
on a global scale, and that DALS will become one
small wellspring to revitalize global society.

DALS: A Developing Framework

Training Scholars for International Engagement

Points of Contact - Death and Life Studies andCancer Treatment
Keiichi Nakagawa (Director, Department of Palliative Medicine, the University of Tokyo Hospital)

Having lost their contact with nature andreligious faith while enjoying a rapid increase in life
expectancy, today's Japanese appear to be under theillusion that they will never die. It is true that in urban
life, death appears nonexistent as a daily-life
phenomenon, and is absent even from people's thoughts.
Death eventually comes to everyone, but now 95
percent of Japanese people die isolated in hospitals,
making the death of others something most people nolonger experience with their senses. Our country nolonger engages in war or requires military service, so
the image we now associate most directly with death iscancer. Cancer is very much our era's memento mori.
Very simply put, cancer can be thought of as
the aging of cells, and as the Japanese are the mostlong-lived people in the world, they also suffer fromcancer more than any other nation. In fact, one out of
every 2 Japanese people will contract cancer
sometime in their lives. However, for those under theillusion that they will not die, cancer−that lonereminder of death−is seen exclusively as somethingthat happens to other people, never to oneself. The
result is that Japanese people ' s knowledge andattitudes regarding cancer and Japan ' s system of
medical treatment for cancer are remarkably
backward among the industrialized countries.
This can be observed most particularly in theimbalance between curing and caring for cancer
patients. The overall mood among both patients andmedical staff is that death equals defeat and is the worst
possible outcome that must be avoided; this situation intreatment facilities can be expressed diagrammaticallyas cure >> care. However, chi-yu, the Japaneseword forhealing,
is made up of two Chinesecharacters; taken singly they are used for the verbs
naosu, meaning cure and also iyasu, meaningcare.
This in fact illustrates that the duty of all
doctors and nurses in all medical institutions is to bothcure and care for patients.
For incurable cancer patients and patients withpain or other severe conditions, in the United Statesand Europe the main thrust of treatment involves aholistic approach that aims to make both the mental
and physical suffering of patients and family
members more bearable, and this has given rise to
the concept of palliative care. This approach has its
origins in the Christian spirit of the European Middle
Ages, which prompted the establishment of
hospitium (a term from which the words
hotel
and
hospitalarose), places for taking care ofpilgrims, the sick and the poor.
By contrast, the element most lacking inJapan's system of cancer treatment is palliative care.
An emblematic example is the issue of dealing withcancer pain. Mitigating cancer pain is the mostimportant task performed in palliative care, and themain method used is to administer morphine or othersimilar drugs as medicine. Most people have anegative image of morphine as an addictive drug, but
the method used to relieve people in pain is safe andwithout risk of addiction. The amounts of morphineused in Japan are about one seventh of the amounts
used in Canada and Australia, and about one fourthof those used in the United States and France −Japan uses the lowest levels of morphine of any
industrialized nation.
If we look at all the opioid drugs including
morphine and related compounds, the levels used inJapan are lower than the world average - as low as one
twentieth of what is used in the US. In other words,
patients in Japan have to suffer that much more severe
pain. However, at present, patients who are without pain
because they are given appropriate treatment withmorphine or other pain medications in fact tend to live
longer. Naturally enough, they can take nourishment andget some sleep, but for some reason it is still difficult todispel morphine's evil image. Could this be because of thesame cure >> care mindset? Far from prolonging life
even for a short time, increasing the duration of sufferingin fact shortens life. The recent transformation ofJapanese attitudes towards death and life is resulting in
actual harm to patients undergoing treatment for cancer.
To begin with, the close link between cancer
treatment and Death and Life Studies is clear in the corecurriculum for the faculty of medicine in Japanese
universities drawn up by the Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, as shown in
the treatment of Life and Death Studies quoted below.
Objectives Relating to Human Death
1) Ability to explain the concept of death, how the factof death is established, and individual biological death.
2) Ability to conceptualize the basic principles of Deathand Life Studies.
3) Ability to explain how to care for family members in
the case of death.
4) Ability to explain the concepts of dying with dignity
and euthanasia.
5) Ability to explain the difference between avegetative state and brain death.
I have recently been privileged to join the Global
COE Development and Systematization of Death andLife Studies
research group; in fact, one of myobjectives when I started working on palliative care in
The University of Tokyo Hospital was to promoteresearch on death in every department of The
University of Tokyo. In the future, the COE program
will also emphasize putting the lessons of liberal arts
studies into practice in actual, present-day situations, andso this represents a dream come true for me. I lookforward to further expansion of contact between COE
and the field of cancer treatment, and a dynamic processof development in which liberal arts and medicine will
be stimulating one another.

5

Death and Life Studies and the Humanities
Masahiro Shimoda (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Indian Philosophy)

The give-and-take involved in starting an
inquiry is somehow like the process of creating alife. It is inter-generational, inter-sexual, andrequires the presence as well as the collaborationof others. Moreover, the life that emerges,
whatever it may be, is something brand new
created by the participants. It is the same when an
inquiry is started, as there is the side that conveys
the initial inquiry and the side that takes it in, andwhen the inquiry is jointly engaged in andfollowed-up with persistence, something new isborn out of this cooperative effort.
When an inquiry has been conveyed andjoint work on it is to begin, the object of thisinquiry does not have to be clearly outlined before
being handed over to one's partner in this process.
Rather, the receiving party must be given
consideration so it can be the one to establish aframework. Such inquiries do not exist
independently, but in the context of the inquirer.
It's not unusual for the subject of the inquiry totransform with the progress of the study. However
if the inquiry is to continue to be effective, it does
not depend upon the immutability of the object of
the question to be consistent; rather, it depends on
the persistence of the inquirer. As long as theinquirer continues to have a strong desire to
pursue the matter, even if the subject of theinquiry is not obvious at the start, or if it changes
over time, the previously unknown subject
ultimately emerges in a distinct shape according to
the inquirer's interests and academic stance.
The field of Death and Life Studies thathas emerged within the field of humanities has noprecedent as a form of inquiry, and it remains a
subject with an unknown profile. Revealing thenature of what Death and Life Studies actually is
involves nothing short of giving birth to it. The
humanities have the power to make Death andLife Studies into an academic inquiry, and wemust work to have it sprout deep within thehumanities and grow as much as possible. What isnecessary at this point is not for Death and Life
Studies to determine its own profile and pass thison to the humanities, but rather that it remains theobject of inquiry by the humanities and continues
to be sought. In this way, Death and Life Studies
can find its own identity in the context of its
relationship with the humanities. The realization ofa true inquiry that brings to light something thatlay hidden inside the inquiry and is not simply apseudo-inquiry in which the answers have alreadybeen determined beforehand depends on theinquirer. If Death and Life Studies are to be a true
inquiry the humanities have to take on the role ofinquirer in order to determine the framework.
Death and Life Studies did not necessarily
come into being through a demand from within

