REPORT ON RECURRENT EDUCATIONSHIMIZU Tetsuro (Professor, Uehiro Chair for Death and Life Studies, The Center for Evolving Humanities,
Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Philosophy and Clinical Ethics)

Death and Life Studies for
Healthcare & Nursing Professionals
The University of Tokyo Global
COE Program's winter course on Deathand Life Studies for healthcare andnursing professionals was held for threedays beginning on Jan. 12, 2008. This
course, consisting of lectures, seminars,
and small group discussions, wasorganized to provide those working inclinicalsettings
withpractical
knowledge, theories, and methodologies
of death and life studies. This course,
intended to promote exchange between
those working in the humanities andothers in clinical settings, was, to ourknowledge, the first of its kind in Japan.
The number of applicants exceeded 100
including those who were not directly
involved in clinical settings, although weoriginally limited the number ofparticipants to 50. The program drew
much larger number of applicants than
we had expected, letting us know thestrong need of healthcare and nursing
professionals for this kind of program.
We accepted 64 applicants working inclinical settings as regular participants,
and 40 others as auditors.
The
participants came from various areas
across the nation ―including Hokkaido,
the northern-most part of Japan. At theend of the three-day program, we gavecompletion certificates to 51 regularparticipants who attended more than 10classes in the 12-class program.
The curriculum (see the tablebelow) was comprised of two majorparts, theDeath and Life Studies Core,
which offered lectures of relevant
research progress in the fields ofhumanities and sociology, and theClinical Death and Life Studies Core,

Prof. Shimizu lecturing.

2

which dealt with practical issues inclinical settings. The topics of thelectures included the history of deathand life studies in Japan and theobjectives of the DALS program at ouruniversity, which has moved from theconstruction
phase under the 21stCentury
COE
programintothedevelopment and systematization
phase under the current Global COE
program. In the fields of religion andsociology, lecture topics dealt with early
Buddhist ideas on death and life,
Japanese views of death and life basedon an analysis of Japanese thinkers andliterature scholars, and problems related
to death and dying in contemporary
thought. We think that many of thelectures dealt with issues that seemed
new to many of the participants andoffered them a fresh perspective. In theClinical Death and Life Studies Core,
which focused on issues in the context
of real-life situations, topics included
problems involving cancer patients andpalliative care, the meaning of healthcare
professionals
aspatients,andsociological approaches to death anddying in hospitals.
We believe that these lectures gave
the participants opportunities to bettertake care of their patients and care forrecipients living in the final phases of
their lives though a better understandingof death and life issues, as well as
learning about ways to better support
patients' families. The program also
provided participants with a chance tothink of their own death and life, whichis also believed to have helped theparticipants to offer better care for theirpatients.
At the end of the program, theparticipants, a group with diverse
backgrounds, were divided into small
groups, and discussed actual cases thatwere offered by some of the participants.
The participants shared their experiences
and opinions about the cases in thediscussions, which we believe was also
helpful to deepen their understanding
about end-of-life problems.
We have developed another program
The Death and Life Studies Basic
Course for Healthcare and Nursing
Professionals for advanced learning for
those who have attended the firstprogram. The 24-class course requires

participants to continue their learning sothat better-built knowledge will further
help them to deal with end-of-life issues
for their patients and families. In thecourse, we offered four classes on
perinatal care in October 2008, andanother four classes on intractablediseases and elderly care in January
2009. Future courses are scheduled to beheld in 2009.
In addition to the programs held at
The University of Tokyo, we haveoffered several clinical ethics seminars
in local cities across Japan.
Curriculum of the 2008 winter programand professors in charge【Death and Life Studies Core】（1 class）
・Introduction to death and life studies
SHIMAZONO Susumu【Death and Life Studies Topics】（4 classes）
・Japanese views of death and life
TAKEUCHI Seiichi
・Thinking about death in contemporary philosophy
KUMANO Sumihiko・Views of death and life in Buddhism
SHIMODA Masahiro
・Views of death and Life in 20th century psychology
HORIE Norichika【Clinical Death and Life Studies Core】（2 classes）
・Introduction to clinical death and life studies /Understanding death and life, and values in caring /Clinical ethics / Spiritual care
SHIMIZU Tetsuro【Clinical Death and Life Studies Topics】（3 classes）
・Physicians as patients in life and death, and their practice styles
TAKAHASHI Miyako
・Japanese views of death and life, and cancer therapy
NAKAGAWA Keiichi
・Sociology of death and dying
YAMAZAKI Hiroshi【Clinical Death and Life Studies Exercises】（2 classes）
・Case studies
SHIMIZU & YAMAZAKI

Prof. Shimazono presenting completion certificates.

Written descriptions of some participants'
impressions of the program
During the three days, I thoughta variety of things that helped me sortthings out in my mind, and I believethat I have learned something thatshows me the direction to go in the
future. Among the lectures, I was
impressed by the one regarding
physicians as patients, which helped
me better understand what I do everyday. The lecture has made me thinkthat I will try to take a well-balanced
stance between
knowledge
andemotionwhen taking care ofpatients. The expression
emotional
laborer
indeed fits what I am. I will
try to understand each of my patientsby placing importance on taking aperson-to-person approach, although I
know it is hard to understand people. I
hope I could improve my expertise bymerging the skills I have acquired andmy characteristics I have nurtured
within myself. This program promptedme to fully rethink and understand its
importance. Previously, I was busily
occupied by everyday tasks, but thisprogram has newly empowered me. I
was also impressed by the lecture
taking a sociological approach to
medical problems. I have also learned
a lot from the opinions of theparticipants, all who have a variety ofbackgrounds.
This program has helped meunderstand how I should take care of
my patients as a social worker. Prior
to attending the course, I felt
conflicted about myself, as I waspretending not to see problems amid
the hectic day-to-day situations I face.
But now I feel it is OK to continue
feeling the conflict, and I believe there
is no such thing as perfection. I feelthat this program has heightened mymotivation. Now I hope I can work
better.
I and many other physicians inclinical settings are sort of physicallaborers, therefore, we do not usually
ask ourselves why we do such andsuch things in dealing with everyday

3many lectures that I have yet to sortthings out. But I am now determined
to make use of what I have learned in
the course in my daily practice.

