European Association for Japanese Studies
ヨーロッパ日本研究協会

Bulletin No. 85/86 |  October 2015

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

eajs Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015
ISSN 0308-5139

Editor and Layout:
Office of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS)
c/o Freie Universität Berlin
Hittorfstr. 18
14195 Berlin
Germany
Phone: +49 30 838 50929
Fax: +49 30 838 4 50931
e-mail: office@eajs.eu
website: http://www.eajs.eu

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Members of the Council 2014-2017
President

Treasurer

Prof Dr Bjarke FRELLESVIG
University of Oxford
Oriental Institute
Pusey Lane
Oxford OX1 2LE (United Kingdom)
Phone: +44 1865 278 200
Fax: +44 1865 278 190
E-mail: frellesvig@eajs.eu

Prof Dr Verena
BLECHINGER-TALCOTT
Freie Universität Berlin
Institute of East Asian Studies
Japanese Studies
Hittorfstr. 18
14195 Berlin (Germany)
Phone: +49 30 838 53599
Fax: +49 30 838 57114
E-mail: blechinger-talcott@eajs.eu

Secretary
Dr Laura MORETTI
University of Cambridge
Faculty of Asian andMiddle Eastern Studies
Sidgwick Avenue
Cambridge CB3 9DA(United Kingdom)
Phone: +44 1223 335106
Fax: +44 1223 335110
Email: moretti@eajs.eu

Immediate Past President
Prof Dr Rein RAUD
University of Helsinki
Department of World Cultures
PO Box 59
00014 Helsinki (Suomi Finland)
Phone: +358 9 191 22224
E-mail: raud@eajs.eu

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Extended Council Members
Dr Anna ANDREEVAHeidelberg University
Cluster of Excellence “Asia andEurope in a Global Context“
Voßstraße 2, Gebäude 4400
69115 Heidelberg (Germany)
Phone: +49 6221 54 4363
Fax: +49 6221 54 4012
E-mail: andreeva@eajs.eu
Prof Dr Andrej BEKEŠ
University of Ljubljana
Department of Asian and African
Studies
Aškerčeva 21000 Ljubljana (Slovenia)
Phone: +386 1 241 1308
Fax: +386 1 425 93 37
E-mail: bekes@eajs.eu
Prof Dr Andrea GERMER
Kyushu University
744 Motooka, Nishi-ku
Fukuoka 819-0395 (Japan)
Phone: +81 92 802 5618
Fax: +81 92 802 5697
E-mail: germer@eajs.eu
Prof Dr John BREENInternational Research Center forJapanese Studies (Nichibunken)
3-2 Oeyama-cho
Goryo, Nishikyo-ku
Kyoto 610-1192 (Japan)
Phone: +81 75 335 2222
Fax: +81 75 335 2090
E-mail: breen@eajs.eu
4Prof Dr Michael KINSKI
Frankfurt University
FB 09 - Japanologie
Senckenberganlage 3160325 Frankfurt am
Main (Germany)
Phone: +49 69 798 23249
E-mail: kinski@eajs.eu
Prof Dr Urs Matthias ZACHMANNThe University of Edinburgh
Asian Studies
50 George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9LH(United Kingdom)
Phone: +44 131 650 4225
Fax: +44 131 651 1258
E-mail: zachmann@eajs.eu
EAJS International Conference
2017 Local Organizer
Prof Dr Alexandra CURVELONew University of Lisbon
Centre for Overseas History
Avenida de Berna, 26-C
1069-061 Lisbon (Portugal)
Phone: +351 21 790 83 00
Fax: +351 21 790 83 08
E-mail: alexandra.curvelo@gmail.
com

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Honorary Members
Augustin Berque, France
Adriana Boscaro, Italy
Eduard Klopfenstein, Switzerland
Josef Kreiner, Germany
Olof Lidin, Denmark
Mikolaj Melanowicz, Poland
Ian Nish, UK
Jacqueline Pigeot, France
Brian Powell, UK
Arthur Stockwin, UK

Louis Allen, 				UK, 1922–1991
Frank J. Daniels, 			
UK, 1900–1983
Charles Dunn, 				UK, 1915–1995
Charles Haguenauer, 		France, 1896–1976
Wieslaw Kotanski, 			
Poland, 1915–2005
Bruno Lewin, 			
Germany, 1924–2012
Fosco Maraini, 			
Italy, 1912–2004
Martin Ramming, 		Germany, 1899–1988
Alexander Slawik, 		Austria, 1900–1997
Frits Vos, 			
The Netherlands, 1918–2000

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Contents
Members of the Council 2014-2017��������������������������������������3
Farewell Message fromthe Outgoing EAJS President�����������������������������������������������9
Message from the New EAJS President�����������������������������10
EAJS Council Elections
2014-2017������������������������������������������������������������������������������12
New Council Members’ CVs������������������������������������������������15
News from the EAJS Office�������������������������������������������������33
In Memoriam
Former EAJS Treasurer Dr Erika de Poorter���������������������38
14th EAJS International Conference,
Ljubljana, Slovenia, August 2014����������������������������������������40
Conference Report

40

Section Reports

44

Minutes of the EAJS General Meeting��������������������������������74
15th EAJS International Conference in 2017
Conference Site��������������������������������������������������������������������80
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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Changes in the EAJS Constitution������������������������������������� 81
Minutes of the Special General Meeting���������������������������� 82
Constitution of theEuropean Association for Japanese Studies�������������������� 87
10th EAJS PhD Workshop, Ljubljana, Slovenia���������������� 94
Report by the Academic Organizer

94

Reports by the Participants

97

Toshiba International Foundation Fellowships��������������� 113
Reports by the 2013 TIFO Fellows

113

Reports by the 2014 TIFO Fellows

1312015 TIFO Fellows

145News from our members��������������������������������������������������� 146
Items received�������������������������������������������������������������������� 148

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Farewell Message fromthe Outgoing EAJS President
Esteemed colleagues and friends,
I am very grateful to you for your confidence that has given me thepossibility to serve as the EAJS President and, before that, as a memberof the extended Council. I have also had the pleasure of being the headof the local organizing team of the Conference in Tallinn 2011. Moreover,I have had the privilege to be President at the time of the inaugural
EAJS Japan Conference in September 2013, which proved to be a great
success, thanks to the efforts of our Immediate Past President Harald
Fuess and the hospitality of the University of Kyoto. All in all, my time in
the EAJS Council and at its lead has provided me with a lot of valuable
and memorable experience, which I have enjoyed very much. I would liketo sincerely thank everyone in the EAJS Council, my colleagues and friends
who have supported me in my time as the EAJS President, and I am verymuch looking forward to continue serving the EAJS as the Immediate Past
President.
In the last year, our 14th EAJS International Conference was held in
Ljubljana, Slovenia, and I am delighted that this conference, the biggest
yet in EAJS history, proved to be successful as well. Much gratitude goesto Andrej Bekeš and his organizing team, our colleagues at the Universityof Ljubljana, for their hard work to make this conference an event to beremembered – as we surely will. Prior to the EAJS Conference, the 10thEAJS PhD Workshop was held near Ljubljana, in which 19 PhD students
from European and Japanese universities took part. We appreciate their
participation, and hope that it was a fruitful experience for all of them.
My best wishes go out to the next EAJS Council, and I trust that ourassociation will continue to support the development of the JapaneseStudies community in Europe and beyond.
Yours,
Rein Raud9EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Message from the New EAJS President
Dear Colleagues,This is my first message to you as President of the EAJS. I am honoured tohave been elected and am looking forward to serving the association in thisrole. With the elections of officers and council members over, I would like tothank everybody who agreed to be nominated as candidates in the elections
and also to thank all the members who voted.
We like to remind ourselves regularly that the EAJS is the largest dedicatedJapanese studies association in the world. With 898 registered participants anda total of 562 presentations over four wonderful days at the end of August 2014,
the 14th conference of the EAJS in Ljubljana fully lived up to this billing. Reportsof the conference appear inside this bulletin, but I want here to thank again theorganizers of the conference who gave so much time and work to prepare theconference and make it the tremendous success it was.
In the General Meeting at the conference in Ljubljana, we discussed the needto change the constitution of the EAJS to conform to German law and agreed
the substance of changes. An extraordinary GM held in Berlin on 20 April 2015
has formally adopted the revised constitution. In June 2015, the EAJS PhD
workshop was held at the University of Edinburgh, and we are very grateful toour colleagues there who organized that important event so successfully.
In keeping with – a very new – tradition, an EAJS Japan Conference will beheld in the year before the triennial EAJS International Conference in Europe.
Following on from the inaugural EAJS Japan Conference in Kyoto in 2013, next
year’s Japan conference will be held at Kobe University in September 2016.
More information to follow.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Finally, I want to mention the venue of the next EAJS International Conference,
which was announced at the meeting in Ljubljana. The 15th EAJS International
Conference will be held from 30 August to 2 September 2017 in Lisbon.
Preparations are already under way and I think I can safely say that we are
all looking forward to meeting in Portugal, which holds such a special place inEuropean-Japanese relations.
Yours sincerely,
Bjarke Frellesvig