6

the humanities. Instead, the humanities havereceived
questionsfrom the outside fromseveral different quarters, due to such things as
the pressing issues surrounding medical care,nursing and caregiving, and rapid changes in
attitudes toward death and life due to changes intechnology and society. One major role of Deathand Life Studies is to act as a bridge between
those who need answers and those who canfurnish them.
The traditional academic discipline of thehumanities is not accustomed to problems
originating from the outside. The humanities haveaccepted the externally driven question of Deathand Life Studies with sensitivity; for it to flourish
within the humanities it must be cultivated withcare. We in the humanities, in response to thesequestions from a place unheard of before, must
nurture this embryo within our own field, a tiny
image held out in front of us, and give birth to a
distinct and new concept. It is inconceivable thatthe humanities would not show an interest inissues relating to death and life. Indeed, the various
disciplines of the humanities already carry withinthem an awareness of the issues that cause thedevelopment of Death and Life Studies. If deathand life studies, as the kernel of an inquiry fromthe outside, are transplanted into this womb withgreat care, the humanities will nurture Death andLife Studies and incubate them; I am certain thehumanities will have the power to give birth to a
new life from within its own interior, and this willtransform them into an even stronger existence.

Published Matters by DALS ProjectRandom Thoughts
Sumihiko Kumano (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Ethics)

On weekends I usually go shopping withmy wife. Since we are a so-called working couple,
we go shopping to buy food for the week. On the
top floor of our nearby shopping center there's a
pet store that sells small animals such as rabbits
and hamsters in addition to dogs, cats, and small
birds. When we go shopping, we first go up to thatfloor to spend a little time looking at the animals.
At the beginning, my wife liked the dogs while I
myself preferred the cats and birds, but these days
we stop exclusively at the rabbits and hamsters.
Week after week, we invariably have the same
conversation.
They're cute, aren't they?
Yes, they're so cute.
There's such a thing as a cute size' for living
things, isn't there?
Oh yes, these are just the perfect cute size!
Should we buy a pet?
Should we?
Well...
The conversation always ends the sameand Life Studies tries to consider the entire
expanse of birth and death (shouji), including thedeath and life (shisei) of one's individual existence.
As with all fields of study, Death and Life Studies
are not necessarily free of the tendency toobjectify the subject of one's study. But is thiseven theoretically possible? Is it actually possible
to try to objectify the entire expanse of death andlife in detail, including one's own individual
existence? At the present I think the answer would
have to be no.
But then again…I can consider the opposite.
It is generally in the nature of any field of study toattempt to reach for things that have hitherto been
somehow considered impossible. If we can say thatthe principle of incompleteness is part of the ethosof all fields of study, then a longing to overcomethat incompleteness gestates within, and thislonging is the basis for attempts to reach for theimpossible.
These are the things I'm thinking
about as we face the second stage of constructing
Death and Life Studies. But I'm in no hurry to findthe answers.

way.
But we're not home very much, and it wouldn't be
fair to them.
And also…
Also…
…They'd die so soon.
Yes, and it would be heartbreaking to have themdie."Without fail, we have the same conversation.
When you've been married for 20 years, that's
what happens. We sometimes think that if we hada child, we'd probably buy a hamster for him or
her. Even though when the hamster died, the childwould certainly cry a lot. But even so…It would begood for a child to experience such things as well.
It would be good for him (or her) to experience thelife cycle of an animal first-hand, to see its
beginning, living with it, and taking care of it,
following its ups and downs until the time its life
is no more.
＊
Every person has only one individual life tolive. Yet nobody remembers being born, and at thetime of our own deaths none of us can witnessthat final moment, nor can we know what comes
after we depart this life. Yet our own lives cannot
begin until we are born into this world, and they
can only be complete when we die. Thus we're notable to witness or fully know the entire span of
our own lives. Perhaps it is fair to say that Death7

Death and the 21st Century American Fiction
Motoyuki Shibata (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology,
Contemporary Literary Studies/ English)

Humor was the strong point of the 19th
century American author Mark Twain, and manyof his masterful jokes are still remembered. One of
my favorites is the following comment, issued byhim after a newspaper stated that he had died.
The report of my death was an exaggeration.
Life and death − the two are usually thoughtof as having a most serious and clear demarcation;
this joke is funny because it treats the two as
being continuous. Reading recent American novels,
I often wonder if the boundary between life anddeath is really so clear.
Imagine that a dead man arrives in a city. For
days he stumbles about, the way the dead, if theycame back to life, might stumble from their graves;
pale and puffy-eyed as though they'd slept badly,
rubbing a three day's growth of stubble andwondering what place this was. . . .
(Paul
LaFarge, The Artist of the Missing, 1999)
In the afterlife, Rachel lived alone. She had aclapboard cabin and a yard full of gray geese
which she could feed or not and they would dofine. Purple morning glories grew by the kitchendoor. It was always an early summer morning andhad been since her death.
(Maureen F. McHugh,Ancestor Money, in Mothers & Other Monsters,
2005)
There once was a man whose wife was dead. She
was dead when he fell in love with her, and she
was dead for the twelve years they lived together,during which time she bore him three children, allof them dead as well, and at the time of which I
am speaking, the time during which her husband
began to suspect that she was having an affair,
she was still dead.
(Kelly Link,
The Great
Divorce, in Magic for Beginners)
Whereas I had wondered, in the 1980's, why
American authors always depicted so muchreality, the American authors of the 21st century
seem to find it surprisingly easy to shift, within
the same story, from the ordinary to thesupernatural world. They write about thesupernatural as if it were the ordinary, or as if thetwo were jumbled together. Within this world of
the supernatural, the realm of death is apparently a
populardestination.
An increasing number ofwriters try to convey the real feel of life byportraying the worlds of life and death asreflecting each other, like mirrors face to face.
We can see that what these works have incommon is that their depictions of death or of theafterlife,rather than striking up vivid sensations of

8fear, have a somehow comical, fairy-tale aspect tothem. There is obviously no way of knowing the
raw materials authors draw on to create theirwork, but my sense is that these authors use theimages of death that have made an impression onthem by way of stories and television, more thanany strong real-life experiences from close contact
with death, and each in their own way shapes
these through the power of their own imagination.
Why do contemporary American authors
write like this? My own hypothesis is that it may
be in large part due to the fact that those authors
who have been active since the beginning of the
21st century have been inundated by televisionand films since their childhood; they have become
a generation whose subconscious has, in a sense,
been formed by pop culture. One could commentthat writing like this causes a loss of any directconnection to not only death but to reality, andlament the poverty of a contemporary society that
only experiences things entirely through images;
but lamenting gets one nowhere. Ultimately,
however much you try to observe death with yourown eyes at close range, it will not be your own
death, and so one could say that the last bit
becomes a job for your imagination. To start with,aren't people (and especially children, although it is
not wise to overemphasize the sensibilities ofchildren) capable of experiencing the true feelingof death as death, even if it is from bad television
dramas? Even the three works quoted above, whilestarting from fairy-tale like, humorous setups, allarrive at some poignant sentiments.