Participants talk about a case.
tasks. In short, we work to
curediseases and/or improve patients'
conditions.
Besides, our tasks require
us to immediately make clinicaldecisions and take actions.
The
situation does not allow us to wait
until
tomorrow.
Our
everydaysituation requires us to make snap
decisions one after another. Therefore
we usually want and need answers
and conclusions right away, whichmight be seen by people in thehumanities as something that makes
us creatures from another planet (andvice versa).
Now I think, however, that many
problems that we have long shelved
because of our busy daily tasks havecome to the forefront. Problems related
to death and life studies are certainly
among them. I strongly ask scholarsof humanities to deepen their studies
and transmit their research to society.
Those in clinical settings may tell youthat
scholars do not know the realworldoryour studies would not be
useful.
But please do not be daunted
by such remarks. We, those in clinicalsettings, will ask you questions andseek knowledge and information fromyou. I do not believe what is mostimportant is something immediately
useful in clinical settings. Rather, I
believe that boosting exchanges
between the two worlds will lead to
produce something useful in clinicalsettings in the long run.
The
exchanges will help both of us toovercome stereotypical images wehave each other (Sorry for saying it inthis way. It may be a one-sided view
from physicians).
In the course, I listened to so4

I have learned many things in
the course. I am a pharmacist, butnever thought of death and life
matters so deeply throughout my life.
For a pharmacist in Japan, there isalmost no opportunity in daily tasks tothink about death or face patients'
deaths. We do not see bodies. Some
pharmacists even say that they do notwant to see a model of the humanbecauseit makes them feel sick.
I
do not know because of this or forother reasons, but pharmacists areoften put outside of medical teams. I
strongly hope that pharmacists andpharmacists-to-be have chances tolearn about death and life studies.

Death and Life Studies Basic
Courses for Healthcare
and Nursing Professionals
in Summer & Autumn 2008
The University of Tokyo Global
COE Program
Development andSystematization of Death and Life
Studiesorganized a three-day wintercourse on Death and Life Studies forhealthcare and nursing professionals in
January 2008, as the first attempt topromote exchanges between those inacademia and others in clinical settingsin communities. Following the course,
three shorter courses were arranged in
the next academic year that started in
April.
【Summer Course】
The first of the three, held for twodays from July 19, was intended as abeginner course. A total of 86 people, 66
regular participants who are cliniciansand 20 auditors who are those from
nonclinical settings, came from various
areas across the nation including
Okinawa, the southern-most part ofJapan. Of the curriculum (see table 1),
theDeath and Life Studies Coreby

Susumu Shimazono, theClinical Deathand Life Studies Coreby Tetsuro
Shimizu andClinical Death and Life
Studies Topicby Miyako Takahashi
had the same content as the program in
January.
Death and Life Studies Topics
had two lectures, one was given by
Yasunori Ando, professor of religion andbioethics at Tottori University, and theother by Akira Akiyama, associate
professor
ofart
history
at
The
University of Tokyo. Ando talked about
several aspects of Japanese views ofdeath and life. Akiyama talked aboutsacred relics in Christian history andtheir relations with art history in theWest, touching on lay people's views ofdeath and life expressed in their worshiptoward these sacred relics.
In the two classes ofClinical
Death and Life Studies Exercises,
theparticipants were divided into small
groups, and discussed two actual casesthat were offered by the participants.
One case was of an end-stage older
adult, and the participants discussed
what to do with his life-sustaining
treatment including tube feeding. The
other case was of an infant born with asevere disability, and the participants
talked about the case focusing on how topromote communication between careproviders and the parents of the child.
The
participants
earnestly
participated in the course work for twodays, and we believe that the program
was fruitful.
Curriculum of the 2008 summer program andprofessors in charge【Death and Life Studies Core】（1 class）
・Introduction to death and life studies
SHIMAZONO Susumu【Death and Life Studies Topics】（2 classes）
・Viewing death from life, viewing life from death:Views of religion and culture of religion
ANDO Yasunori・Western art and death: focusing on the Middle andearly-modern ages
AKIYAMA Akira【Clinical Death and Life Studies Core】（2 classes）
・Introduction to clinical death and life studies /Understanding death and life, and values in caring /Clinical ethics / Spiritual care
SHIMIZU Tetsuro【Clinical Death and Life Studies Topic】（1 class）
・Physicians as patients in life and death, and their practice styles
TAKAHASHI Miyako【Clinical Death and Life Studies Exercises】（1 class）
・Case studies
SHIMIZU, YAMAZAKI【Autumn Course】
The one-day autumn course on
Oct 18, 2008 was intended as advanced
learning for those who have attended the
beginner programs in January or July
2008.
The curriculum (see table 2)
focused on issues in the field of
perinatal care. Thirty-nine regularparticipants and 20 auditors came from avariety of places across the nation
including
Okinawa,
Kyushu,andHokuriku regions.
In theClinical Death and Life
Studies Topic,
Shiro Kozuma, associate
professor of obstetrics and gynecology
at The University of Tokyo, gave an
introductory lecture on perinatal care,including ethically difficult problems he
has encountered during his work at The
University of Tokyo Hospital. He said
that Japan has had extremely small
numbers of newborn or maternal deaths
per capita, the smallest level in theworld. However rare, when medical
providers come across such cases, they
have to tackle extremely difficult
situations
that
involve
ethically
challenging and emotionally taxing
problems.
In theClinical Death and Life
Studies Exercises,
three participantspresented their actual cases, and allparticipants discussed how to deal withproblems in these cases the case of acouple who chose a second-trimester
abortion after an abnormality was foundin the fetus by a prenatal diagnosis; thecase of a mother who refused to see her
stillborn baby; and the case of a mother
whose newborn baby died one day after
birth. The participants contemplated how
to deal with the feelings of such patientsProf. Kozuma lecturing.