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

EAJS Council Elections
2014-2017
Procedure
As required by the constitution, the new EAJS Council was elected to serve
during the period 2014–2017. EAJS members could vote for the Officers(President, Treasurer, and Secretary) and the Members of Council by
postal vote.
The constitution allows each member one vote for President, one for Treasurer, one for Secretary and one for a Member of the Council. Eligible voters(personal, institutional and student members, paid-up at least until 2014)
have received a ballot slot by mail.
Those members whose names appeared on the ballot sheet – and in thelist below – had confirmed that they were willing to accept the nomination.
Candidates could be nominated until March 15, 2014. The deadline forreceiving mail-in-ballots was August 19, 2014.
The candidates were as follows:
President
Prof Dr Bjarke FRELLESVIG
Treasurer
Prof Dr Verena BLECHINGER-TACOTTSecretary
Dr Laura MORETTI12EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Extended Council
Dr Anna ANDREEVAProf Dr Andrej BEKEŠ
Prof Dr John BREENProf Dr. Anca FOCSENEANU
Dr Andrea GERMERProf Dr Linus HAGSTRÖMProf Dr Michael KINSKI
Prof Dr Yulia MIKHAILOVAProf Dr Hirochika NAKAMAKIDr Dick STEGEWERNSProf Dr Raji C. STEINECKProf Dr Dimitry STRELTSOVDr Kristin SURAKDr Jan SÝKORADr Nataša VISOČNIK

Results of the Election 2014
President
Prof Dr Bjarke FRELLESVIG				
Blank 						178 votes
20

Prof Dr Bjarke FRELLESVIG is elected.
Treasurer
Prof Dr Verena BLECHINGER-TALCOTT
Blank 			184 votes
14

Prof Dr Verena BLECHINGER-TALCOTT is elected.
Secretary
Dr Laura MORETTI				
Blank			173 votes
25

Dr Laura MORETTI is elected.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Candidates for the Extended Council
Prof Dr John BREEN				Dr Andrea GERMER				
Prof Dr Andrej BEKEŠ				
Prof Dr Michael KINSKI				Prof Dr Urs Matthias ZACHMANN			Dr Anna ANDREEVA				
Prof Dr Raji C. STEINECK				Dr Nataša VISOČNIK				
Dr Dick STEGEWERNS				Dr Jan SÝKORA				Dr Kristin SURAK				
Prof Dr Ellen VAN GOETHEM				
Prof Dr Yulia MIKHAILOVA				
Prof Dr Dimitry STRELTSOV				Dr Georg SIPOS				
Prof Dr Anca FOCSENEANU				Blank 				24 votes
21 votes
15 votes
15 votes
15 votes
14 votes
14 votes
14 votes
13 votes
10 votes
8 votes
6 votes
6 votes
5 votes
4 votes
3 votes1

According to the constitution, the extended Council may consist of up to six
members. Since a parity of votes occurred, based on Paragraph 6 (4) of the
EAJS constitution, the acting president of the EAJS, Professor Rein RAUD,
cast his decisive vote for the candidate Dr. Anna ANDREEVA. Therefore,
Dr Anna ANDREEVAProf Dr Andrej BEKEŠ
Prof Dr John BREENDr Andrea GERMERProf Dr Michael KINSKI
Prof Dr Urs Matthias ZACHMANN
are elected as members of the EASJ council.
Profiles of the new council members can be found on the EAJS homepage:
http://www.eajs.eu/index.php?id=280

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

New Council Members’ CVs
EAJS President

Education
1993 PhD in Japanese Linguistics(University of Copenhagen)1990 MA (Danish: cand.mag.) in
Japanese and in General Linguistics(Copenhagen)Prof Dr Bjarke Frellesvig
University of Oxford(Linguistics)
Curriculum Vitae
Present positions
Director, Research Centre for Japanese Language and Linguistics,
Oxford (from 2009)
Professor of Japanese Linguistics, Oriental Institute, University of
Oxford (from 2008)
Official Fellow of Oriental Studies,
Hertford College, Oxford (from
1999)

Main
current
collaborative
research projects
Principal Investigator of the project
Verb semantics and argument
realization in pre-modern Japanese,
funded by a grant from the Arts andHumanities Research Council (UK)of approximately £990,000. (See
http://vsarpj.orinst.ox.ac.uk/)
Director, The Oxford Corpus of Old
Japanese (see http://vsarpj.orinst.
ox.ac.uk/corpus/)Service to the profession
Secretary to the Council of theEuropean Association for JapaneseStudies (2011-14).
Member of Council of the European
Association for Japanese Studies(2008-2011).
Co-editor of the book series
Conceptual History and Chinese
Linguistics (Brill)
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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Associate Editor of the book series
Languages of Asia (published by
Global Oriental)

Preliminary study of CompoundVerbs in Old Japanese”. Gengo
Kenkyū 138:25-65.

Editorial board member of the bookseries Brill’s Studies in Historical
Linguistics

2010: A history of the Japanese
language. Cambridge University
Press. [Paperback 2011]

International editor, Gengo kenkyû
Member of the Editorial Board of
Acta Linguistica Hafniensia

2008: Proto-Japanese: Issues andprospects (= Current Issues in
Linguistic Theory 294). Amsterdam:
John Benjamins. [Paperback 2013]

Recent visiting posts
2013 (July and August) Visiting
Professor (客員教授), National Institute for Japanese Language andLinguistics, Tokyo
2012 (March - September) Visiting
Professor (客員教授), National Institute for Japanese Language andLinguistics, Tokyo
2012 (April – July) Invited Lecturer (非常勤講師), University of Tokyo.
Recent publications
2013: “Remarks on the verb suru
in Old Japanese – A corpus based
study.
上代日本語の「スル」について -- コーパスによる研究”. NINJAL
Project Review Vol.3 No. 3, pp.
152-77.
2010: (with Stephen W Horn, Kerri
L Russell and Peter Sells). “Verb
Semantics and Argument Realization in Pre-Modern Japanese: A
16

Edited book (with John Whitman).
Authored contributions:“Introduction” (with John Whitman),
pp.1-12.
“Evidence for seven vowels in protoJapanese” (with John Whitman),
pp.15-41.
“On reconstruction of proto-Japanese and pre-Old Japanese verb
inflection”, pp. 175-92.
2007: Current issues in the history
and structure of Japanese. Tokyo:
Kurosio Publishers.
Edited book (with Masayoshi Shibatani and John Charles Smith).
Authored contribution:“On the verb morphology of Old
Japanese”, pp. 219-52.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

EAJS Secretary

Dr Laura Moretti
Cambridge University(Literary Studies)
Curriculum Vitae
I am currently Lecturer in Premodern Japanese Studies at the
University of Cambridge (Faculty of
Asian and Middle Eastern Studies),
where I teach classical Japanese atboth undergraduate and graduatelevel. I am also an Official Fellow at
Emmanuel College, where I serve
as Director of Studies for Asian andMiddle Eastern Studies as well as amember of the Research Fellowship
Committee and of the Committee for
Scholarships to Harvard University.
I studied Japanese Language andCulture at Università Ca’ Foscari
Venezia (BA and MA) and got my
PhD in Japanese literature there in
2003. While doing my PhD, I wasa MEXT research fellow at Tokyo

University from 1999 to 2001.
Before moving to the Universityof Cambridge in 2012, I taught atUniversità Ca’ Foscari Venezia(2003-2010; from 2005 as Lecturer),
Università degli Studi di Bergamo(2006-2010 as Adjunct Professor)
and Newcastle University (20102012 as Lecturer in JapaneseStudies). In addition, I have been
Visiting Assistant Professor atthe ­U­n­i­v­ersity of British Columbia(2008-09) and Visiting Scholar atLeiden University (February 2009),
Keio University (November 2009),
Leuven University (March 2010)
and the Art Research Centre of
Ritsumeikan University (2010 and2011).
My field of research is Japanese
early-modern literature and I am
currently working on three projects.
The first is a mo­nograph entitled
The Everyman’s Library: a newliterary history of seventeenthcentury Japanese popular prose.
The second is a monographcontaining the critical edition, theEnglish translation and the an­alysis
of Utagaruta (1756), a piece ofgraphic prose intended for childrenthat rewrites Ise mo­nogatari. The
third is a newly launched project on
pre-modern ephemera, with a focus
on early-modern kawaraban andkob­anzuke.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

I have been an active member inthe research project on shunga led
by Prof Andrew Gerstle (2009-2014)
that culminated in the exhibition
displayed at the British Museum(3 October 2013-5 January 2014).
Recently, I have started a collaborative project with the FitzwilliamMuseum (Cambridge) that focuses
on a newly acquired shunpon thatrewrites Nise Murasaki inaka Genji.
In my free time, I am actively
engaged in the organization ofworkshops that aim at the for­mationof young scholars in the field of
early-modern
Japanese
literature and textual scholarship. In
particular, I teach on an annual
basis hentaigana and kuzushiji
at the University of Penns­ylvania(since 2012). Moreover, in collaboration with Prof Yamabe Susumu(Nishōgakusha University), I am
launching a European summer
school that teaches the palaeographical and linguistic skills
necessary to read a vast rangeof early-modern documents (inbungo, sōrōbun and kanbun). The
first summer school ran at Emmanuel College (the University ofCambridge) from 4 to 16 August
2014.
For other details, please refer to mywebsite:https://sites.google.com/
site/drlauramoretticambridge/home.
18

Selected publications(2013): ‘Onna enshi kyōkun kagami
and Onna genji kyōkun kagami:
sexual education through entertaining parody’, Japan Review
26, Special Issue on Shunga, pp.
195-212.
(2013): ‘The Japanese early-modern
publishing market unveiled: a surveyof Edo-period booksellers’ catalogues’, East Asian Publishing andSociety, 2/2, pp. 199-308.
(2011): ‘Kanazōshi revisited: reconsidering the beginnings of Japanese
popular literature in print’, Monumenta Nipponica, 65/2, pp. 297-356.
(2010): ‘Kinsei bungaku to Ise
monogatari – Ise monogatari nomojiri to tsūzokuteki bungaku e no
shintō’ 近世文学と『伊勢物語』―『伊勢物語』のもじりと通俗的文学への浸透 (‘Edo-period literature and Ise
monogatari – minimal parodies of
Ise monogatari and its appropriationin popular literature’), in Yamamoto
Tokurō 山本登朗, Ise monogatarikyōju no tenkai 伊勢物語―享受の展開.Tokyo: Chikurin, pp. 342-352.
(2010):
近世初期・前期の散文文学に お ける『 伊 勢 物 語 』の 書 き直し、
パロディーおよび新展開(‘Kinsei
shoki – zenki no sanbun bungaku
ni okeru Ise monogatari no kakinaoshi, parodi oyobi shin tenkai), inEAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Yamamoto Tokurō e Joshua Mostow(eds.), Ise monogatari sōzō tohen’yō伊勢物語創造と変容. Osaka:
Izumi shoin, pp. 269-301.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

EAJS Treasurer

German Institute forStudies (DIJ), Tokyo.