My Thoughts on Being Re-employed
as a Specially Appointed Researcher with the COE
Death and Life Project
Hiroe Shimauchi (COE Program Specially Appointed Researcher, Cultural Anthropology)

Two and a half years ago in the spring of
2005, the 21st Century COE Program
Construction of Death and Life Studies (DALS)"
had reached a turning point. At that time I wasjust another unemployed PhD, and happened to
notice an advertisement for COE researchers.
Thinking there was no harm in trying, I applied,
and much to my surprise was lucky enough to get
the job. When I was recently re-hired as a speciallyappointed researcher for the Global COE Program
Development and Systemization of Death and Life
Studies (DAL),I recalled the surprise and joy I
felt on the day I received my intial appointment
notice, as well as the nervousness I felt the firsttime I spoke with Professor Susumu Shimazono,
head of the program.
Though it is mere speculation on my part,I assume I was chosen for the job at least partly
due to the doctorate thesis I submitted at Waseda
University, An Examination of the Ethnology of
Death − the Feuermann Tradition and Perceptionof Death in Western Europe,
based on a long
period of overseas study and analysis of traditionsin Germany. Regardless, the Spring of 2005
marked a new beginning for me at Todai.
Until this point in time, I had never had
any contact with The University of Tokyo, but
thanks to the project leaders, senior andcontemporary researchers, and office staff, I wasable to carry out my work. This included doing
research in my own field of cultural anthropology
as it relates to Death and Life Studies, contributing
papers to the bulletin
Death and Life Studies
Research, and submitting or presenting papers at
meetings. I have also worked to support the projectby helping prepare for symposia, doing budgets
and other paperwork, and editing pamphlets andother publications. During the launch of the Global
COE Program Development and Systemization of
Death and Life Studies (DALS),
I have been
assigned as the leader of the specially appointed
researchers who have been entrusted with muchof the office work; while feeling refreshed by the
new departure, I also feel the weight of the
responsibilities. The recollection of how hard ourbrilliant senior researchers worked and the imageof the bright future waiting for the field of Deathand Life Studies help me carry my heavy daily
workloads.
To tell the truth, at first I was somewhat
dazzled by the glamour of working at The
University of Tokyo, and although some of theglitter has worn off, for me the COE Death andLife Studies project has been an irreplaceable
research platform that constantly supplies me withintellectual stimulation.
For example, when I meet people in fieldsof study that would normally have little incommon with my own, the subject of death andlife usually provides a common thread that leads
to a fruitful conversation. Even through suchmodest means, I hope to develop my own study ofdeath and life. While contending with such ideas,
but yet in a state of comfortable enough tension, I
am constantly aware of the good fortune of being
able to do my research here and so I enjoy every
day.
This unique research platform is supportedof course primarily by its leader, Professor
Susumu Shimazono, and by the enthusiasm of themany other associated professors who have been
dedicated to theconstruction
and now to thedevelopment and systemizationof death andlife studies. The professors who decided tocontinue with Death and Life Studies for the 21stCentury COE Program and into the Global COE
Program have exhibited a level dedication that
defies description. In any event, my involvement
so far with the COE Death and Life Studies
Program means that, even if my situation changes,
I will continue to be interested in some way withthe field and monitor its progress. I welcome any
guidance and instruction that might be offered,and look forward to leaning more in future.

9

What

Death and Life Studies

Means to Me

Go Kurihara (COE Program Specially Appointed Researcher, Ethics)

Five years have swiftly passed since I havebeen employed as a researcher in the Death andLife Studies research projects that are now movingfrom the 21st Century COE Program's
construction
phase into the Global COE
Program's
development and systemization
phase. What have
Death and Life Studies
meant to me so far, and what will they mean tome in the future? I feel the time has come toexpress this in words, even though this might bedifficult. If I were to boldly sum up the questions
that have continued to confront me as I took partin numerous symposia and other events, the result
would be as follows.
What about the people who are facing deathright now? And what about those who are beingborn right now? (And, what about the people who
are with them and taking very personal care ofthem?) What happens when such people are really
before my very eyes, close enough for me to touchand facing me, what can I really say or do as
students of ethics, or more broadly, as student of
the humanities? My questions regarding Death andLife Studies can be boiled down to this.
Last summer I was with my grandmotherwhen she passed away after a long period of
hospitalization. Several years before that, I was
also with my sister, who is only two years
younger than me, when she gave birth to her firstchild. At both these times, I was a student of ethics
and of the humanities and was already aresearcher in the Death and Life Studies project.
However, this gave me not a single advantage inhelping my loved ones deal with the actual eventsof death and life. All I could do was very little −watch over them, quietly hold hands, gently touch
their feet, or give them a hug. At these times, there
was nothing I could do about the feelings wellingup within me except hold back the tears.
In reality, these solemn moments clearly
constituted truths that were miles ahead of theinsignificant fact that my professional fields ofstudy were ethics, the humanities, and even Deathand Life Studies. Compared with these experiences,scholarship and the methods it uses to attempt totouch truth are wretchedly slow and laggard. The
fields of medicine, religion and the arts, forexample, most probably contain more direct ways
and means that can catch up to and engage withthe solemn majesties of death and life. However,scholarship itself is bound to lag behind when it
comes to the actual events of death and life.
Speaking for myself, when I bring up thenames of my professional fields, such as ethicsorhistory of Japanese ethical thought,
I feelthat I ought to append some kind of modifier suchaslaggardor
tardy
to indicate howscholarship actually works. At the same time, I am

10

also aware that this is a given condition of thenature of scholarship, and also aware that it is aprerequisite for scholarship. We cannot attainachievement in any field of study if we feeldissatisfaction because it falls behind reality.
However, when it actually comes tohanging out my shingle as a
Death and Life
Studies researcher,the situation changes a bit.
What can I really say right now, and what can I
do? My recent experiences forced me into a corneron this, but such questions may in fact precisely
represent the daring challenges being taken up by
Death and Life Studies as a new field ofscholarship. Being naturally somewhat dull-witted,
I came to realize this bit by bit, but eventuallyquite acutely, during the 5 years I have been withthe project. I consider this an important perception.
When the 21st Century COE Program
Construction of Death and Life Studies (DALS)
was closed in last spring, our leader, Professor
Susumu Shimazono, addressed the younger
research associates, and one of the things he told
us was, I hope you will pursue studies in yourown field together with Death and Life Studies asa double-feature program.
Professor Shimazono
had put together the project, and remains on thefront lines in his determination to meet real
people's needs, and I believe he chose theinnocuous term
double featureout of his
unsurpassed consideration for us, the following
generation that even now probably does not feelthe pressures he has to bear. How do things occur
as a double phenomenon? How will the roots of atree that happens to grow up with two trunks beconnected underground, and which way will its
branches grow? As the death and life studies
projects enters its new Global COE phase, and also
as project researchers continue their own processof self-realization, I feel strongly that the qualitiesof development and systemization will bevery much in demand.