5and how to communicate with them.
A symposium was held at the endof the one-day course. Yuka Ozasa,
assistant professor of midwifery andbioethics at the Bioethics Center at theTokyo Medical and Dental University,
talked about the findings of her researchon pregnant women's decision-making
process as whether to undergo prenatal
diagnoses. Ozasa stressed the importanceof supporting pregnant women throughthe decision-making process by taking
into account that they are pressured into
making hard choices. Yuriko Suzuki, a
researcher of ethnic studies who has
conducted interview studies withmidwives in rural areas in northern
Japan, talked about the commemorationof aborted fetuses and the once-practiced
custom of newborn killings that wereconducted to control the number offamily members in times of foodinsufficiency. Suzuki said that people inearly-modern Japan had considerably
different views of and attitudes to thelives of newborn babies from those in
the present time. Manabu Akagawa,associate professor of sociology at The
University of Tokyo, talked about
ongoing issues related to the lowbirthrate in Japan.
We believe that the participants had
opportunities to deeply think about
prenatal issues from the viewpoint ofdeath and life studies through the oneday course.
Curriculum of the 2008 autumn program andprofessors in charge
1． Clinical Death and Life Studies Topic・On perinatal medicine
KOZUMA Shiro
2. Clinical Death and Life Studies Exercises
・Case studies
SHIMIZU Tetsuro & YAMAZAKI Hiroshi
3. Symposium
・On perinatal careOZASA Yuka
・Abortion and commemoration of aborted fetuses
SUZUKI Yuriko
・Reconstructing society in the low birthrate era
AKAGAWA Manabu

A participant talks about a case.

6

A participant asks a question.

Clinical Ethics Seminar in Sapporo
Clinical Ethics Seminar in Sapporo
was held on Oct. 12, 2008 cosponsoredby The University of Tokyo Global COE
Program Development and Systematizationof Death and Life Studies
and Higashi
Sapporo Hospital Ethics Committee in
Sapporo, Hokkaido. The seminar, a partof our program to promote exchanges
between those in clinical settings andothers in academia, was organized toprovide clinicians with an opportunity tolearn and practice clinical ethics.
The seminar drew 75 participants,
mostly clinicians, not only from Sapporo
but from other parts of Hokkaido, thenorthern-most island of Japan. In theseminar, I gave a lecture on clinicalethics that I have developed, talking
about its concept and how to practiceclinical ethics. I also explained how to
use a format I developed to facilitate
clinical decision-making based on clinicalethics.
Clinical ethics has a set of threeprinciples: respect for human beings,
beneficence and social appropriateness/justice. Under the principle of respect
for
human
beings,which
partlycorresponds to the principle of respect
for autonomy in the common set of four
principles of biomedical ethics developedin the West, clinicians are required toprovide care for patients acknowledging
that patients could be independent anddependent at the same time. In clinicalpractice, care providers must supporttheir patients' autonomous decisionmaking by acknowledging the patients'
vulnerability that could be exhibited in
the patients' feelings and emotional
needs, often in an irrational way. In my
understanding, respecting for autonomy
in western ethics covers a part of theprinciple of respect for human beings.
When taking care of a patient,clinicians are required to deal withproblems arising in the process oftreatment by consulting not only withthe patient but his/her family. Family is
not a third party but a party involved.
Clinicians should recognize the patient
not only as an individual but a part of alarger unit. It is of great importance tounderstand relationships among thoseconcerned. It is partly because family isa part of the care-giving team, and also
because family could be affected invarious ways when a family member is
ill. Therefore, family should be involvedin a clinical decision-making process.
Medical professionals should makeefforts to work out clinical problems
through collaboration with the patientand family. For that purpose, they should
facilitate communication among thepatient, family and medical providers inorder to best understand the patients'
wishes to achieve their goals oftreatment. Practicing clinical ethics isthe process of mental and physicalactivities
conducted
bymedicalprofessionals to achieve the goals.
Decision-making processes involving
death and life form one of the central
issues of clinical ethics when the patient
is in a severe condition. Therefore,clinical ethics is the central domain ofclinical death and life studies, andclinical death and life studies constitutephilosophical activities indispensable forclinical ethics.
After the lecture, the participants
were divided into small groups to talkabout three actual cases that were
followed by discussions by the wholeparticipants.
The first of the three cases was ofan elderly woman who underwent
surgery to remove breast cancer. She
lost her husband after the surgery andnow she is diagnosed with an abdominal
tumor that is suspected to be malignant.
The patient and her family do not agree
about a treatment plan. What should

medical providers do in this situation?
Clinicians should try to understand the
feelings and preferences of the patientandfamilybyconsideringthecircumstancesfromavarietyofperspectives. The second case was of anelderly man who had played an activerole in society. Having a severe
prognosis, he insisted on a treatmentthat did not obtain a nod from medical
team. However, the confronting situation
was gradually eased by flexible attitudes
on the side of medical providers. In thethird case, a patient decided to undergo
an operation during talking about thetreatment with his physician, but then,the patient changed his mind; but after awhile, he again decided to have theoperation. Nurses were not well informed
about the patient and situation, which
made the problem more serious. In thecase, clinicians were required to deal
with the case by understanding swaying
feelings of the patient to reach adesirable treatment plan.
In the seminar, those from The
University of Tokyo and the participantsfrom clinical settings in Hokkaido
worked together in the discussions toseek a better solution for each case. A
number of participants voiced theirappreciation toward the seminar. It wasalso a good opportunity for us to learn
the reality of clinical settings, which
made us recognize anew what we shouldtackle in the research of clinical deathand life studies. The seminar was thefirst of our planned clinical ethics
seminars in local cities. We owe Higashi
Sapporo Hospital Ethics Committee, thecosponsor of the seminar, for theorganization of the seminar.

Participants talks about a case in groups.

7

Lu Xun's Last Testament
FUJII Shozo (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Chinese Literature)

Lu Xun (1881-1936) spent the last ten yearsof his life in Shanghai. His essay Death dates tothis period. This essay is dated to September 5 andappeared in the September 20 1936 issue of thebimonthly magazine Zhongliu.
Lu Xun fell ill on May 15 of that year andreceived daily visits from his attending doctor, theJapanese physician Sudo Iozo. Furthermore, on May
31 he was also examined by an American doctor
upon the urging of the American journalist Agnes
Smedley and Lu Xun's young friend, the writer Mao
Dun, and was told that his illness was so severe that if
he were European he would have died five years
prior. His illness continued to worsen after June, somuch so that the diary Lu Xun had written daily forthe last 24 years, with the exception of the period of
the January 28 Incident (a military clash between the
Chinese and the Japanese in Shanghai) has no entries
for the period between June 6 to June 30. Then, inearly July, there were signs of his illness alleviating.
Thinking about his illness, the normally indifferent Lu
Xun started to deal with the issue of death in his
above-mentioned essay and wrote a testamentencompassing several points (the translation of Lu
Xun's testament below is taken from David Pollard,
The True Story of Lu Xun, The Chinese University
Press):
1.) Do not accept a penny from anyone for myfuneral-old friends excepted.
2.) Hurry up and put me in my coffin and bury me,
and have done with it.
3.) Do nothing in the way of commemorating me.
4.) Forget me, and take care of your own lives. If you
don't, you are really idiots.
5.) When a child grows up, if he is not talented he canfind a little job to earn a living. On no account should
he pretend to be a writer or artist if he is not up to it.
6.) Don't believe promises.
7.) Don't have anything to do with people who woundothers but oppose retaliation and preach tolerance.
When Lu Xun was studying in Tokyo in
1903, and a telegram reached him informing him of
the critical physical condition of his mother, and hehurried back to China. A traditional wedding had
already been arranged for him. His marriage partner
Zhu An (1878-1947) had bound feet and was illiterate.
It is said that when Lu Xun emerged from the roomon the second floor of his house after his weddingnight he had traces of tears on his face and from thesecond day onwards he slept in the study by himself.
At that time Lu Xun was involved with theHan revolutionary movement that sought tooverthrow the Manchu dynasty and establish a Han
Republic and it is said that he was even ordered toassassinate an important Manchu dignitary. That heaccepted the traditional marriage forced on him by his