Japanese

At FU Berlin, she was Associate
Dean (2007-2009) and Dean of the
Department of History and Cultural
Studies (2009-2011). Since 2009,
she has been Head of the FUB’s
Center for Area Studies. She is amember of FUB’s Academic Senate(since 2013).
Prof Dr Verena Blechinger-Talcott
Freie Universität Berlin(Political Science)
Curriculum Vitae
Verena Blechinger-Talcott (*1966) isProfessor of Japanese politics andpolitical economy and Director of
the Graduate School of East AsianStudies at Freie Universität Berlin,
Germany.
Previous appointments include:
Visiting Professor, Institute ofSocial Science, University of Tokyo(2008), Assistant Professor, Department of Government, Hamilton
College, Clinton, NY (2003-2004),
Advanced
Research
Fellow,
Program on US-Japan Relations,
Harvard University (2002-2003)
and Research Fellow (1997-2002)
and Deputy Director (2001-2002),

20

She is the Speaker of the Advisory Board for Japan and Korea in
the German Association of AsianStudies (DGA) (since 2011) and amember of the Editorial Advisory
Board of Japan Forum (since 2011)
and of the International Editorial
Advisory Board of Social Science
Japan Journal (since 2013). She
also is a member of the International
Advisory Board of the Institute ofSocial Science (ISS), University ofTokyo (since 2014).
Her research interests include
Japanese politics in comparative
perspective, institutional change inJapanese politics, and governmentbusiness relations in both domestic
politics and international relations.
Most recent research has focusedon issues of corporate social
responsibility and the relationshipbetween business and society as
well as on Japan’s international
trade and global commodity chains.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

The author of many articles andbook chapters, her main publications include the monographs:
Vosse, Wilhelm, Blechinger-Talcott,Verena, Drifte, Reinhard (eds.)(2014): Governing Insecurity inJapan. The Domestic Discourse andPolicy Response. London: Routledge.

(1998): Political Corruption in
Japan: Causes, Consequences, andReform [“Politische Korruption in
Japan. Ursachen, Hintergründe und
Reformversuche”], Hamburg: Institute of Asian Affairs.

Blechinger-Talcott, Verena, Chiavacci, David, Christoph Brumann(eds.)(2013): Ein neues Japan?
Politischer und sozialer Wandel
seit den 1990er Jahren [A New
Japan? Political and Social Change
since the 1990s], Special Issue,
Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques LXVII, 2/2013
Blechinger-Talcott, Vere­na, Krauss,
Ellis, and Christopher Hughes (eds.)(2007): Managing the MedUSA:
comparing the political economy of
US-Japan, US-German, and US-UK
relations.” Special issue Pacific
Review, Vol 20, No. 3
Blechinger-Talcott, Verena, Frantz,
Christiane and Mark Thomposon(eds.) (2006): Governing Japan.
Political System, Reform Processes
and International Relations in International Comparison [“Politik in
Japan. System, Reformprozesse
und Außenpolitik im internationalen Vergleich]”,Frankfurt/Main:
Campus21

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Members of the Extended
Council

Dr Anna Andreeva
Heidelberg University(Religious Studies)
Curriculum Vitae
I earned my doctorate at Universityof Cambridge in 2006, and spenta year at Reischauer Institute ofJapanese Studies at Harvard,
before returning to Cambridge as a
Junior Research Fellow in 2007. In
2010, I joined the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global
Context” at University of Heidelberg,
where I work as a research fellow(Akademische Mitarbeiterin) andteach courses on Buddhism andpre-modern Japan. During 20122013, I was a visiting researcher at
International Research Center forJapanese Studies (Nichibunken)
in Kyoto, before coming back to
Heidelberg where I currently direct22

a project on the economies of thesacred.
My recent research has focusedon the relationship between thesystems of knowledge and beliefs
related to Esoteric Buddhism andtheir impact on the fields of thereligious and cultural production
in medieval Japan (for example,
the worship of Japanese deities,kami). I also work on the cultural
history of pregnancy, childbirth andchild-rearing, and the cross-culturaldevelopment and transmission of
medical and religious knowledge,
particularly that related to female
body and gender in pre-modern
Japan.
Educational Background2006 PhD, Japanese Religions/Cultural History, University ofCambridge (aw. May 2007), UK
2002
MPhil, Japanese Studies/
Literature, University of Cambridge,UK		
2001 MA, Japanese Studies/Literature, Kanazawa University, Japan
1997 BA,
Japanese
Studies,
Irkutsk State Linguistic University,
Siberia, Russia

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Recent Publications
Assembling
Shinto:Buddhist
Approaches to Kami Worship inMedievalJapan(monograph,
accepted for publication).
(2014): “The ‘Earthquake Insect’:conceptualising disasters in premodern Japan”. In Monica Juneja
and Gerrit Jasper Schenk, eds.,
Disaster as Image: Iconographies
and Media Strategies across Europe
and Asia, (Regensburg: Schnell &Steiner, 2014), pp. 81-90.
(2014): “Childbirth in aristocratic
households in Heian Japan”.
Dynamis, special journal issue,Childbirth and Women’s Healthcare
in Pre-modern Societies, eds. Anna
Andreeva, Erica Coutu-Ferreira, andSusanne Töpfer. Forthcoming.
(2011): “Miwaryû no seiritsu” 三輪流の成立 (The Formation of the
Miwa Lineage). In Ito Satoshi, ed.,Chûse Shinwa, Chûsei Jingi, Shintôno Sekai 中世神話・中世神祇、神道の世界 (Medieval Myths and Kami
Worship). Tokyo: Chikurinsha, pp.
221-239.
(2010): “The Origins of the Great
Miwa Deity: The transformation ofa sacred mountain in pre-modern
Japan”, Monumenta Nipponica 65/2:
245-295(2010): “Medieval
discoveries
andin Religion Compass, Volume 4,
Issue 11, pp. 679-693. Blackwell
Publishing Ltd. Permanent link:h t t p : / / o n l i n e l i b r a r y. w i l e y.
c o m / d o i / 1 0 . 1111 / j . 1 7 4 9 8171.2010.00243.x/abstract
Academic Service
International symposia and conference organisation2014 Section convener, European
Association of Japanese Studies,
Ljubljana, Slovenia.
2011a “Kami cults and notions oftransculturality in Ancient Japan”,
Heidelberg.
2011b “Childbirth and women’s
health in pre-modern societies”,
Heidelberg.
2011c Section convener. European
Association for Japanese Studies,
Tallinn, Estonia.
2010 “Imagining the feminine inmedicine and religion in pre-modern
East Asia”
Cluster “Asia and Europe”, Heidelberg.

Shinto: newperspectives”,
23

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Panel chairing and discussing
2012 Panel organizer and chair,“Cultural mobility and religious practice in pre-modern Japan”, British
Association of Japanese Studies,
University of East Anglia, UK.
2011a Discussant at a research
conference on Shinto Ritual Archaeology, Alsace, France.
2011b Discussantandchair,“Healing throughout the six realms:
transformative rituals in Japanese
Buddhism”. European Association ofJapanese Studies, Tallinn, Estonia.
Summer schools and PhD workshops
2013 Advisor at a PhD dissertation
workshop,
Universidad
Autonoma de Madrid, Spain.
2012 Ten-day
international
summer school on pre-modern
Japanese texts, Heidelberg

24

Professional Affiliations
Research Associate, Faculty of
Asian and Middle Eastern Studies,
Cambridge
Research Associate, Reischauer
Institute of Japanese Studies,
HarvardMember, Section Convener, European Association for JapaneseStudies (EAJS)Association of Asian Studies (AAS)EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Prof Dr Andrej Bekeš
University of Ljubljana(Linguistics)
Curriculum Vitae
Education
February 1971: BS in mathematics,
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of
Sciences and Techonlogy.
March 1975: MS in mathematics,
Osaka University, Graduate School.
March 1981: MA in Japanese
Linguistics, Osaka University ofForeign Studies, Graduate School.
March
1986:
PhD
(Bungaku
Hakushi) in Linguistics, University ofTsukuba, Graduate School,
Thesis Title: “Tekusuto to shintakusu” (Text and Syntax).