Report on Prof. Gary Laderman s Lecture
Death in the United States: Past, Present, and Future
Susumu Shimazono (Leader of the COE Program, Professor, Graduate School of
Humanities and Sociology, Religious Studies)

On August 2, 2007, Professor Gary
Laderman presented a lecture entitled
Death inthe United States: Past, Present, and FutureinRoom 219 of the Faculty of Law and Letters
Building No. 1 on the Hongo Campus. Prof.
Laderman is Professor of American Religious
History and Cultures at Emory University, outsideof Atlanta, and is well-known for his research on
the history of American funerals. He is the authorof The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes
Toward Death, 1799-1883 (Yale University Press,
1996), and Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of
Death and the Funeral Home in TwentiethCentury America (Oxford University Press, 2003),
among other books.
In his talk, Professor Laderman summed up
his research to date, and presented an overview ofthe entire history of funerals in the United States.
The biggest change in US funerals came about inthe latter half of the 19th century, after the end of
the Civil War, when embalming techniques for
dressing corpses were established and theprototype for the current "American-style" funeralcame into being. The next change occurred after
the 1960's.
That was also the time when Jessica
Mitford's The American Way of Death (Simon &Schuster, 1963) was published, harshly criticizing
the way that funerals had become commercialized,
although that did not bring about a change infuneral trends. During that period, however, there
was a growing trend for various ethnic groups in
the States to conduct funerals according to theirown ways, and funerals became increasingly
diversified. I believe the future of American

funerals can be discerned from this process ofdiversification.
There were many questions from membersof the audience interested in the changes that havetaken place in funerals, the funeral services
industry, and cemeteries in Japan, East Asia,
Europe, and the United States. From the end of the20th century and into the early 21st century there
have been major changes taking place in funerals
in East Asia and Europe, apparently even more
dramatic than those that accompanied theurbanization of the 19th century, and there werediscussions of how their circumstances differedfrom those in the United States. It was confirmedthat in East Asia the spread of cremation, changes
in kinship structures, and changes in government
regulations have combined to bring about thesecomplicated and ongoing shifts.
This field of inquiry is an important partof Death and Life Studies, and I would like toinclude meetings and exchanges
such as this one in our research
programs in the future. I would
like to also acknowledge
the cooperation of Nanzan
University, the Japan-UnitedStates Educational Commission(JUSEC) (Fulbright Association),and Le Centre national de larecherche scientifique (CNRS)
of France in presenting thislecture.

11

Report on Professor Ying-shih Yu s Lecture
Tsuyoshi Kojima (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology,
Chinese Philosophy)

Dr. Ying-shih Yu is an authority ofinternational stature in the field of Chinese
intellectual history, and is at present Gordon Wu'58 Professor Emeritus of Chinese Studies at
Princeton University. Dr. Yu's area of research isextensive, but within its vast scope lays the
subject of the spirit (soul) in Confucian thought.
This is a theme that is also closely connected tothe issues in which the "The Development andSystematization of Death and Life Studies" projectis interested. In addition, in fiscal 2007, Kansai
University inaugurated a Center of Excellence
program entitled
Project for the Cultural
Interaction Studies of East Asia by Peripheral
Approach(Project leader: Tao Demin, Professorof Kansai University (http:// www.kansai-u.ac.jp/
Kouhou/ globalcoe/ globalcoe1.html)), and it
invited several professors and arranged for aseries of lectures to be delivered for theinternational symposium commemorating its
inauguration. Taking this good opportunity, theUniversity of Tokyo also arranged a lecture
meeting, and asked Prof. Yu to present a paper on
Confucian views of life and death, which hedelivered on October 9, 2007.
The title of his lecture was Chinese Views
of Life and Death: With Special Reference to the
Confucian Tradition. At the outset of his lecture,
he quoted a saying of Confucius from The
Analects, You do not understand life yet; how
can you understand death? and spoke about how
Confucian thought concerned itself with life first
and then death, and not with death first and thenlife. Based on this saying of Confucius, there is atendency to think that Confucianism does not talkabout death, and this view serves as the basis forthe pervasive view that Confucianism is not areligion. However, in several documents related to
Confucianism, one can find explanations pertaining
to the souls of the dead. While introducing theseexamples, Prof. Yu elucidated the ancient Chinese
views of life and death.

12This lecture was sponsored by the
Department of Chinese Philosophy of the Facultyof Letters at the University of Tokyo, and held
under the joint auspices of the university's Center
for Evolving Humanities and Maritime CrossCultural Exchange in East Asia and the Formationof Japanese Traditional Culture: Interdisciplinary
Approach Focusing on Ningbo, as well as theuniversity's Global COE Program "Development
and Systematization of Death and Life Studies(DALS)," which served as the managing
organization. Originally, it had been planned to useclassroom 211 in the Faculty of Law and Letters
Building No. 1 on the Hongo campus, but so many
people were drawn by Prof. Yu's renown that theaudience exceeded the venue's capacity, so it wasquickly arranged to change the venue to Lecture
Hall No. 3.
Prof. Yu had already spoken in Chinese at
Kansai University and Nagoya University at the59th Annual Conference of the Sinological Societyof Japan (held October 6− 7), and for the
University of Tokyo the co-sponsors requested
that Prof. Yu make his presentation in English.
Despite his busy schedule before he came to Japan,
he willingly consented to prepare three different
manuscripts. A brochure containing an edited
version of Prof. Yu's paper with an introductoryarticle on him was passed out at the lecture venue.
Motonori Arata, a graduate student of the
Department of Chinese Philosophy; Misato
Minemura, of the office of the Maritime CrossCultural Exchange in East Asia and the Formationof Japanese Traditional Culture; and Kenta Suzukiof the Global COE Program of DALS were
responsible for editing and publishing thebrochure. In addition, it is planned to publish Prof.
Yu's paper, translated into Japanese, together witha detailed explanation of the technical terms usedin Chinese philosophy, in a forthcoming issue of
The Journal of Death and Life Studies.