8mother can be seen as representing a mere filial act.
However, in March 1925 he started correspondencewith Xu Guangping (1898-1968) from Guangdong, as
one of the students at the Beijing Girls Normal
University where he was teaching as an adjunctinstructor, and after being forced to relocate to
Guangzhou by the reactionary government in Beijing,
the two started cohabiting in Shanghai in October
1927. Two years later, a boy, Zhou Haiying, was bornto them.
The testament can be said to have beenaddressed to Xu Guangping, who was to remain in
Shanghai. Why, however, did Lu Xun publicize his last
will before his death in a magazine? Was it because he
was worried that his mistress looking after his sevenyear-old son might be charged with adultery? Or was
it because he feared for his son, who might become
embroiled in the complex political web surrounding
Lu Xun, a man persecuted by the Guomindang
dictatorship and at times also attacked by theunderground Communist Party in Shanghai?
Shortly after the publication of his essay, on
October 19, Lu Xun suddenly died of a bout ofchronic asthma. He left a short note in Japanese
addressed to Uchiyama Kanzo, the owner of aJapanese bookstore, saying:
Dear laoban,
unsuspectedly, my asthma has started up again since
the night... I plead you. Please call Doctor Sudo bytelephone. I hope he can come soon.
After Lu Xun's death, a funeral committee wasformed of which Sun Yatsen's widow Song Qingling
and Mao Zedong were members, and a lavish funeralwith honor guards of armed police was conducted.
One year after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War,in October 1937, a ceremony commemorating the firstanniversary of Lu Xun's death was held in Yanan,
where the Central Party Committee of the Communist
Party was located. Mao Zedong celebrated Lu Xun asa saint of the Chinese revolution with the words: In
my opinion, in regard to his value to China, Lu Xun isa saint of the highest order.
Also, in more recent
years, Lu Xun's son Zhou Haiying and Lu Xun's
grandson Zhou Lingfei opened the Lu Xun Culture
Development Centre and attempted to have Lu Xun
jiuregistered as a liquor trademark, but theirapplication was rejected by the State Administration
for Industry and Commerce on the grounds that itwas not desirable to use the name of an exceptional
man for commercial purposes.
In the past, the testament Lu Xun himself
publicized during his lifetime was all but ignored forthe expediency of politicians. In more recent times, it
was ignored for the economic benefits of his own
family. However, when read from the perspective ofdeath and life studies, what different readings of thistext are possible? A more general re-reading of Lu
Xun's work should be attempted from thisperspective.

The Aesthetics of Perishing
AKAGAWA Manabu (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities andSocial Sciences, Sociology)

By my own understanding, thealluring field of Death and Life Studies
concerns birth, life, aging, and death. In
other words, this is a vast discipline thattakes into account the activities of livingorganisms and human beings. Although I
have only spent 20-some years in the fieldof Sociology, which makes me a rather
young researcher, I must admit that thediscipline of Death and Life Studies has
been a field from which I have beensomewhat distanced. My own lack of study
aside, one possible reason for my distanceis that the field of Sociology has tended toemphasize life. This is one reason for myown distance from this field.
Sociology has mainly been concernedwith the totality of the system of howliving human beings mutually interact.
Social and economic disparity, inequality,
power, modernity, globalization―topics
that Sociology has held as its bread andbutter―are mainly focused on aspects oflife. In such a framework, death has been
seen as the blind spot that negates thechain of social action and social systems.
Although there are many cases in which
Sociology has addressed death― forexample, the Sociology of Religion, theSociology of Medicine, and Clinical
Sociology―these fields have generally
asked how death can be seen as theultimate loss of meaning for life andsociety. Frankly speaking, for Sociology
death is a subject that must be
handledwith careand, in fact, it might not begoing too far to say that it has beensomewhat of a taboo subject. As Geoffrey
Gora once noted, can it not be said that thephenomenon of the Pornographification of
Death (death as that which should beconcealed)
is not only applicable tosociety-at-large but to Sociology as well?
Thus, it is challenging for Sociologists to
speak of death. I myself am little in theway prepared to do so. Honestly, I thinkreading books on death and Biology anddeath and science are of much greater
benefit.
Recently, at the same time, I havevaguely started to think that just as we
say living organisms and human beings
have both life and death, that the same canbe said about society in general. Meaning:the decline in the Japanese birthrate in the
21st century is an unavoidable problem wemust face (this will soon become a problem
in otheradvanced countries
as well).

That being said, at least in my case, I do
not think that we must put a stop to
declining birth and population rates.
Rather, instead of betting on population
increase and continued economic growth, I
would like to suggest that we perish in agraceful manner. Such a suggestion meansthat we must ask how society (in this case,
Japan) will age, how population will
decline, and how it will ultimately perish.
This is the problem we must confront.
Of course, there is no need to panic
over population decline. As the Japanese
proverb
The country is destroyed, but
the mountains and rivers remain goes,even with a decline in the Japanese
population (and the rare possibility of its
demise), this does not mean that humanbeings, the environment, or our world will
disappear (on a global scale, the population
boom is a much greater problem). Society,in the sense of society being a humanendeavor, will continue to exist.
I hold that Japan―the first advanced
country facing the problem of population
decline―must show others how to age,decline, and then perish. Just as individualliving organisms and human beings
overcome death through the continuationof their species, can we the Japanese notleave the example of a graceful manner of
perishing to future generations? Rather
than this being a question of personal
ethics, this can be seen as a problem
concerning the construction of society
based on a public ideal. For now, we must
consider the basic ideas behind creatingsuch a society and the rules governing
individual choice and public responsibility.
I believe that thinking about themechanism of a society with a declining
population is, at least for me, what will
become my own Death and Life Studies.