Major Teaching Positions
Sep. 1988 - Mar. 1990: Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social
Sciences, University of Ljubljana.
Apr. 1990 - Sep. 1995: Gaikokujin
kyoshi (Foreign professor), University of Tsukuba.
Oc. 1995 - Oct. 2002: Associate
Professor of Japanese Studies,
Faculty of Arts, University of
Ljubljana.
Nov. 2002 - 2011: Full Professor ofJapanese Studies, Faculty of Arts,
University of Ljubljana.
Sep. 2010 - Mar. 2013: Fullprofessor, University of Tsukuba,
Graduate School of Humanities andSocial Sciences;
April 2013 - present: Full Professorof Japanese Studies, Faculty ofArts, University of Ljubljana.
Major Research Positions
Jan. 2004 - Dec. 2008: leader,Research Project “Languages andCultures of Asia and Africa”, ARRS,
Slovenia.
Jan. 2009 - present: member,Research Project “Languages andCultures of Asia and Africa”, ARRS,
Slovenia.
Dec. 2005 - Mar. 2006: visiting
researcher,
NagoyaUniversity,
GSID (Invited JSPS fellow).
Feb. 2010 - Aug.2010: visiting
researcher, Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan Foundation Fellow).
25

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Supervisor, Doctoral Dissertations
Supervisor: 4 completed dissertations.
Co-supervisor: 1 completed dissertation.
Management
Oct. 1995 - Sep. 1999: Head of the
Department of Asian and African
Studies, Faculty of Arts, Universityof Ljubljana.
Oct. 1999 - Dec. 2001: Vice-Deanof the Faculty of Arts, University of
Ljubljana.
Oct. 2007 - Sep. 2009: Head of the
Department of Asian and African
Studies, Faculty of Arts, Universityof Ljubljana.
Oct. 2013 - present: Head of the
Department of Asian and African
Studies, Faculty of Arts, Universityof Ljubljana.
Decorations
Nov. 3, 2008 ‘The Order of the
Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette(旭日小綬章)’(GovernmentofJapan)
Important Recent Publications(2012): Possibility of content shifts
as predictors of the wa-topic in
Japanese narrative. In Nishina K.
(ed.) Nihongo gakushuusha shien
no kouchiku gengo kyouiku koopasu
26

shisutemu
kaihatsu.
Tokyo: Bonjinsha.

157-174.

(2012): Suppositional Adverb-based
Brackets in Discourse. In Tomiya
R. and Tsutsumi M. (eds) Modaritei
to nihongo kyoiku. Tokyo: Hitsuji
shobo.
(2011): Images of pre-WW II:
national language policies asreflected in the field of “national
language studies” itself. Acta linguistica asiatica, Volume 1, No. 1:
39-51.
(2008): Text and Boundary: A Sideways Glance at Textual Phenomena
in Japanese. Ljubljana: ZIFF.
SRDANOVIĆ,Irena,
BEKEŠ,
Andrej, NISHINA, Kikuko (2008):
Distant
collocations
betweensuppositional adverbs and clausefinal modality forms in Japanese
language
corpora.
Large-Scale
Knowledge Resources.
(2008): Construction and Application. Lecture Notes in Computer
Science Volume 4938, pp 252-266.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

emperor and the Meiji restoration),
Heibonsha.
(2012): “Kindai gaikō taisei nosōshutsu to tennō” (The making
of modern Japanese diplomacy
and the emperor) Arano Yasunori
et al eds., Nihon no taigai kankei
7: kindaika suru Nihon, Yoshikawa
Kōbunkan.
Prof Dr John Breen
International Research Center forJapanese Studies (Nichibunken)
Curriculum Vitae
John Breen is Professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto. Previously,
he taught Japanese at the School ofOriental and African Studies, University of London. He did his undergraduate study and postgraduate
research at Cambridge University.
He has published widely in English
and Japanese on issues relating to
the imperial institution and Shinto.

(2013): “’Shinto monogatari’: Meiji
ki no Ise” (Tales of a sacred city: Isein the Meiji period) in Takagi Hiroshied., Kindai Nihon no rekishi toshi:
koto to jōka machi, Shibunkaku.
(2014): “The nation’s shrine: conflictand commemoration at Yasukuni,
modern Japan’s shrine to the war
dead,” in Tsang and Woods ed. The
cultural politics of nationalism andnation-building: ritual and performance in the forging of nations,
Routledge.

His recent publications include thefollowing:(2011): A new history of Shinto(co-authored with Mark Teeuwen),
Wiley- Blackwell.
(2011): Girei to kenryoku: tennō no
Meiji ishin (Ritual and power: the27

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

and German Literature, Heidelberg
University

Prof Dr Andrea Germer
Kyushu University(History and Gender Studies)
Curriculum Vitae
Since 2011 Associate Professor at
Kyushu University
2010-2011
Japan
Foundation
Research Fellow, Hiroshima City
University
2007–2010 Lecturer in Japanese Studies, School of Modern
Languages, Newcastle University
2001–2007
Research
Fellow,
German Institute for JapaneseStudies (DIJ), Tokyo
2001 PhD in East Asian Studies(Japanese Studies), Ruhr-University
Bochum1994 Magistra Artium in Japanese Studies, Political Sciences

28

Most Recent Publications(2013): Visible Cultures, Invisible
Politics: Propaganda in the Magazine Nippon Fujin, 1942-1945. In:
Japan Forum, 25, 4, pp. 505-539.
[awarded the ‘Western Associationof Women Historians 2014 Penny
Kanner Prize’].
(2013): Japanese Feminists after
Versailles: Between the State andthe Ethnic Nation. In: The Journalof Women’s History, 25, 3 (fall), pp.
92-115.
(2013): Kunst und Politik: Transkulturelle Flows in visueller Propaganda [Art and Politics: Transcultural Flows in Visual Propaganda].
In: Ostasiatische Zeitschrift [EastAsian Journal], 26, pp. 37-47.
(2013): Exhibition and conference
report: Women in Between – Asian
Women Artists アジアを繋ぐー境界線を生きる女たち、1984-2012.
In:
Jendā-shigaku - Gender History 9(October), pp. 146-147.
(2014) [Ed. with Vera Mackie and
Ulrike Wöhr] Gender, Nation, andState in Modern Japan. London;
New York: RoutledgeCurzon.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Educational Background1987 MA at Ruhr University Bochum(Japanese Studies)
1988-90 Post Graduate Studies,
Tôkyô University
Prof Dr Michael Kinski
Goethe University, Frankfurt am
Main (History)
Curriculum Vitae
Michael Kinski teaches Japanesecultural and intellectual history at
Frankfurt University since 2009. Hereceived his training in JapaneseStudies and Political Sciences at
Ruhr University Bochum and Tokyo
University. With a doctoral degreefrom Tübingen University and a“Habilitation” from Humboldt University Berlin he invested a considerable part of his professional careerin the development of close relations with Japanese universities. Of
importance in this regard was histime as first director of Tübingen
University’s Japanese Language
Center in Kyoto (hosted by Doshisha University). His research interests concentrate on Edo period
intellectual history, the appearance
of encyclopedic literature and advice
books in early modern times, theculture of food (table manners), and(recently) the history of childhood.

1991 PhD, Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen2004 Habilitation
University BerlinatHumboldt-

Professional Experience
1991-93 Lecturer at Institute ofJapanese Studies, Tübingen University
1993-98 Director of the Tübingen
Center for Japanese Language at
Dôshisha University in Kyôto
1998-2000 Lecturer,
Japanese
Studies,
University Berlin

Center for
Humboldt-

2000-2006 Assistent Professor,
Center for Japanese Studies,
Humboldt-University Berlin
2006-2007 Visiting Professor, Institute of Japanese Studies, Zürich
University
2007-2009 Assistent Professor,
Center for Japanese Studies,
Humboldt-University Berlin
29

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

since summer 2009 Professor forJapanese Culture and History of
Ideas, Institute for JapaneseStudies, Johann Wolfgang Goethe
University Frankfurt
Interests• Intellectual history of early modern
Japan (Confucianism, ethics, political thought)• Polite behaviour and the cultureof etiquette in early modern Japan:(table manners since the 16th
century and their social import)• Lifestyles and and the popularization of knowledge seen throughearly modern advice book literature• Medicine and the natural sciencesin 18th & 19th century Japan; thecase of “Dutch Studies”• Material culture: Japanese Foodways• History of childhood and conceptions of childhood in Japan
Memberships•
Academia Europea (AE)•EAJS•
Gesellschaft für Japan-		
forschung (GfJ)•
Nihon shisô gakkai
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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Prof Dr Urs Matthias Zachmann
University of Edinburgh, UK(History)
Curriculum Vitae and Research
I have received my MA (2000) andPhD (2006) in Japanese Studies
from the University of Heidelberg.
In a parallel course of education,
I have graduated from Heidelberg
Law School and passed my final
state exam in 2002. In 2010, while
being an Assistant Professor at theJapan Center at Munich University,
I completed the Habilitation in Japanese Studies at this university. Aftera brief stint as Acting Full Professor
at Heidelberg University (2010-11),
I have been appointed to the inaugural Handa Chair in JapaneseChinese Relations at the Universityof Edinburgh in October 2011.
Since 2012, I also serve as Headof Department in Asian Studies at
Edinburgh University.