Report on the Workshop
A Re-reading of the Lebensphilosophie of Bergson in Les Deux Sourcesde la morale et de la religion (The Two Sources of Morality and Religion)
Izumi Suzuki (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Philosophy)

The are several conferences taking place in 2007 allover the world in commemoration of the centennial of the
publication of Henri Bergson's third work, L'Evolution creatrice(Creative Evolution), and in Japan, three international
workshops were held October 16-20 in Tokyo (Oct. 16-17) andKyoto (Oct. 20). Planned in conjunction with this, a workshop
was given on Bergson's fourth work, Les Deux Sourcess de lamorale et de la religion (1932), the topic of which is very closely
related to the interests of the Global COE Program
Development and Systematization of Death and Life Studies(DALS). (October 18, 10:00 am ˜ 6:00 PM, in the common
room of the Faculty of Law and Letters Building No. 2 on the
Hongo campus. Co-sponsored by the Steering Committee of theInternational Symposium to Commemorate the Centennial ofBergson's L'Evolution creatrice; with the support of the
Embassy of France in Japan and the Societe pour la Philosophie
de Bergson (Society for the Philosophy of Bergson).
Published in his later years, in Les Deux Sources(1932), Bergson (1859-1941) reexamined the essence ofmorality and religion from the viewpoint of his unique theoryof life, and in this book, which is his philosophical legacy, he
may be said to have extended his thinking onto a wide varietyof themes that were based on the two genres of closed
morality/static religion and open morality/dynamic religion.
Even taking the revolutionary advances in the life sciences in
the latter part of the last century and large-scale changes insocial structures into account, as well as the advance ofsecularization, this classic work still remains pertinent today.
The main purpose of the workshop was that, through digging
up the significance of Bergson's thought regarding theessenceof morality and religion, which serve to support our
fundamental concepts of human life and death, several
contributions might be made in the principle area of death andlife studies. Furthermore, it was also hoped that this workshop
would serve to create a substantive debate between theJapanese and French participants.
On the Japanese side, five researchers read papers that
had been sent to the French participants ahead of time, so theworkshop was arranged around hearing the papers and thecomments of the French side. There were 80 eager participants,
and their participation helped bring about an intense debate, as
we had hoped.
After the opening comments by Prof. Susumu
Shimazono, leader of the G-COE, the first session (Facilitator:
Izumi Suzuki) began with two presentations: Hajime Tanabe,
Lecteur des Deux Sources-un cas de reception du bergsonisme

dans 《l'Ecole de Kyoto》, by Haruhiko Sugimura (Universityof Kyoto), and Les Deux Sources dans l'histoire des religions,
by Fumiaki Iwata (Osaka Kyoiku University). These papers
were followed by enthusiastic comments from Frederic Worms(Universite de Lille), at present the leading expert on Bergson in
France, and a brief discussion. Further discussion was
postponed until the general debate.
In the afternoon, the second session (Facilitator: Prof.
Masanori Tsukamoto [Associate Professor, University ofTokyo]) was held, consisting of a presentation entitled Les
Deux Sources adossees a une esthetique de l'analogie, by
Ichiro Taki (Osaka Kyoiku University), to which the young anddistinguished Arnaud Francois (xxx [title], Universite de Lille)
made substantive comments, and a lively debate between thetwo ensued. This was followed by the third session (Facilitator:
Naoki Sugiyama [Associate Professor, Gakushuin University]),which began with two papers, Les Deux Sources de la morale
et de la religion dans l'histoire du mysticisme-Une lecture parun historien des religions, by Yoshio Tsuruoka (Professor,
Univeristy of Tokyo), and Morale du philosophe et Les Deux
Sources de la morale et de la religion, by Yumiko Nakamura(Ochanomizu University), after which Francois once morecommented, followed by a reading of the comments of JeanChristophe Goddard (Universite de Poitiers), who was unable toattend due to illness. After a short question-and-answer period,
the general discussion was opened (Facilitator: Shin Abiko[Professor, Hosei University]), and a lively debate ensued
centered on the ardent questions from the floor.
After the workshop ended, participants moved to the
Faculty of Engineering for a friendly reception, where, after agreeting from Prof. Masao Tachibana, Director of the Graduate
School of Humanities and Sociology, the fervent debates that
had begun during the workshop continued.
The quality of the papers presented by the Japaneseside, the straight-forward responses of the Frenchcommentators, and the extraordinary work of the interpreters(Hisashi Fujita [Japan Society for the Promotion of Science] andKaoru Taniguchi [Lecturer, Shikoku University]), in the friendly
atmosphere amid all the participants, all helped to bring about asubstantive debate and create an opportunity in which
everyone left with a sense of satisfaction. Beginning with thesubject of fellowship with the dead, innumerable important
themes concerning death and life studies were debated, and thedetails of those discussions can be found in the soon-to-bepublished minutes of the symposium (to be released in a
Japanese and French edition).

13

Report on the Workshop
Contemporary French Philosophy and Theories on Life
Izumi Suzuki (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Philosophy)

On the afternoon of October 19, 2007 (1:00
pm ˜ 4:00 pm), in the Sanjo Conference Hall on the
Hongo Campus of the University of Tokyo, aworkshop entitled
Contemporary French
Philosophy and Theories on Life, to which Prof.
Pierre Montebello (Universite de Toulouse II-Le
Mirail) had been invited, was held. In 1994, Prof.
Montebello published his voluminous doctoral
dissertation on Maine de Biran (1766-1824), La
decomposition de la pensee (Millon), followed, in 2003,
by a work on the philosophy of nature as being
another type of metaphysics, which focused on
Ravaisson, Tarde, Nietzsche, and Bergson titled
L'autre metaphysique. Essai sur Ravaisson, Tarde,
Nietzsche et Bergson (Desclee de Brouwer). Last
autumn he published the subsequent volume, Nature
et la subjectivite (Millon). One can say that he is acentral philosopher in contemporary French thought,
who, mainly drawing on French philosophical ideas
and based on his own unique concept of thephilosophy of nature, deepens our observations about
subjectivity as it relates to life and the body. As afellow researcher in death and life studies, inprinciple, I promote fundamental research o n l i f erather than on death, and am planning to holda series of seminars next year entitled
Contemporary French Philosophy and Theories on
Life, and it was as a kind of preview for theseseminars that I invited Professor Montebello, who isthe perfect representative of this field, on thisoccasion and decided to organize this event in theform of a workshop, which would guarantee asubstantial discussion.
As Prof. Montebello is in the midst of
preparing a publication on the representative
contemporary French philosopher Gilles Deleuze(1925-95) entitled Deleuze, philosophie du paradoxe(Vrin), I had asked him to present part of his researchin this workshop, to which I added comments about
the total scope of the professor's work, which was
followed by a discussion.
In the hour-and-a-half presentation, How Do
We Think About Nature?,
Prof. Montebello
primarily presented a lucid reading of theThe