9The Second BESETO Conference of Philosophy(Peking University)
ICHINOSE Masaki (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Philosophy)

The Second BESETO Conference ofPhilosophy was held over two days on December
27-28, 2007, at Peking University. The term
BESETO is composed of the first two letters of thecity names Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and is used in thecase of these conferences to refer to the joint
research efforts of Beijing University, Seoul
National University, and The University of Tokyo.
The term signifies the entirety of the joint-research
activities of these three universities. However, the
BESETO activities of the teaching staff andstudents in the philosophy departments of theparticipating universities began earlier than theactivities of the other departments―when the first
conference of philosophy was held at Seoul
National University in February 2007. I reallyappreciate the well-arranged organization byProfessor Zhang Xianglong of Peking University,
Professor Lee Nam-In of Seoul National University,and Professor Murata Junichi of the Komaba
campus of The University of Tokyo, and also
express our gratitude to Assistant Professor
Sakakibara Tetsuya at the Hongo campus of The
University of Tokyo for his kind assistance.
Starting with the BESETO Conference ofPhilosophy, it was decided to include all strands ofphilosophy in the scope of our activities. The
expression
all strands of philosophy
is usedhere to signify that the subject of these events is
not limited to western philosophy, but, for example,
also includes Asian thought such as Confucianism,
Buddhism, and the Kyoto School of philosophy.
Reflecting our current international situation,
another feature of the BESETO conferences ofphilosophy is that we employ English as our main
language of communication. On the occasion of thesecond conference, four scholars (Sakakibara
Tetsuya, Imamura Kenichiro, Asakura Tomomi,
and myself) from the Global COE program
Development and Systematization of Death, andLife Studies presented on our current research.
Apart from these four speakers, Professor Murata,
Assistant Professor Nobuhara Yukihiro, and threeothers from the Komaba campus Global COE
program gave research papers as well. This event
can therefore be regarded as a joint undertaking
by the two Global COE programs of The
University of Tokyo.
The content of the papers given at theconference was diverse. Concerning presentations
related to Death and Life Studies, Sakakibara
Tetsuya gave a talk about
Living with the
Other,
in which he discussed the problem ofexperiencing the Other from a phenomenologicalperspective. Touching upon the concept of mutualinterpellation ( watashi to nanji no yobikakeai )developed by Nishida Kitaro, Sakakibara discussed
the fundamental issues underlying our existence

10(sei). Next, Imamura Kenichiro spoke about John
Locke's ideas on punishment. To do so, heexamined the concept of punishment as education,
which is not discussed in Locke's Two Treatises
Of Government, through the lens of Locke's own
Some Thoughts Concerning Education, taking theissue of capital punishment as the opposing pole of
his argument. Asakura Tomomi elucidated in histalk the differences pertaining to the position of
morality in the thought of the Neo-Confucians andthe Kyoto School, paying particular attention to theideas of Mou Zongsan and Koyama Iwao. This talkreverberated deeply with the issue of theperception of life and death in East Asia. I gave
one of the opening talks, discussing the issue of
freedom, arguing that it is not an either/or issue of
whether an actor is entirely free or not, but that it
is an issue allowing for degrees of freedom. I thus
brought this problem into relation with the topics
of vagueness and probability. My presentation
built on ideas that were discussed at the Death andLife Studies Symposium in 2006, which is entitled
Death and Life Studies on Psychiatry andOffences: On Homicide.
On the whole, the East Asian perspective
was well developed in the talks. For example,
Professor Zhang (and others) employed Confucian
ideas in a discussion of contemporary theories ofjustice. In my opinion, this talk in particular raised
issues that represent the contributions East Asian
research can make to contemporary thought. I also
found the paper of the Korean scholar Mr. Cho
Eunsu concerning Japanese Buddhist Studies ofgreat interest. It can be said without doubt that thegrowing cooperation, partnership, and healthy
competition among East Asian scholars ofphilosophy will not only benefit research on
philosophy in East Asia, but also contribute to theglobal development of philosophy. The third
BESETO Conference of Philosophy is scheduled tobe held at the Komaba campus of The Universityof Tokyo from January 10-11, 2009. The Deathand Life Studies program is expecting enthusiastic
participation and attendance for this event.
For more information please visit the following
URL : http://www.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/philosophy/report/beseto2007.html

Public Symposium: Collective Death and Political Power: Memorial
Constructions and Ritualization
Workshop: Memory of the Dead and the Politics of Representation
IKEZAWA Masaru (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Religious Studies)