My research focuses on the intellectual and cultural history of modern
Japan within the context of East
Asian international relations. I am
particularly interested in the transferof political ideas and cultural institutions, their strategic re-interpretationin discourses of modernization andsubjectivity and the practical consequences this has in the foreign
relations of Japan, especially with
China and Korea. I have publishedmajor studies on the Japanese
discourse on civilization, race, andempire in the context of late Meiji
Sino-Japanese relations (Routledge2009) and, more recently, on theJapanese discourse on internationallaw and its re-appropriation andapplication during the interwar andearly postwar period (Nomos 2013).
Currently, I am conducting research
for a new project on “narratives ofexcess and destitution”, i.e. on thecorrelation of economic discourseand popular imagination in the transitional period from Japan’s bubble
economy into the “lost decade”.
List of Selected Publications(2014): “Does Europe Include
Japan? – European Normativity inJapanese Attitudes towards International Law, 1854-1945”, Rechtsgechichte – Legal History 22 (forthcoming Sept. 2014).
(2013): Völkerrechtsdenken undAußenpolitik in Japan, 1919-1960
31

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

(The Discourse on International Law
and Foreign Policy in Japan, 19191960), Baden-Baden: Nomos, 436
pp. (Studien zur Geschichte des
Völkerrechts/Series History of International Law, vol. 29)(2013): “Race and International
Law in Japan’s New Order in East
Asia, 1938-1945”, in: Rotem Kowner
and Walter Demel (eds.), Raceand Racism in Modern East Asia:
Western and Eastern Constructions,Leiden: Brill, pp. 453-473.
(2012): “The Postwar Constitution
and Religion“, in: John Nelson and
Inken Prohl (eds.), Handbook ofContemporary Japanese Religions,Leiden: Brill, 2012, pp. 215-240.
(2009 / 2011): China and Japanin the Late Meiji Period: China
Policy and the Japanese Discourse
on National Identity, 1895-1904.
London: Routledge/Leiden Series
in Modern East Asian Politics andHistory, 2009 (Hardcover) and 2011
(Paperback).
(2007): “Blowing Up a Double
Portrait in Black and White: theConcept of Asia in the Writings of
Fukuzawa Yukichi and Okakura
Tenshin,” in: positions: east asia
cultures critique, vol. 15, no. 2 (fall2007), pp. 345-368.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

News from the EAJS Office
Dear EAJS members,
It was very good to see so many of you at the EAJS International Conference in Ljubljana last year. Since the 2014 General Meeting, the EAJS Officehas been busy implementing our members’ decisions while at the same time
striving to provide you as EAJS members the best possible service.
Please also accept our most humble apologies for the delay in sending thisbulletin to you. Due to some changes in the EAJS Office staff and especially
due to a high level of administrative and legal work related to the new EAJS
constitution, the production of the EAJS bulletin took longer than expected.
Today, we provide you with a double issue of the EAJS bulletin.
The EAJS office in Berlin has welcomed some new staff members since the2014 EAJS International Conference. Ronja Meising and Lorenz Denninger,
who did an exceptional job in coordinating the EAJS conference in Ljubljana,
have moved on to assume new responsibilities in late 2014. We were very
happy that we could win Tim Herbort to become the new office representative
who administers the day-to-day operations of the office and takes care of thelogistics of EAJS Ph.D. workshops and conferences. Stefanie Reetz and Jens
Oliver John, both M.A. students in FU Berlin’s Japanese Studies program,support the office as student RAs and especially in membership management
and technical administration.
The most remarkable EAJS-related event in the last year was of course the14th EAJS International Conference, which took place from 27 to 30 August
2014 in Ljubljana. The conference turned out to be the largest EAJS conference ever held, with almost 900 participants and over 560 given presentations. We would like to express our gratitude that so many of you joined us tomake this event as memorable as it has been. We are especially indebted toProfessor Andrej Bekeš and the organising team at the University of Ljubljana,
who over many months have put in enormous work to make sure the conference would be well prepared and enjoyable for every participant. The Conference report as well as the reports by Section Convenors can be found in this33

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

bulletin. We would also like to use this opportunity to say thank you again to all
section convenors for their cooperation with the EAJS Office in the process ofconference preparations.
The 10th EAJS Workshop for Doctoral Students was held in conjunction withthe conference in Ljubljana in 2014, and brought together nineteen doctoral
students from all over Europe under the supervision of Professor David Chiavacci from Zurich University. The participants’ reports in this bulletin attest to
the unique atmosphere of an intensive academic get-together on a remotefarm in the beautiful scenery in the mountains of Slovenia.
The EAJS conference in Ljubljana also allowed the members who were
elected during the Council elections in summer 2014 to personally introduce
themselves at the EAJS General Meeting. You can find the election results andprofiles of all council members in this bulletin. Personally, I am very grateful tohave been re-elected as EAJS treasurer, and I look forward to working with the
new Council on the future business of the association.
Equally impressive surroundings were provided to the participants of the 11thEAJS Workshop for Doctoral Students, which took place in the beautiful cityof Edinburgh in the summer of 2015. Under the supervision of Professor Urs
Matthias Zachmann from the University of Edinburgh, twenty participants wereinvited to present and discuss their research in this venerable and vibrantcenter of scholarship. Furthermore, the EAJS office is currently in the final
stages of planning for the first EAJS Publication Workshop, which will beheld in Berlin from 16 to 18 November 2015. This workshop will provide an
opportunity for young scholars to discuss their publication projects with senioracademics and publishers and help them get to know the tools of the tradein the increasingly important field of academic publication. We will publish
reports from these two workshops in the next bulletin, which is scheduled to be
published in the spring of 2016.
A major milestone regarding the governance of the association has been the
adoption of a new EAJS constitution in April 2015. This step had become
necessary due to changes in the German Law on Associations related tothe tax-free status of pro-bono associations. The contents of the constitution
were discussed extensively at the EAJS General Meetings in Tallinn in 2011
and in Ljubljana in 2014. In early 2015, the office sent a draft constitution to
all EAJS members which incorporated our members’ suggestions. Prior to34

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

sending out the text, we made sure that it was screened for legal complianceby a specialist lawyer. We also asked for an assessment by German financial
authorities to ensure that the tax-free status of our association was secured.
The new constitution was adopted at a special general meeting held on 20
April 2015 in Berlin. Thanks so much to all who participated in the discussion
leading up to the vote on the new constitution. Now, the EAJS is well equipped
to continue working as a non-profit organization also in future years.
The main task of the EAJS office and the treasurer, however, are to ensurethat our organization’s business is conducted smoothly and that the financial
situation of the EAJS is sound. We have some positive news to report:
First, we are delighted to report that our applications to the Japan Foundation for support for the years 2014-15 (which included generous funding for the
EAJS International Conference in Ljubljana) and the fiscal year 2015-16 weresuccessful. The continuing financial support by the Japan Foundation enables
us to operate the EAJS office and to provide our members with valuable
services, such as the EAJS-L mailing list or the EAJS website. At the sametime, Japan Foundation funding allows us to plan for key activities in the near
future with a reasonable degree of certitude. We are immensely grateful forthis support.
Second, our cooperation with the Toshiba International Foundation has moved
to a new level. Over the last years, the Toshiba International Foundation has
been providing generous funding for EAJS Ph.D. Workshops as well as for
Toshiba International Foundation Fellowships for young scholars. Thus, theToshiba International Foundation has become the central donor for EAJS
activities in the context of promoting young scholars. In 2014, the EAJS waspleased to learn that the Toshiba International Foundation decided to change
the status of the Toshiba International Foundation Fellowships to that of a nongrant program. This secures the funding for the Toshiba International Foundation Fellowships for the next years and we are happy that our organization
will thus be able to offer Toshiba International Foundation Fellowships annually to outstanding doctoral students for the purpose of short-term research inJapan. The Toshiba International Foundation also provided generous funding
for the 2014 and 2015 EAJS Ph.D. Workshops. We are working hard to proveourselves worthy of the trust placed into our organization. At the same time,
we are continuously striving to provide the best possible support for our early
career members.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

At the same time, the growth of our organization also requires permanentenhancements of our services. Currently, we are working hard to improve
our online services and to make our website more useful for members. The
office also welcomes all suggestions and comments you may have.
Verena Blechinger-Talcott
EAJS Treasurer, and the EAJS Office Team36EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 201537

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

In Memoriam
Former EAJS Treasurer Dr Erika de Poorter
It is with great sadness that
the EAJS learns that Dr Erika
de Poorter passed away on 21
October 2014. Erika served as thetreasurer to the EAJS from 1991
to 1995 and provided invaluable
service to the association during
an important period in our history.
She was also a most regularparticipant in the EAJS conferences and a staunch supporter ofthe performing arts section. She
will be greatly missed by us all.
Berlin, 17 November 2014
Bjarke Frellesvig
EAJS President

On October 28, we were informedthat our long-time friend andcolleague Erika de Poorter had
died on October 21, after several
years of an unequal struggle
against cancer. We lose in her adear friend, a beloved colleague,
and a great scholar.
Erika was born in 1943 in Elsene,in the outskirts of Brussels. She
studied Japanese at the Universityof Ghent, then went to Japan withthe usual two-year Monbushō
grant where she studied in Osakaand Kyoto. After her return fromJapan she came to Leiden, where
she finished her studies, did her
doctoral examination, and was
appointed in 1971 as an assistantof Prof. Dr. F. Vos, teaching
Japanese in the Department ofJapanese and Korean Studies
of Leiden University. She taught
there until her retirement in April
2004.
Erika was a specialist of
the Japanese theatre, more
specifically of Nō, which she
studied with Prof. Omote Akira of
the Nōgaku Kenkyūjo of Hōsei
Daigaku. In June 1983 she
defended her Ph.D. thesis on