14

Topography o f
M o r a l i t ychapter in MilleP l a t e a u x :Capitalisme etschizophrenie, byGilles Deleuze andPierre-Felix Guattari(Paris: Minuit, 1980)(the fundamental
concepts of thisw o r k a r e o f t e n presented in a very eccentricmanner) and then elucidated on the significance ofDeleuze's philosophy of nature. Although the thoughtof Deleuze (and Guattari) had been given attention ina somewhat journalistic manner in Japan at one
point, even in France there is still no comprehensive
treatment of it. Prof. Montebello's lecture wastherefore extremely interesting as it accurately shedlight upon the importance of the dehumanistic aspectof Deleuze and Guattari's thought, through lucidly
extracting the topography of their various concepts.
Following the rise of modern French
philosophy, which was based on the idea thathumans only exist as part of nature and society, anotion that gained influence against background of
the development of structuralism and the life
sciences, there was a return to various forms ofhumanism. However, humans are merely a productof nature and therefore it is exactly for this reason
that Professor Montebello's reading of the thought ofDeleuze and Guattari, which stresses antihumanismin the sense that humans can also become somethingother than human, is extremely valuable.
Based upon this, there were discussions andcomments for about 30 minutes upon points ofcontention concerning the explication of the overall
view of Deleuze's philosophy. After that, there wereso many questions asked by the approximately 20
participants--including Yoshio Tsuruoka (professor in
the Department of Religious Studies, Faculty of
Letters, The University of Tokyo) and Masanori
Tsukamoto (associate professor at the Department ofFrench Language and Literature, Faculty of Letters,
The University of Tokyo)--concerning thesignificance of Deleuze's methodology and his
theories of language (as well as Deleuze's relationshipto the contemporaneous philosopher Michel Henri[1922-2002]) and his thought, that everyone forgot totake a break. We enjoyed a most fulfilling sessionthat lasted for more than three hours.
How the central achievements of Death andLife Studies and this type of unique thought can belinked and joined together will no doubt be a topic for
the future, and I would like this inquiry to develop
into the seminar series that will begin this year.

Report on the 19th Death and Life Studies Workshop(24 October, 2007)
Tetsuro Shimizu (Professor, Ueihiro Chair for DALS, Graduate School of Humanities
and Sociology, Philosophy/ Clinical Ethics)

The Death and Life Studies workshop series
provides younger researchers in this program an
opportunity for study, and were started during the 21stCentury COE Program phase of the program. Eighteen
workshops have so far been held, and the 19th was the first
one to be held since the program shifted into its Global COE
phase. Our specially appointed researchers and research
assistants mostly started on their jobs in mid-September or
early October, so this workshop in one sense marked thestart of the Global COE phase of the program.
The workshop was held from 16:30 to 18:00 in
Room 312 of the Faculty of Law and Letters Building No. 1
in the Hongo Campus; as one of the project leaders, I gave atalk entitled The Range of Clinical Death and Life Studies.
Six professors and 21 younger researchers attended. As the
speaker assigned to give this lecture, my understanding was
to recognize the G-COE program's responsibility to actively
meet the needs of society and to consider its potential formaking a contribution to actual, on-site health care service
as the Death and Life Studies program moves from theconstruction phase under the 21st Century COE
program into the development and systemization phase
under the Global COE program. I also felt that this was anopportunity for me to express my understanding of myduties in view of my appointment starting this year to the
Uehiro Chair for Death and Life Studies, a position fromwhich support for the Global COE Program is expected.
So, now that it comes time to record a summary of
my talk, I am somewhat concerned because I find it difficult
to distinguish among what I intended to say, what I thought
I said, and what I actually did say. What follows is what I, as
speaker, thought I said.
In the first half of my talk I explained my views on
the field of death and life studies and how clinical death andlife studies can meet social needs from its position withinthat field. In the second half, I related two examples
involving Death and Life Studies/Clinical Death and Life
Studies, and pointed out their instructive potential. [Deathand Life Studies/Clinical Death and Life Studies] is not only
a promising academic field but, more importantly, is theobject of special expectations from society. These
expectations involve the potential for Death and Life Studies
to discover and offer some kind of practical knowledge for
dealing with the fact that everybody, and not just otherpeople, will eventually die. In the course of actual medical
treatment and care that deal with death and life, it is Clinical
Death and Life Studies that need to meet these expectations,as they serve as people's point of contact for Death and Life
Studies in the real world. Also, communicating withpractitioners at the actual site of health-care service, Clinical
Death and Life Studies promotes active research, inwhich research is practically applied and practicalapplications contribute to research. (For more on active
research, see Newsletter No. 18, p. 11).
[Topic 1: On understanding death ]The verb to die in Japanese (shinu) is usedboth transitively and intransitively, that is, it is used to sayof a subject He/she/it is dead, and also in saying, forexample, My father
died. This implies a
distinction between
death of the body anddeath of a person, as
seen in the story ofIzanagi and Izanami,
male and female
deities in Japan's
creation myth. Izanami
dies in giving birth to afire deity, and Izanagi
comes after her to the land of the dead where he speaks to
her and tries to convince her to come back to the land of theliving, but abandons her when he discovers the horror ofher rotting corpse. This has some correspondence with thedifference between biological life and what I callbiographical life, or life's story line. Also, we understand aperson's death as an irreversible severing of communication(or departure ) [but] as seen in the way we speak ofjoining the long line of the dead, we [also] accept thewisdom that assumes people are not rendered completely
solitary by death.
[Topic 2: What is Hope for Those Facing Death?]
Hope in the face of imminent death fromserious illness or other causes does not involve expecting acure or hoping for life after death; rather it is thehope that one can muster the courage to live what remainsof life in a positive way. What supports such courage is anunderstanding of one's situation in the sense that we are
not alone, but are perforce part of a network of otherpeople. This realization serve as a crucial point forunderstanding how the opportunity to communicate withothers supports people when their lives are entering theirconcluding phase.
After the workshop, a party to commemorate thelaunch of the Global COE Program was held at the Nemuno-ki restaurant at the University of Tokyo Hospital. Manyof the program leaders and young researchers gathered forthe event, which began with a short speech by project
leader Professor Susumu Shimazono. With the project being
extended for the next 5 years, all resolved to do their best,and enjoyed a pleasant evening.

15

Report on Dr. Sara Heinamaa s Lecture
Phenomenologies of Sexual Difference: From
Fecundity to Generosity
Tetsuya Sakakibara (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities andSociology, Philosophy)

Over the past 10 years a new movement has
been observed in Scandinavian countries, where thesway of analytic philosophy has always been quite
strong. M e m b e r s o f a c o m p a r a t i v e l y y o u n g
generation have been grouping together in the nameof phenomenology and have become active. Young
philosophers from five countries - Denmark, Sweden,
Norway, Finland, and Iceland - banded together in2001 to form the Nordic Society for Phenomenology,
and have been exchanging their research ever since.
The following is a short report on a lecture presented‥
on November 7 by Dr. Sara Heinaamaa,
Docent ofPhilosophy at the University of Helsinki, Finland, andthe current President of the Nordic Society for
Phenomenology.
‥
Dr. Heinaamaa,
the author of Toward a
Phenomenology of Sexual Difference: Husserl,
Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir (Rowman & Littlefield,2003), is an up-and-coming scholar of phenomenology
who has approached several philosophicalissues concerning sexual difference based on
the phenomenology of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, andBeauvoir. In recent years she has widened herinterest to include the thinking of Husserl andLevinas on ethical issues. In light of our Global COE
program
Construction and Development andSystematization of Death and Life Studies (DALS),‥
however, for this lecture Dr. Heinaamaapresented aphenomenological inquiry on the subject of sexual
difference, based on her most recent studies of thephilosophical differences between Heidegger andLevinas on the subject of death and life.
Her lecture, Phenomenologies of Sexual
Difference: From Fecundity to Generosity, can besummarized by the following four points:
1) Levinas criticized Heidegger, who stipulated that
Dasein, or being-in-the-world, should anticipate death,
which cannot be overcome, by existing in the face ofbeing-toward-death and claiming it as one's own.
From the standpoint of Levinas, this overlooks thepossibility of a different future as seen in the sensory
relationships of Eros found in parent-childrelationships (or between the "father-and-son"16