From September 19th-20th, 2008, a joint
research symposium was held with thecooperation of the Ecole francaise d'ExtremeOrient and Le Centre d'Anthropologie deToulouse. This research project began in 2003
with a symposium entitled The coexistence of
the Dead and the Living.
In 2005 we held afurther symposium entitled La mort et les audelas,
An additional symposium entitledLa
mort et les au-delas II
was held in 2006 in
Toulouse. The current symposium wasdesigned as a further expansion of theseprevious symposia. The 2008 symposium dealt
with the topic of untimely death in war anddisasters. How were the deaths caused by asingle event (i.e., war and disasters)
remembered, narrated, possibly manipulated [forvarious political means], and eulogized or
memorialized? As in 2005-6, the comprehensive
cooperation of the Ecole francaise d'ExtremeOrient allowed us to invite scholars working ina variety of disciplines from both Japan andFrance.
The public symposium (Friday, September19th) began at 1 PM. The symposium opened
with greetings by Masao Tachibana (Dean of
the Faculty of Letters) and opening comments
by myself (symposium chair). The first part ofthe symposium featured papers by Tomoko
Yamagishi (Meiji University), Ambiguity of theTragedy of Karbala , Marlene Albert-Llorca
Valle de los(University of Toulouse II) From
Caidos(the Valley of the Fallen) to theOpening of Common Graves: Memory and theDead during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939),
and Shigenori Iwata (Tokyo Gakugei
in Provincial
University), The Heroic DeadJapanese Communities . T h e s e p a p e r s w e r efollowed by comments from Jean-Pierre Albert(EHESS).
After a short break, the second part of thesymposium featured papers by Yves Goudineau(EFEO), Lost Spirits and Bodies: Symbolic
Recomposition and Physical Redistribution of
the Dead of the Vietnam War , Yuko Kuroda(Hanshin Support Network for the Elderly andthe Handicapped), The Defects of the Public
System in Japan and the Construction of a Selfhelp System following the Hanshin-Awaji
Earthquake , Olivier de Bernon (EFEO), From
Political Manifesto to Commercial Obscenity:
The Treatment of the Memories of Khmers
Rouge Victims in Phnom Penh and its vicinity.
These three papers were followed by commentsfrom Katsumi Fukasawa (University of Tokyo).
Although there was not ample time for the final
group discussion, the variety of topics andperspectives on the memory of collective deathin war and natural disasters offered much toconsider for the several hundred people inattendance. The symposium was followed by adinner at the Hongo campus, which wasattended by all of the presenters and where adeeper discussion concerning the day's talks
was undertaken.
Despite a looming typhoon, and the fearthat the number of attendees would be limited,
the workshop on the following day (Saturday,
September 20th) was, fortunately, well-attended.
This workshop was designed to allow younger
researchers (including young COE researchers)
to have the opportunity to present papers andfor a general sharing of opinions by all those inattendance. The day began with two keynote
speeches and then papers were presented in
two separate rooms. We ended with a generalgroup debate. Unlike the previous day, we did
not employ simultaneous interpretation(consecutive interpretation was employed
instead). The day began with greetings from
COE leader Susumu Shimazono. This wasfollowed by keynote speeches from Sebastien
Tank-Storper (CNRS), The Attack on the
Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina. The
Political Conversion of Memories, and by
Fumihiko Sueki (University of Tokyo), The War
Dead and Religion in Japan.
The first group of papers by young
researchers (Tetsuya Otoshi/University ofTokyo presided) included the following:
1.Mamoru Fujisaki (University of Tokyo),
Memorial Construction of Anti-Semitism in the
Middle Ages: Accusations of Ritual Murder and
the Persecutions of 1096
2. Gregoire Schlemmer (IRD), Politics of theDead. Ancestors, the Evil Dead, and Patterns ofaction in the KulungRai, a Himalayancommunity
3. Hiroe Shimauchi (University of Tokyo), How
has Infant Death been understood?

11

4. Abigail Mira Crick (CAS, LISST), Victims of
the Desert : Moral and Political Considerations
on Certain Deaths at the Border
The second group of papers was composedof the following talks:
1. Kana Tomizawa (University of Tokyo),
Memories of Deaths of the British in the British
India: the case of Kolkata and other cities
2. Stephanie Mulot (University of Toulouse),
Memories and Figuration of the Dead in the
Slave Trade and the Slavery in the Cultural
Policy of Guadeloupe
3. Akira Nishimura (University of Kagoshima),
Performativity of Memories: The Future Opened
by Sacrificial Death
4. Eric Villagordo (University of Montpellier),
Representation and Memorial of September 11,
2001
Anne Bouchy (EFEO)
commentator for this session.

servedas

In the final group debate, Professors
Otoshi and Bouchy offered a general summaryand comments on the day's talks. Sato Kenji(University of Tokyo) offered final comments
and closed out the day's workshop.
On September 21st (Sunday) a private
tour for our French colleagues was held toobserve war memorials in the Tokyo area.
Notably, we visited Yasukuni Shrine, theYushukan, sites dedicated to the Kanto
Earthquake, and finally Gokoku temple (thegraveyard of the Imperial Army). The day'stour began, in the rain, at 9:30 AM and wereturned to the University of Tokyo at around 5
PM. We all pledged to meet again in the near
future.
Due to the broad nature of the topics
presented at this symposium there was the fearthat the symposium would be unable to12

maintain an overall sense of structure.
However, I heard positive comments on thepapers given and I myself felt that it was a
success. In part, this was due to the fact that―
despite the presenters discussing a variety ofcultures, topics, and time periods―the memoryof collective death evinces a structuralcommonality. Firstly, this is based on the powerover memory that the dead have (i.e., powerover the future). Secondly, and based on thisfact, the mentality of the living and the ideal of
the future is often constructed through memory
concerning the dead.
Although the only way to allow the deadto continue toexist
is through memory,there is the danger that those living hold theirown memories of the dead as being absoluteand that these memories become mere devices
for promoting the views of the living. Thissymposium showed the importance of carefully
listening to the voices of the dead.
Although the symposium was a success,a number of issues remained. The biggest
problem was that there was little time for group
discussion. In the future, it will be necessary toconsider the possibility of having presenters
distribute their full papers in advance and thendevote our time to a general roundtablediscussion.
Finally, I would like to note that this
symposium was successfully carried out due tothe help from the specially appointed COE
researchers. I would like to thank Mamoru
Fujisaki, Kana Tomizawa, and Tamotsu
Yoshizawa for their key roles in running thelogistical side of the symposium. My profoundgratitude also goes out to professors Anne
Bouchy, Susumu Shimazono, Kenji Sato, andTetsuya Otoshi, those who helped withinterpretation (Koichi Kanda, Takayuki
Shimoda, Masanori Sakano, Kiyonobu Date), andeveryone who kindly took the lectern.

Sino-Japanese Conference:
Towards an East Asian Death and Life Studies
TAKEUCHI Seiichi (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ethics)