38

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Motoyoshi's
Sarugaku
Dangi.
A description and assessmentwith an annotated translation.
Three years later, it was re-issued
under the title Zeami's Talks on
Sarugaku (Japonica Neerlandica,
vol. 2). She was also involvedinorganising
performancesof Japanese Nō groups in the
Netherlands, published a numberof Dutch translations of Nō andKyōgen pieces (De Kraanvogel
en de schildpad, 1978; Ukai, deaalscholvervisser, 2010), and ashort introduction, also in Dutch,
entitled Nō: het klassieke theatervan Japan (2001). Her work was
not restricted to the Netherlands,
however. She also participatedin Europe-wide research in thefield of the Japanese theatre, as
is apparent from her contributions
to Maske und Kothurn, "Nōwhich is no Nō: The RitualPlay 'Okina'" (1989), and to
Japanisches Theater: Tradition
und Gegenwart, "Sakrale Aspekteim Nō: Schamanismus und Tabu"(1990). After her retirement,
Erika translated two of Natsume
Sōseki's novels, Kokoro and Mon,
into Dutch, which were publishedin 2013.
Although Erika's specialty was Nō,
she was also interested in Kabuki
and in the modern Japanesetheatre. When it turned out that thetastes of the students ran in that

direction, she was also willing toteach classes on Japanese soap
series. This resulted in anotherpublication, “De wind uit dehoofdstad: soapseries in Japan”(in Decorum, 2000). As a teacher,she principally taught classicalJapanese (literature), includingclasses on hentai-gana.
Erika was active as a memberof the board of the European
Association for Japanese Studies(1991-1995). She also served
for several years as chair of
the Netherlands Association forJapanese Studies (1997-2002).
We gratefully remember her
contributions to the study of Japan,
to the tuition of our department,
and to the running of the university
institutions
andscholarly
associations that form part ofJapanese Studies.
Leiden, 31 October 2014
On behalf of the Japan Studies
programme, Leiden University
Ivo Smits
On behalf of the Netherlands
Association for Japanese Studies
Wim Boot

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

14th EAJS International Conference,
Ljubljana, Slovenia, August 2014
Conference Report
1. Conference time
August 27-30, 2014
2. Conference venue
Ljubljana, Slovenia
The conference opening, keynote
lecture and welcome dinner were
held at Cankarjev dom, Slovenias
largestconvention,
congressand culture center. All the main
activities, sections panels andpresentations as well as academic
events were held at the Faculty ofArts, University of Ljubljana. The
EAJS General Meeting and theclosing ceremony were held at
the Slovenian Philharmonic, whilesome pre-conference academic
events were held at the Universityof Ljubljana.
All the mentioned places are in
the vicinity of each other and very
close to Ljublana‘s city center andold town.

40

3. Participants
3.1 About the participants
There
were
altogether
898
participants from 36 countries who
registered for the conference. One
third of the participants came fromJapan. Other countries with many
representatives were the UK,
Germany, USA, Italy, and France.
3.2. Active participants
Altogether
there
were
562
presentations which were either
given in a panel or as individual
paper or poster presentations.
They were contributed by 612
authors and co-authors. There
was a keynote lecture by Karatani
Kojin on the opening day. All otherpresentations and panels werescheduled for the second to fourth
day of the conference.
Except for the interdisciplinary
panel, each section had two
section convenors and one
keynote speech.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

4. Registration data
Registration opened on March 1,
2014, and altogether 898 people
registered for the conference inthree different billing periods: early(March 1 – April 30), mid-term(May 1 – July 31), and late period(August 1 – August 30).
Participation fees also varied
dependingonwhethertheregistering person was a memberof the EAJS/AJE, and whether heor she was a regular participant,a student, or an accompanying
person.
5. Conference programme
5.1. Social events
5.1.1. Welcome dinner
The welcome dinner was held at
Cankarjev dom and open to all
conference participants. More thanhalf of all participants attended.

5.2. Conference sections
There were altogether 11 sections.
Some section were divided into
subsections, and some sections
were run in parallel due to a large
number of presentations andpanels.
The
listofsections
subsections is as follows:and0: Interdisciplinary section
1: Urban, Regional and 			Environmental Studies
2: Language and Linguistics
3a: Modern Literature
3b: Pre-modern Literature
4a: Visual Arts
4b: Performing Arts

5.1.2. Gala dinner

5a: Anthropology and Sociology

The gala dinner was held at theGrand Hotel Union in the Ljubljana
city center. It was an optional
event. More than half of allconference participants attended.

5b: Media Studies
6: Economics, Business, and 		
Political Economy
7: History

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

8a: Religion and History of Ideas
8b: Intellectual History andPhilosophy
9: Politics and International 		
Relations
10: Japanese Language Education-

Introducing new approach:learning Japanese throughlearning about JapanesecultureGlobal Culture Nasu
Workshop
OJAD presentation
10th EAJS Workshop for
Doctoral Students

5.3.
Accompanying academic
events5.4.
Accompanying cultural
events

-

-

-

-

42

-

International Society for 		Akutagawa Studies 9th 		annual conference
JAWS general meeting
AJE general meeting
University of Ljubljana 		
and University of Tsukuba
Joint Research Forum
4th network meeting for 		Japanese studies 		and Japanese language
education in Central andEastern Europe
Japanese database workshop
Workshop on Japanese 		»character« in communi cation and grammar
AJE forum
Special invitational 		
lectures
Japanese crowdsourced
translation as language 		
service disruptor-

The Touch of Life (solo 		
dance performance by 		
Ryūzo Fukuhara)
From Chaos to Cosmos(painting exhibition by 		
Noriaki Sangawa)Fragments of Japan - 		Portraits, Landscapes 		
(photography exhibition by
Matija Brumen)

6. Services at the conference
6.1.

Lunch and coffee breaks

There were 3 lunch breaks and 5
coffee breaks. Participants wereserved lunch boxes and drinks
during lunch breaks, and coffee,
tea or soft drinks with snacks
during coffee breaks.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

6.2.

Baby sitting

Otroškauniverza
wastheofficial child-care organizer forthe conference. Applications inadvance were preferred, but childcare applications on the spot werealso accepted.
7. Publishers
The following publishers attended
the conference:-

IUDICIUM Verlag
Kinokuniya Bookstores
Kurosio Publishers
NetAdvance
JPT Europe Ltd.
Roellin Books
Nichibunken
Ask Publishing Co.
Brill Publishers
Routledge (JAWS Series)

8.

Promotion

Publishers, educational institutions
and companies were able topromote themselves on bookstalls,
literaturetable,or
throughprogramme advertisements andconference bag flyers.
9.
People involved in theorganization of the conference
9.1.
The local organization
board and the teaching staff ofJapanese Studies, Departmentof Asian and African Studies at
the Faculty of Arts, University of
Ljubljana
9.2.
Students
volunteers,
undergraduate and postgraduate
students of Japanese Studies,
Department of Asian and African
Studies at the Faculty of Arts,
University of Ljubljana
Thirty-fivestudents
workedthroughout the four days of theconference. Eighteen students
were allocated into the classrooms
in order to support the section
convenors. The other students
were either working at the main
information desk or circling aroundthe venue, helping with basic
logistics.
9.3.
The Faculty of Arts of the
University of Ljubljana, its offices
and support staff
9.4.
The conference company
Albatros
Albatroswastheofficial
conference company in chargeof the online registration process.
Albatros furthermore organizedaccommodation, transfer services,and excursions for the conference
participants.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Section Reports
Section 1: Urban, Regional andEnvironmental Studies
Convenors:
Maren
Godzik(Fukuoka University) and Richard
Ronald (University of Amsterdam)
The topic of the Urban, Regional
and Environmental Studies sectionwas „Disparities in and between
urban and rural spaces“. In ourcall for papers we specified this
topic by referring to the 2011 triple
disaster that has drawn particularattention to issues beyond the
major cities and the ongoingpolarization between conditionsin the regions and rural communities, and the metropolitan centersof economic and political activity.
Ageing, shrinking and stagnation
was a common thread throughout
the section.
In his keynote speech „Rebuilding
Housing and Communities after
the Great East Japan Earthquake“
Hirayama Yōsuke, Kobe University, analyzed the difficulties ofreconstruction, also against the
backdrop of the 2020 Olympic
Games that has serious repercussions on the rebuilding process in
Tohoku by slowing the reconstruction process further down.
44

Eighteen researchers from Austria,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
the Netherlands and Switzerland/
Czech Republic (according to theiraffiliation) presented twelve individual papers and two panels.
The papers of the first session
focused on the topics of energy
and transport. Tarek Katramiz
examined the acceptance of
nuclear power at nuclear powersites, while Nicolas Leprêtre
looked into the development ofsmart communities and transport in various parts of Japan.
Christopher Hood presented onrecent developments of intercity
transport. In the second section
on disasters and pollution, therebuilding policies in the tsunamistricken Sanriku area were called
into question by Remi Scoccimarro. Yoshiko Imaizumi took
a historic perspective to analyze
practices of dwelling after theGreat Kantō Earthquake. BrianHarrison’s paper focused on air
pollution issues between China
and Japan.
The next session dealt with topics
concerning recent developmentsin the city. The session started

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

with a paper by Evelyn Schulz on
the slow city discourse. A quantitative paper by Ralph Lützeler
gave insights into Tokyo’s shifting
suburbia. Richard Ronald gave atalk about the increasing numberof single living people in Japan’surban centres.

inhabitants (Kaiko Miyazaki), thevulnerability of areas close torivers (Marie Thomas), and theidentities of burakumin not living inburakumin areas (Martin Sturdik).