relationship).
2) Present-day feminists, however, have criticized
Levinas' thinking regarding Eros and the father-son
parenthood/relation, because such relationships are
not seen as being the sole means for the future thatis passed along to children and such thinking isinherently patriarchal.
3) Beauvoir, who was a contemporary of Levinas, hadalready criticized him for overlooking sexual
difference; according to Beauvoir, men and women
have fundamental differences in that there is an
essential difference between male and female sexualdesire.
4) In spite of this, from the above, one can see in
Beauvoir the suggestion for the possibility ofrealizing a willing (or intentional) form of mutual
generosity through the Erotic relationships of men
and women.
The paper was extremely stimulating, andafter the lecture a lively question-and-answer session
continued past the scheduled time, centering on twoquestions. The first question was, which was did she
consider the more fundamental, sexual difference asdelineated by Beauvoir or the existential construct ofthe more general Dasein (being-in-the-world) as
argued by Heidegger? The second question was how,
if there is a fundamental difference in sexual desire,‥can there be generosity? Dr. Heinaamaa
seems totake the term generosity, as used by Beauvoir, tomean recognizing differing sexual intentionality
between men and women. I was very impressed byher comment regarding the second question, thatcultivating this difference
was itself very
important.
‥
Dr. Heinaamaa
responded to the first question
by using the example of a pregnant woman thatexperiences space and time in a completely new anddifferent way when she becomes pregnant. It was
felt that both the sexual difference point of view
demonstrated here and the intercultural point of viewthat has been attracting attention in recent years are
extremely important to our Global COE project,which is trying to further develop and systematize
the study of issues concerning death and life.

Report on the Workshop
Collaboration between Life Science and Deathand Life Studies
Masaki Ichinose, (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Philosophy)

A workshop entitled A Collaboration Between
Life Science and Death and Life Studies was held
under the joint sponsorship of DALS and the Applied
Ethics Education Program from 11 AM on Saturday,
December 1, 2007 in the common room of the Faculty of
Law and Letters Building No. 2 on the Hongo Campus of
the University of Tokyo. DALS inevitably calls to mind
themes connected with the humanities, such as bioethics,
the right to self-determination, and views about thenature of life and death, but in fact this academic area
has a broader implication, crossing the borders between
a wide variety of research fields and covering themes
such as medical decision making, homicide, capital
punishment, war, food, and environment ethics. As thewords Life Studies in the title suggest, there is anecessary cross-over into Life Science. The workshop
was held based on this understanding, that we need tocreate a starting point to work together with Life
Science, and to this end we invited leading scholars in
the fields of evolutionary theory, radiology, psychiatry,and genetics to participate.
The workshop opened with a welcome addressfrom Professor Susumu Shimazono, leader of ourprogram. Masahiro Shimoda, associate professor in the
Department of Indian Philosophy and Buddhist Studies,and Sumihiko Kumano, professor in the Department of
Ethics, presided over the meeting. In the first session,
Professor Ken'ichi Aoki of the School of Science at the
University of Tokyo presented a paper entitled The
Drama of the Shift between Neanderthal Man and Homo
Sapiens. Professor Aoki made extensive use of themost recent research and empirical data to discuss why
Neanderthals became extinct in the course ofcompetition with Homo Sapiens. His argument took theform of a comparative study of a number of rational
hypotheses from the standpoint of evolutionary theory,
based on contrasting individual and social learning, andusing a mathematical approach. With the intention ofdeepening the discussion, the commentator, Masaki
Ichinose, brought up basic points of concern, such as
what is evolution as it is understood here, how is it
different from genetic drift, and is it possible todistinguish at the level of molecular biology between
individuals and social learning?
The paper of the second session entitled Why
Do People Commit Suicide? was given by Yoshinori
Cho, associate professor (Psychiatry) at the Teikyo
University School of Medicine Hospital. Professor Cho
first of all stated that there are many types of suicide.
Though suicides can occur based on a self-determined,
rational decision, he stressed that a large number stemfrom psychological factors like melancholia brought onthrough circumstances in the social environment, suchas stress, bullying, and financial problems. He
persuasively backed up his argument with a large
amount of practical data. Accordingly, psychiatrictreatment should be recognized as having the potential toprevent suicide, he added. Professor Sei'ichi Takeuchi

commented on this issue from an ethical standpoint,
indicating that suicide needs to be seriously consideredthrough the influence it has on human relationships.
Session Three was presented by (do you
actually say this? Changed the sentences for session 1
and 2 above) Associate Professor Kei'ichi Nakagawa,director of the Department of Palliative Medicine at the
University of Tokyo Hospital, under the title Cancer
Treatment and Ideas about Life and Death Held by theJapanese. This is a topic already closely linked with
DALS. Professor Nakagawa pointed out that while Japan
has the highest life expectancy in the world, it also has
the highest incidence of cancer, with one in two Japanese
suffering from it at some stage in their life. Despite this,the Japanese have little knowledge about cancer itself, its
treatment and care, and palliative medicine. As a result,
there is a vital need to educate the Japanese about theseissues. Professor Tetsuro Shimizu of the Graduate Schoolof Humanities and Sociology at the University of Tokyo
made a comment concerning the differences between
cure and care, pointing out that we need to address how
we understand ambiguities caused by the differences
between these two words.
Session Four was the final presentation of the
day and in it Professor Shoichi Ishiura of the Graduate
School of Arts and Science at the University of Tokyo
gave a paper entitled Workings of the Mind at a
Molecular Level. Professor Ishiura used a great numberof fascinating studies to explain how human illness,character, and disposition can be clarified at a certain
level through a molecular biological and genetic analysis
employed to study the workings of the mind and genetic
structure. This seems to suggest in principle thepossibility of improving the human condition and that
there is hope that this condition will be improved in the
future. Professor Shimazono brought up the notion thatthe comfort and competence achieved through thetechnologies of the natural sciences can be seen as
constituting a false self, and he explained that thisworkshop served as a new meeting-point between Life
Science and the Humanities. Finally, Professor Sei'ichi
Takeuchi, chairman of the Applied Ethics Education
Program, brought the workshop to a close. The
participants went on to the Sanjo Conference Hall, on theuniversity campus, for a welcome party, where they
were greeted by Professor Masao Tachibana, director of
the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology.
Discussions continued during the party, the culminationof a meaningful day of academic pursuits.
Future development and continuity of thecollaboration between Life Science and DALS will testify
how successful the first attempt at collaboration has
been. The fact that the first step has been taken is ofparticular significance. I look forward to further
association with fields such as nutritional science,
pharmacy, ethology, forest ecology, and others.