The Sino-Japanese conference Towards an East
was jointly held by the
Asian Death and Life Studies
Global COE program Development and Systematization of
Death and Life Studies and the Chinese Association forJapanese Philosophy from February 18 to 19, 2008, in theconference room of the Zhaojialou Hotel. There were
sixteen participants from Japan and approximately fifty
participants from China.
After being greeted by Bian Chongdao, the head of
the Chinese Association for Japanese Philosophy, I gave ashort explanation of our intentions behind this event. I
stressed that this was to be an opportunity to take East
Asian Death and Life Studies with a special focus on China
and Japan― a topic matter that has been left largely
ignored as a main object of study heretofore― as a direct
subject of inquiry in order to investigate the possibilities
and various issues that are contained in this field and toattempt a further development and systematization of
Death and Life Studies from this vantage point.
The first paper given in the morning session of the
18th was by Ishikawa Kumiko from the Faculty of Law at
The University of Tokyo. Her paper discussed the ideas of
Yanagita Kunio and Orikuchi Shinobu as one example ofmodern Japanese views of death and life, showing how at
the core of these views lies the issue of what happens tothe soul after death. The paper brought the views of these
two thinkers regarding the whereabouts of the soul after
death into relation to secular ethics. Next, Zheng Xiaojiang
from Jiangxi Normal University discussed the Confucianconcepts of letian zhiming ( to rejoice in Heaven andacknowledge ones allotted lifespan ) and anzhi ruoming( to accept calamities as one's fate ), arguing that when it
comes to facing death, many Chinese people― lacking
interest in the afterlife and faith in one of the universal
religions― only have the concept of destiny (ming) to relyon. However, in this regard, the traditional wisdom of
Confucian thinkers has great value for application today.
Continuing, as the last presenter of the morning session,
Morishita Naoki from the Hamamatsu University School of
Medicine presented on the views of death and life ofcontemporary Japanese, detecting in these views acombination of traditional, modern, and contemporary
sensibilities. Morishita noted that at the basis of traditional,
modern, and current Japanese views of death and life lies
the idea of that which is without form. Doing so, Professor
Morishita sought to show the potential for a new Deathand Life Studies.
The first presenter of the afternoon session was Zhu
Xiaopeng of Hangzhou Normal University, who discussed
ideas concerning death and life found in the thought ofDaoist thinkers. Traditionally, Daoists have stressed life andvalued the body, as well as perfecting the body andupholding the truth. Daoists have remained distant to andeven opposed power, money, and social standing which are
deemed to infringe on this life-centric philosophy. Buildingon these observations, Zhu argued for the significance of
these Daoist ideas for contemporary society. Following thistalk, Sueki Fumihiko (Graduate School of Humanities andSociology of The University of Tokyo) pointed out in his
paper that despite the fact that the activities of Buddhist
temples in modern Japan have been slighted as
Funerary Buddhism for their focus on death ritual andthe management of cemeteries, the living exist due to ahistory created by the dead, and therefore the issue of thedead cannot be simply ignored. Based on this perspective,
he stressed the need to think about the potential that lies
within that Japanese Buddhist thought which puts
emphasis on the dead. Zhang Zhiqiang from the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences discussed from a similar
standpoint the restructuring of Confucianism andBuddhism in modern Chinese history. He analyzed theconstruction of a particular Chinese morality and view ofdeath and life that formed part of the revolutionary spirit,
which was deemed necessary as part of the transition to amodern state; notably among the so-called men of resolve(zhishi) at the end of the Qing dynasty. He concluded thatthe contemporary worth of these views should be
investigated.
The second part of the afternoon session was
opened by the paper of Nakaoka Narifumi of Osaka
University. Arguing from the perspective of pragmatic
philosophy Nakaoka stated that inquiries into questions ofdeath and life, including old age, have to be based on arecognition of our fundamental human weakness. By
facing one's own physical and mental weakness, it isnecessary to come to the realization that the essence of
weakness.
human beings is circumscribed by thisFurthermore, he argued that it is not possible to cope withthese questions solely on the basis of one's own realization,
but that the mediation of others is necessary in thisprocess. In the last of the individual presentations, Li Pingof Renmin University argued that traditionally Chineseperceptions of death differed markedly according to one's
social standing, but that accompanying China's
modernization since the 1980s, people have gained relative
freedom in their choice of profession and that this has led
to a further pluralization of views on death.
The concluding session on the 19th saw
presentations by Ikezawa Masaru (Graduate School of
Humanities and Sociology of The University of Tokyo)
and Jin Fenglin of the Party School of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China. In his talk,Ikezawa Masaru analyzed the internal logic of westernderived bio-ethics and paid particular attention to thequestion of how some vague feeling is turned by different
actors through the act of verbalization into a systematic
bio-ethics. Based on these observations, Ikezawa discussed
how a Confucian bio-ethics could be formulated. In his
presentation, Jin Fenglin stated that the elucidation of thebasic aims of a Chinese philosophy of death, theestablishment of an academic model for this philosophy ofdeath, and the improvement of the methodologicalfoundations of comparative research on the philosophy ofdeath in China and abroad should be the basic course ofdevelopment for Chinese death philosophy.
The Chinese presentations stressed that one of themain issues facing Chinese studies of death is the questionof how to fill the void created by the decline of traditional
death rituals and views on death and life especially amongcity dwellers after the era of communalization and the
Cultural Revolution. Although the particular circumstances
differ, modern and contemporary Japan faces a similar
void. Much of our discussions centered around the questionof how a new death and life studies can be created anddeveloped in Japan and China. The proceedings of thisconference are scheduled to be published soon, both inJapanese and Chinese.

13

A Point of Departure for Academic Exchange in the Humanities
in East Asia − The 1st PESETO Humanities Conference
SHIMODA Masahiro (Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology,
Indian Philosophy and Buddhist Studies)