The issue of urban-rural tensions
was the common backgroundof the next three papers. Volker
Elis focused on the discourse ofsocio-spatial inequality, Isabelle
Prochaska-Meyer and Pia Kieniger
reported their fieldwork resultson the strategies of revitalization of ageing communities, andAdrian Favell talked about artistic
approaches to rural decline on
Inland Sea Islands.

Convenors:
Sven
Osterkamp(Ruhr-Universität Bochum) andTomasz Majtczak (Jagiellonian
University)

One panel chaired by Yoshihiro
Yokote concentrated on the relocation of buildings within the processof changing urban landscapes,
with Silvana de Maio looking into
tea house relocation, Yoshihiro
Yokote taking up an example ofa bank that has been relocated a
few times, and Mizuko Ugo elaborating on the changing meaning ofbuildings after their relocation.

Our keynote speaker, Professor
Kida Akiyoshi of Kyoto University,
gave an outline of the origin andevolution of the Japanese conjugational system in his paper. With
respect to the somewhat controversial issue of the chronologicalordering of the various inflectionalclasses of verbs, he argued infavor of the antiquity of the vocalic(chiefly bigrade) verbs, and hence
the innovative character of theconsonantal(or
quadrigrade)ones, thereby drawing upon his
well-known earlier work in thisfield.

The second panel chaired by
Kaiko Miyazaki dealt with low-class
districts at rivers and burakumin byfocusing on the dōwa areas witha shrinking number of burakumin

Section2:
Linguistics

LanguageandSection 2, Language and Linguistics, met for two and a half quite
busy conference days. It beganwith a keynote speech, which
was followed by regular papers
grouped thematically in ten
sessions.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

The regular part of the section
featured thirty presenters in total,
forming a group of scholars that
was as diverse as it was balanced.
In terms of institutional affiliations, we had fifteen presentersfrom European countries, but also
fifteen from non-European countries, thus rendering the section
a truly international gathering ofscholars. A similar balance could
be achieved as regards academic
experience, so that both promising
PhD students and long-establishedscholars were equally represented.
The section was therefore a placeof scholarly exchange acrossvarious borders.
In terms of topics, the full rangeof Japonic linguistics was represented: Besides Japanese as
such,
severalcontributions
also addressed the Ryukyuan
languages or others such as Ainu
and Korean. Both modern and premodern stages of these languages
were taken into consideration – theformer covering recent and evencurrently ongoing developments,
the latter spanning virtually all
periods from Nara up to Meiji andbeyond. In addition there was agood balance between synchronicanddiachronic
approaches
here. All language systems, i.e.
phonetics and phonology, prosody,morphology, syntax and semantics, the lexicon, as well as socio46

logical and pragmatic aspects oflanguage were covered to a lesser
or greater extent. Special mention
should be made of corpus studies,
which was the main subject of
three papers and constituted thebasis for another four. Finally,
script usage in both Japaneseand Korean and the interface
between language and writing wasaddressed as well.
The quality of the contributions to
our section was generally above
average, and every presentation
concluded with an interestingand stimulating discussion. The
meeting in its entirety can be
regarded an undoubted success,for which many thanks are due toall contributors as well as to the
local organizers.
Section 3a: Modern Literature
Convenors: Ina Hein (Universityof Vienna) and Simone Müller
(University of Zurich)
The Modern Literature Section
consisted of five panels, one
roundtable discussion, and twelve
individual presentations given
by scholars from a number ofEuropean countries, Japan, as
well as from the US, Canada, andAustralia.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

In selecting the panels and individual papers, we had given
priority to contributions relating
explicitly to the special themeof this year’s modern literaturesection: reflecting on the benefits
and limitations of ‘Western’literary currents and theories forthe analysis of modern Japanese
literature.
We started with a keynote speech
for which we could win Brett deBary (Cornell University), an expert
in theoretical questions concerningtranslation, postcolonialism, andgender issues. The opening panel“The benefits and limitations ofusing Western gender theory forthe analysis of modern Japanesewomen’s literature” and the roundtable “Literary theories in Japan –between western models and local
traditions” on the second conference day focused on our section’s
special topic.
We also had panels on “Identityand otherness in ‘zainichi’ literature”; on phantastic elements inotherwise realist literary texts; on“Gender in post-bubble literature”
and on “Japanese literature ofcrisis from postwar to post-Fukushima”.
The individual papers covered awide range of topics, but we could
actually group them together undercertain thematic headlines suchas:•“Feminism and Japanese
literature” (treating as examples
texts by Miyamoto Yuriko, Dazai
Osamu, Hiratsuka Raichô andKanezaki Tsune);•“Literary movements” (e.g.
naturalism, avant-garde, and otherconcepts of art);•“Aesthetics” (analyzing thefamous literary debate between
Akutagawa and Tanizaki about the
plotless novel; Taishô discoursesof poems; as well as aesthetic
ideals of the contemporary haiku);•
and “Case studies on
Japanese authors” such as
Murakami Haruki, Kanai Mieko,
and Abe Kazushige.
Despite this variety, many papers
touched upon similar politicallyand / or socially relevant issues
such as colonialism and postcolonialism, gender relations, or transculturality.
Having called for papers thatwould take up the problem of theadaptability of Western theories
when analyzing Japanese literature, we were particularly happy
that over the three conferencedays we actually discussed ques47

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

tions such as: Can the terms“naturalism” or “avant-garde” beadequately applied to Japanese
literary movements? To what
extent can we find mutual or
unidirectional impacts, similarities,
and differences between literary
currents in Japan and Westerncountries? Which Western literary
theories have or had a strong
impact in Japan and why? To what
extent can we analyze Japanese
texts with parameters borrowed
from Western literary theories suchas narratology, gender theories
or post-colonialism – and what
are their limitations? How would
readings of the same literary text
differ if Western theories wereapplied – or if completely different
approaches were taken?
The section was well-visited
throughout and met with much
positive response. We enjoyedlively Q&A sessions following thepresentations. We would like tothank the presenters as well as theaudience for making the sectiona success. Last but not least wewish to thank the local organizers
in Ljubljana for their efficient andalways friendly support.

48

Section 3b: Pre-modern Literature
Convenors: Michael Watson (Meiji
Gakuin University) and
Joshua Mostow (University of
British Columbia)
The pre-modern literature section
consisted of seven organizedpanels and three sessions ofindividual papers. The sessions
were arranged in roughly chronological order. In total, we heard
thirty papers on subjects ranging
from early waka and kanshi to
Edo-period publishing.
Attendance was good throughout, averaging between twenty and thirty
participants for most sessions,with many participants attending
all three days. More than forty
people crowded into our room forthe keynote speech by Yamanaka
Reiko (Hosei University), whogave a well-received talk on thesubject of “Nō: The Study of Literature in Motion.”
Both convenors were pleased tohear several people comment thatthe first session seemed more likea panel on classical poetry than asequence of individual papers by
three scholars working independently of each other. There was ofcourse no designated discussantfor the session, but instead there
was a lively series of questions

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

from the floor, which got us off to avery good start.
As there has been at least one
session on kanbun literature at
most recent EAJS conferences,it was good to see again a strong
panel on the subject, focussing on
works “outside the mainstream”
of early kanbun literature. The
remaining panel on day two dealt
with the pictorial reception ofIse monogatari, with each of the
speakers looking at a different
form of illustration. Yamamoto
Tokurō was the discussant.
Day three began with three
individual papers by younger
scholars from Finland, France,
and Japan on Heian literature.
This was followed by a panelthat gave a good overview of
the cultural and literary history of
the Sanjūrokkasen-e. Medieval
literature was represented bythree energetically argued papers
on war chronicles, origin stories,and encyclopedias. The last panelin the afternoon is sometimes atime when attentions are flagging,but in this case the day ended
on a high note, with three very
lively presentations on aspects ofKōwaka ballad and its influence.
Patrick Schwemmer’s paper wasof particular interest,

Both panels on day four weredevoted to the subject ofpublishing and the history of thebook. Ivo Smits was an effective discussant on three papers
in Japanese, each looking at
illustrations in different genres of
early-printed books. The last panel
focussed on zōhan mokuroku or“publishers’ blurbs”, a fascinating
new source of information for how
books were marketed and read in
the Edo period.
The section closed with three individual papers. The first speaker
was caught out by new passport
requirements and unable totravel, but the local organizers
kindly helped the convenor to set
up a Skype link in advance. This
allowed her both to give her paperon biwa recitation and to respondto questions from the audience in
Ljubjana. The section ended with
two well-researched papers by
graduate students in Naples andParis on Edo narrative and drama,
respectively.
From the difficult stage of selection to the end of the conference,
I benefitted greatly from the helpof my experienced co-convenor
Joshua Mostow. I would like tothank our keynote speaker andeach one of the participants
for what was by all accounts a
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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

successful session. I look forward
to meeting you again in Lisbon.
				Section 4a: Visual Arts
Convenors:
Ewa
Machotka(Leiden University) and Amaury
A. García Rodriguez (El Colegiode México)
The call for papers “Japan’s visual
culture – ‘national’, ‘universal’,‘local’, ‘global’, ‘transcultural’?”invited proposals offering innovative views on the issues revolving
around the place of Japan’s visual
culture within global art discourse.
It aimed to trigger discussion on
how Japan’s visual culture has
been narrated, interpreted, andpresented via academic discourse,
writing and curating in the last few
decades, as well as how it should
be approached in the future.
As a reaction to the call, thesubsection convenors received
proposals approaching the topic
from a variety of perspectives andinvestigating diverse material frommedieval Buddhist sculptures kept
in European collections to contemporary manga and their reception abroad. On the basis of thequality of the proposals and their
response to the call, the convenors
selected 18 individual papers and2 panels to be presented during
the EAJS Conference in Ljubljana.
50