17

Report on the SymposiumInterrelationship of Relics and Images: An Attempt at
a Comparative Art History
Akira Akiyama (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Art History)

The Global Center of Excellence (=G-COE) hosted
a public, international symposium, "Interrelationship ofRelics and Images: An Attempt at a Comparative Art
History," on December 16, 2007. The event took place
1:00 PM on the Hongo Campus, in Lecture Hall No. 1 of
the Faculty of Law and Letters Building No. 2. Between
130 and 140 people attended the meeting, more than we
had anticipated, so it was our happy misfortune that the
150 copies of handout materials we had prepared for
distribution soon ran out.
The symposium consisted of two sessions. The
first was devoted to presentations by four scholars--two
specializing in Buddhist art and two specializing inChristian art. To start things off, Prof. Susumu
Shimazono, the leader of the G-COE Program"Development and Systematization of Death and Life
Studies (DALS)," offered welcoming remarks and spoke
about the G-COE project.
Prof. Romi Hida (Waseda University) then spokeon The Cult of Sarira and Sovereignty and thehistorical evolution of the veneration of Buddha relics in
China. Her comments about how relics were tied in withsovereignty, the various aspects of their presentationand display, and the sense that some Chinese had the
feeling of being in a remote region [remote from the"center of civilization," i.e., India] was of interest to
scholars of medieval Christianity for purposes ofcomparison, and I was impressed to see our twoparticipants from overseas vigorously taking notes.
Next, Prof. Erik Thunφ (Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey) discussed the Sancta
Sanctorum Chapel in Rome, which houses the enameledreliquary cross, the Reliquary of the True Cross that
contains a fragment of the True Cross and, also in Rome,the mosaics of the Basilica of Santa Prassede. He also
discussed the diverse reciprocal relationships between
relics and images of early medieval Christianity.
Following this, Prof. Scott B. Montgomery(University of Denver) presented fascinating examplesof figured reliquaries, which proliferated during the latemedieval period. Explaining their use in religious rites,
he discussed his own research and argued for the
possibility that the saints, their relics, and the reliquaries

18

were considered to be one and the same.
Finally, Prof. Kensuke Nedachi (Kyoto
University) discussed Japanese portrait images and theirintimate connection with the veneration of the bones ofthe deceased, commenting on earlier examples for thispractice in China. Going beyond the narrow frameworkof relic cults, I believe his remarks suggested to Western
scholars the possibility of comparative research (forexample, of wax portrait images) from the viewpointthat three-dimensional function as substitutes for thehuman body.
For the second session, citing Hans Belting, I
commented briefly on possibilities of an East-Westcomparison of the correlation of relic and image. Thiswas followed by a discussion based on the first session.
Details will appear in proceedings due to be published in
the next academic year. Although the session went overthe scheduled time, the topics for discussion were notexhausted, and succeeded in heightening interest in the
topics of relics and an attempt at an East-Westcomparison. Over half of the attendees were scholars ofWestern culture, however, and as noted in the closing
remarks by Prof. Shigetoshi Osano, vice-director,
Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Facultyof Letters, it is hoped that henceforth scholars ofJapanese culture will actively play an increasing role in
implementing comparative studies that are morethoroughly international.
More than a few of the participants came froma considerable distance. Furthermore, many attendees
kindly filled out the questionnaires that were handed out
at the meeting, and the responses included valuablesuggestions and proposals. We will refer to these, which
will enable us to plan symposiums with enricheddiscussions. In closing, in addition to the professors who
made presentations I would like to thank everyone who
participated, as well as the research staff and students
who helped so much in the preparation andmanagement of the event.
This symposium was held as "'Death and Life'and Visual Culture I." 'Death and Life' and Visual
Culture II" will be held on May 31 (Saturday) with thetheme, "Miraculous Images in Christian and Buddhist
Culture." Details will follow.

DALS TEACHING STAFF

PROGRAM LEADERSHIMAZONO Susumu

Religious Studies

REPRESENTATIVESAKIYAMA Akira
ANDO Hiroshi
IKEZAWA Masaru
ICHINOSE Masaki
OTOSHI Tetsuya
KUMANO Sumihiko
SATO Kenji
SHIMIZU Tetsuro

Art History
Japanese Literature
Religious Studies
Philosophy
West Asian History
EthicsSociology
Philosophy/
Clinical Ethics

SHIMODA Masahiro Indian Philosophy
SUZUKI Izumi
Philosophy
TAKAHASHI Miyako Public Health/
Psycho-Oncology/
Internal Medicine
TAKEUCHI Seiichi
EthicsNAKAGAWA Keiichi Palliative Medicine
YAMAZAKI Hiroshi Medical Sociology/
Qualitative Research

AFFILIATED PROFESSORS(WITHIN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIOLOGY)AKAGAWA Manabu Sociology
ICHIKAWA Hiroshi
Religious Studies
ONUKI Shizuo
Archaeology
OSANO Shigetoshi Art History
KARASAWA KaoriSocial Psychology
KINOSHITA Naoyuki Cultural Resources Studies
KOJIMA Tsuyoshi
Chinese Philosophy
SAKAKIBARA Tetsuya Philosophy
SHIBATA Motoyuki Contemporary Literary Studies/
English and American Literature
TSUKAMOTO Masanori French Literature

TSUKIMOTO Masayuki
NOJIMA Yoko
HAYASHI Toru
FUKASAWA Katsumi
FUJII Shozo
HONDA Hiroshi

Japanese Philology
Japanese History
Linguistics
Occidental History
Chinese Literature
Korean Studies/
Social Anthropology
YANAGIHASHI Hiroyuki Islamic Studies
YOKOZAWA Kazuhiko Psychology
WATANABE Hiroshi Aesthetics

AFFILIATED PROFESSORS(FROM OTHER DEPARTMENTS)
AKABAYASHI Akira Biomedical Ethics(Graduate School of Medical Science)
ISHIURA Shoichi
Molecular Cognitive Sciences(Graduate School of Arts and Sciences)
OUCHI Yasuyoshi
Reproductive,Developmental
and Aging Science(Graduate School of Medical Science)
KAI Ichiro
Social Gerontology(Graduate School of Medical Science)
KANAMORI Osamu Ethics of Science(Graduate School of Education)
KAWAMOTO Takashi Ethics/
Social Philosophy(Graduate School of Education)

KITO Shuichi
Environmental Ethics(Graduate School of Frontier Sciences)
EINOO Shingo
South Asian Studies(The Institute of Oriental Culture)
NISHIGAKI Toru
Fundamental Informatics(The Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies/
Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies)
HIGUCHI Norio
Anglo-American Law(Graduate School for Law and Politics)
MIYASHITA Mitsunori Palliative Care Nursing(Graduate School of Medical Science)
MUTO Kaori
Sociology/
Medical Welfare Studies(The Institute of Medical Science)19