In a field that takes the indigenous history andculture of a specific country, region or people as its
object of study, it is extremely difficult to have freeacademic exchange from an objective standpoint incases in which the subject matter is closely related topresent times, as the content of one's researchfrequently appears to be an assessment of culturaland historical forms that have remained extant
throughout history until today. Despite the fact thatJapan, Korea, and China are connected geographicallyby their location around the East China Sea, in the 60
years following World War À an invisible wall has
appeared dividing the three countries and making
exchange in the public sphere difficult. The
humanities, too, have not been able to avoid this fate
and the period has been one of silence between thethree countries.
In the academic world, in which newdevelopments can only be hoped for based on thecontinuation of research begun by the previous
generation, it cannot normally be imagined that theprevious research methods, source materials, andresearch findings that had been accumulated overgenerations would be entirely discarded. However, inpostwar Korea and China, the various disciplines of
the humanities had to start anew by eliminating theinfluence of Japan. Although it was only one period oftime which wreaked havoc on the relations between
the three countries, it left lasting scars based on which
Japan, Korea, and China created an environment inwhich each, without the opportunity of directly facing
each other, has separately carried out research in thehumanities mediated by western academia while
sharing the same standards of evaluation andassessment.
This situation does, of course, not solely
originate in the unfortunate history of the recent past.
It is also related to the problem of a deep-rooted
modernity and post-modernity, in which the differing,
independent traditions of East Asian humanities were
subjected to the onslaught of western civilization andforced to rethink themselves entirely, from their
methods to the expressions used, and as a result wereforced to change their self-image. That the three
universities have gained the opportunity to mutuallyreflect on their respective humanities research appears
to me as an important step in coming to terms withthis larger problem.
Responding to a call by Yi Taejin, director of
the College of Humanities at Seoul National
University, public academic exchange on thedepartmental level in the field of humanities between
Peking University (PE), Seoul National University(SE), and the University of Tokyo (TO) was put into
practice from March 27 to March 30, 2008, at theCollege of Humanities at Seoul National University.
Director Yi spared no effort in treating his guests
from Beijing and Tokyo and opened the event withthe profound remark that this conference marked a
new milestone in the last 200 years of scholarship in
East Asia.
The participants from the University of Tokyo
were TACHIBANA Masao (director of the Graduate
School for Humanities and Sociology), MARUI Hiroshi(at the time vice-director of the Graduate School for
Humanities and Sociology), YOSHIDA Mitsuo,
ROKUTANDA Yutaka and the presenters
TSUKAMOTO Masanori (paper title Modern French
Literature and the Problem of I - The case of Paul
Valery ) and SHIMODA Masahiro ( The Establishmentof the Corpus of Buddhist Sacred Scriptures and theEmergence of the Buddhist World − Buddhist History
Seen from the Perspective of the Development ofMedia ), as well as the discussants TAKAHASHI
Kazuhisa (discussant of the paper Studies of English
Literature in East Asia - The Case of the Study ofEnglish Literature at Korean Universities by Kim
Seongkon of Seoul National University), YOSHIZAWA
Seiichiro (discussant of the paper The Sino-Euro
Interpretations of Matteo Ricci's Notion of tianzhu(God)
by Zhang Xuezhi of Peking University),
KOJIMA Tsuyoshi (discussant of the paper
An
Overview of Research in Ancient Chinese Political
History in China, Japan, and Korea - The Example ofSong Political History by Deng Xiaonan of Peking
University), Hayashi Toru (discussant of the paper
Construction of a Digital Archive for Altaic
Languages
by Kim Juwon of Seoul National
University). Additionally, as representatives of the
Death and Life Studies program, SATO Kenji and
IKEZAWA Masaru as well as the research fellow
TSUCHIYA Taisuke and KIM Kyungnam (PhD
Candidate) attended the conference.
This conference, convened under the topic
The Current State of Humanities Research in East
Asia and its Developmental Trends,
came to a
successful conclusion thanks to the cordial reception
extended by the host institution, the College of
Humanities at Seoul National University. While wewere able to take note of a historic moment at the
beginning of this new century with the start of14

academic exchange in the humanities between thethree representative universities of East Asia, at least
the participants from Seoul and Tokyo realized thatthey shared a common awareness when it comes tothe problem of what future direction the humanities
should take within a crisis-ridden global environment.
Furthermore, Death and Life Studies was identified asa new topic which to develop as part of the exchange
between the three universities. These two points haveto be noted as the concrete achievements of thisconference.
The College of Humanities at Seoul National
University, which became increasingly alarmed about
the disinterest in the humanities existing in theacademy at large and society, created a Humanities
Course for High-ranking Public Figures in 2007, alife-education course drawing on community services
designed for CEOs and persons in leadership roles inpolitics, economics, management, and society. The
course provides an opportunity for such figures toreceive education in and reflect on the field of
humanities. This course has received an enthusiastic
reaction from the participants who realized, thanks tothe course, how important humanities education is forcreating a better society and raising the standard ofliving.
From now on, the humanities at Korean
universities have to come out of the ivory tower andclosely engage with other academic disciplines andsocial reality, carrying out what Edward Said has
termed secular criticism , one of the panelists atthe conference said. I believe that the humanities at
the University of Tokyo, which is facing similar
problems, have something to learn from this approach.
At the preparatory meeting for Death and Life
Studies held on the last day of the conference, two
representatives each from Seoul National University
and Peking University conferred with the Death andLife Studies team from the University of Tokyo about
the future of this new field. Having received an
explanation about the activities of the Death and Life
Studies program at the University of Tokyo thus far
and planned future developments, representatives
from Seoul National University and Peking
University, showing a great potential interest in Deathand Life Studies related issues, replied that it is inparticular important to establish Death and Life
Studies in East Asia as an independent field of
enquiry. Deepening future cooperation, the conference
was brought to a close after Death and Life Studies inrelation to the humanities was determined as one of
the topics for the next PESETO conference.
The overall issue to be faced is also clear. While
Korea, China, and Japan are in immediate
geographical proximity to each other, they are divided
by language. The conference therefore depended
heavily on interpreting between the three languages,
something that symbolized this fundamental problem.

It was unavoidable that on this occasion, fruitful andstimulating conversations among scholars relied on
the use of English and French.
Looking at these conversations, it becomes clear
how thoroughly the event had been prepared. The
scholars from Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo came fromvarious academic disciplines such as English
Literature, French Literature, Ancient and Medieval
Chinese History, Altaic Languages, and Buddhist
Studies. The only discipline among these related tocontemporary East Asia was Buddhist Studies. Thismeans that the conference had been prepared in a
way that scholars would not address the issue of selfimage mentioned above directly, but that discussion
would take place through the lens of these various
separate academic disciplines. The prudence that went
into the preparation of the conference has to belauded.
Of course, the central problems remainunresolved. Actually, only the presentation in
Buddhist Studies became the object of dispute, despite
it having been (in the opinion of this presenter)objective in its content. However, compared to theaggressive zeal of the discussant, the attending
scholars, possibly because they all belong to a
tradition of humanities that is independent from thenational histories of their respective countries, reacted
in an astoundingly dispassionate manner and I was
pleased that they showed understanding towards myanswer to a delicate problem.
The second conference will be held in two years
in Beijing and the third conference will be held in four
years in Tokyo. In face of the heartfelt welcome we
received from Seoul National University, the membersof the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology
at the University of Tokyo already became anxious in
anticipation of the future conference in Tokyo.
Exactly because exchange has begun on an official
level between the three universities, particularattention has to be paid to the unofficial
communications taking place in order to continue thisexchange. It is the constant obligation of the previous
generation to ensure that future generations have itsomewhat easier.

PESETO conference representatives.

15