The 2nd EAJS Japan Conference, Kobe University, 24-25 September 2016
It is a pleasure for me to report briefly on the successful 2nd Japan Conference of the EAJS.
The conference was held at Kobe University. It took place a few days after the typhoon
Malakas had hit Japan, and so the weather was clement, temperate and clear, affording us
some impressive views over the Osaka Bay from Kobe’s Rokko campus, which provided an
ideal setting for the conference. For a number of our colleagues and members, this was thefirst visit to Kobe University, but I am sure that it will not be their last.
On 23 September, the day before the conference, Kobe University had organized a wellattended pre-conference event, marking the launch of Kobe’s new Kobe University
Educational Program on Current Japan which is taught in English and open to exchange
students at both undergraduate and graduate (Master's) levels.
The conference proper opened on 24 September and took up two full days with a richacademic programme. On 24 September, Dr. Tamotsu Aoki (Director of the National ArtCenter, Tokyo) delivered the first keynote lecture (“Age of ‘cultural power’ – Japan, Asiaand the world”), and on the second day of the conference, Professor Gabriele Vogt
(University of Hamburg) gave the second keynote lecture, on “Crossing borders: Japan andEurope in a globalized world”. This webpage http://www.lit.kobeu.ac.jp/~eajs2016/index_en.html has links to both the full conference programme and thebook of abstracts.
In addition to the academic programme, the conference reception on 24 September treatedparticipants to delicious - and plentiful - food and drink, as well as a mesmerizing
performance by the Kamigata Taiko Ren, which included an opportunity for conference
participants to try out their taiko skills.
I would like to thank all of those involved in making the conference the true success it turned
out to be. The EAJS Office in Berlin, and especially Tim Herbort, played an important part inplanning and scheduling and in processing the abstract proposals for review. I would also liketo thank the section convenors for their important contribution to the smooth running of eachof the sections. They were: Carmen Tamas (Anthropology), Simon James Bytheway(Economy), Harald Fuess (History), Anna Bordilovskaya (Language and Linguistics), Paul
Schalow (Literature), Ayako Kusunoki (Politics), Christian Morimoto Hermansen (Religionand Philosophy), Bjarke Frellesvig (Interdisciplinary).
Thank you also to the Japan Foundation who supported the conference financially. Both theJapan Foundation and TIFO had representatives attending the conference, and making
themselves available to EAJS members.
First and foremost, however, I must on behalf of the EAJS express my immense gratitude toKobe University and the local organizers. Kobe University committed a great deal ofresource, both direct and indirect costs, to holding the conference and organizing thepracticalities and logistics of the conference, and many colleagues at Kobe gave generouslyof their time both before and during the conference. The local organizing committee, which
included Professor Nobuo Kazashi, Professor Yoshikazu Suzuki, and Kiyomitsu Yui, waschaired by Professor Noriyuki Inoue, Executive Vice-President of Kobe University. Without
his strong support the conference would not have been the great success it was, and we areextremely grateful to Professor Inoue and all his colleagues at Kobe University for all they
invested in the conference.