They were especially glad to beable to select papers by scholars
in all stages of their academic
careers, from a Ph.D. candidate
to professors, and from institutions
in Europe, Japan, the USA, andAustralia, which facilitated versatile
networking and exchange. The
individual papers were groupedby topic and arranged in chronological order. The convenors
invited renowned scholar Prof.
Timon Screech (SOAS, Universityof London) to give the keynote
speech. Prof. Screech delivered an insightful presentation
on current research issues. In
general, the presenters focusedon cultural exchanges with theWest and only a few referred toJapan’s great neighbour China.
The papers discussed earlymodern exchanges with Europe,
the development of modern art
and construction of art historyvis-à-vis the West, as well as theimportation of objects to Europe,
the location of Japan’s art in the
global context, and the role ofmanga in contemporary cultural
exchanges. The presentations
were well attended (for example
the keynote speech was attended
by ca. 80 people) and triggered
lively discussions.
In concluding we’d like to mention
that the subsection also ventured
outside the conference venues

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

and on Wednesday, August 27,
visited the Slovene Ethnographic
Museum, which keeps a Japanese art collection. The participants of the subsection as well
as a number of scholars fromother sections were received by
Dr. Ralf Čeplak, the curator. And
finally, we would like to extend oursincere gratitude to the University of Ljubljana, the hosts of theconference, for organizing sucha successful event for the Japan
Studies specialists.
Section 4b: Performing Arts
Convenors: Andreas Regelsberger(University of Trier) and Peter
Eckersall (CUNY)
The performing arts section wasco-convened by Profs Peter Eckersall (The Graduate Center, The
City University of New York) andAndreas Regelsberger (University of Trier). Our Call for Papers
invited scholars to address thetheme of ‘Dramaturgy’ in relation totheir current research. The theme
attracted considerable attention
and was a focus of discussion
during the conference. We had agood response to the call from the
EAJS membership and after somediscussion about the location andtiming of papers we were able toplace more than half of the papers.

Number of presentations
The section had a full programof papers comprising: 12 single
presentations, 18 panellists in 6
panels, and one keynote paper
from Prof. Dr. Stanca ScholzCionca, University of Trier. There
were 31 presentations in total.
This turned out to be a goodand very balanced mix of Japanese, European and Americanpresenters of both, young andupcoming scholars with exciting
new ideas and approaches aswell as well-established experts inacademia.
Attendance
The section was well attended.
Not having breakout sessions
meant that panellists could attend
all sessions and respond to thethemes addressed over the daysof the conference. Individual
sessions had on average an audience of 20-40 people.
ThemesThe papers addressed all fields
of Japanese performing arts
including classical nō drama,
kabuki/bunraku and contemporary
theatre, performance and music.
Almost all of the papers reflectedon the panel theme of ‘Dramaturgy’, a theme that included
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studies of theatre histories,
production, performance analysis
and studies of theatre in the wider
context of cultural history.
Panel Highlights
The papers were all of a highstandard and many drew onscholars’ current research in
the field. Themed panels wereparticularly successful in exploring
the wider issues of research topics
from various interrelating perspectives. Among the highlights were:•
Prof. Dr. Stanca ScholzCionca’s (University of Trier)keynote lecture on “The Politics
of Performance – Dramaturgies ofshinsaku Nō”. Her deeply historicized presentation was informativeand cast light on dramaturgy aspolitical complex in the productionof nō. Prof. Scholz-Cionca’s paper
was distinguished by focusing on
three shinsaku nō pieces in thecontext of discourses of power, thedistribution of new ideologies andtrauma processing.
•
The panel “Art, Performativity and Urban Space: 1960s to
the Post-Tsunami Present” chairedby Michael Molasky (Wadesa)featured wide-ranging informative
discussions on cultures of protest
from 1960s Japan up to today.
This panel was richly informative.
52•
The panel “The Power of
Woman Performer in Noh: Ideas
and Perspectives” chaired byRoberta Strippoli (Binghamton
University SUNY, USA) anddiscussed by Susan Matisoff(University of California, Berkeley)combined various approaches tothe topic of women in nō and wasvery informative.
•
The first day of the
program largely focused on nō.
This was a rare opportunity fornō scholars to introduce current
research in the field to an expert
audience. It gained further inspiration from Prof. Scholz-Cionca’s
keynote paper.
Overall we were able to enjoy asmooth running and richly discursive program. We thank our hosts
for their excellent work and extend
a special thanks to the volunteer
helpers who worked so hard to
make sure that everything wentsmoothly.
Section 5a: Anthropology andSociology
Convenors:
BarbaraHolthusand Wolfram Manzenreiter (bothUniversity of Vienna)
From August 28 to 30, 2014, theAnthropology & Sociology sectionEAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

(Section 5a) convened at the
14th conference of the European
Association for Japanese Studies.
The conference was held at the
Department of Asian and African
Studies in Ljubljana, capital of
Slovenia.
Two of the three day-meetingfeatured parallel sessions, in order
to at least partially accommodate
the high number of applicants forpresentations. The section was
initially granted only slots for a
total of 30 papers (10 sessions).
In total, the EAJS received applications for 68 presentations (42for individual papers and 7 panel
applications). Papers and panels
were selected based on theirinnovativeness,methodologicalsoundness and promising quality.
Through negotiations with the
EAJS head office, the section
convenors managed to receive
six additional “parallel” sessions,
eventually ending up with one
keynote and 16 sessions, five of
which were pre-formed panels.
Amongthese,
12
sessions(including 3 of these pre-formed
panel submissions) were related
to this year’s section topic, 4sessions were considered generalsessions. Of these, two sessions
were filled with the panel on“Rubbish! The underworlds ofeveryday life”, organized by Katarzyna Cwiertka (Leiden University)and two sessions consisted of individual papers.
The section’s topic of the 2014conference was entitled “All forthe good life – anthropologicaland sociological perspectives onhappiness in Japan”. We asked
what the meaning of happiness forJapanese today and in the past is.
What is their take on what makes
life worth-living? To what degree
is the individual’s pursuit of happiness and well-being constrainedor facilitated by society and its
institutions? We especially invited
papers that address the culturalvariability of happiness and wellbeing across Japanese society
and among different social groups.
The high response to this section
topic reflected the viability of this
topic for anthropologists and sociologists working on Japan andresulted in a large range of presentations on the topic and showed
the diversity of approaches andresearch questions.
The keynote was delivered by
Uchida Yukiko, cultural psychologist from the Kokoro ResearchCenter at Kyoto University, whospoke on the “Cultural Construalof ‘Interdependent Happiness’ inJapan – Cultural psychologicaltheories and empirical evidence”.
By looking at how culture shapes
human emotion as well as what
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happiness constitutes from a Japanese perspective, she made herargument in defense of cultural
psychology and for culturally
specific levels of desirability orideals of happiness.
Showing a lot of comparative data,
Uchida pointed to the fact thatmost theories on happiness are
too global and that most people
do not fit under these explanatory“Western” models, as they are not“WEIRD”, an acronym standingfor “western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic”. For
the case of Japan, in particularinterdependence, balance seeking
between one’s own desires andthe needs of society, and the idealof collectively achieved well-being
are elementary elements. The
keynote was a great starting point
as people kept referring to her
throughout the conference.
The session entitled “Civil society
and communal life” indicated thesignificance of belonging, and thatpractices and activities, which areconducted in a committed way,also contribute to people’s senseof well-being. Patricia Steinhoff
demonstrated through her network
analysis of political activists how
friendships between and withingroups and the sharing of knowledge and working together for acommon cause has contributed to54

higher levels of social capital andthat political activism may increase
participants’ levels of happiness.
Martin Lieser who studies organized football fans in Japan argued
that football passion provides asocial space of exchange andbonding for people that otherwise
would never meet. But pleasure
is not only derived from the integrating forces of football fandomtranscending the social structure,
but also from the deviant behavior
enabled within the same social
framework. A study of community
level happiness was the focusof Tolga Oezsen’s presentation.
Oezsen, one of the few quantitative sociologists at this year’s
conference, studied administrative approaches to rural community revitalization in Kumamoto
prefecture. As communities suffer
severely from depopulation, overtime the idea of who belongs to
the community is changing, so thateven the ones that moved away
are still considered to be part ofthe village communities. Yet there
is a difference between the administrative views on community wellbeing and the individual level ofwell-being.
The panel on “Social and politicalinstitutions as facilitators andconstraints to the pursuit of happiness: The family in modern andEAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

contemporary Japan” provided
an interdisciplinary group ofscholars. A historical view on how
the discourse on happiness has
evolved was presented by Torsten
Weber. Already since the 1870s, apoliticization of ideas on happinesscan be found in Japan. Weber has
analyzed the public discourse of
Abe Isoo and Hani Motoko in thewomen’s magazine Fujin kōron,finding that happiness in early 20th
century discourse was constructed
as a goal of individual pursuit andthe freedom of the individual rather
than the concern for the wellbeing of the group. Weber further
distinguishes between “smaller”,
meaning everyday, happiness and“greater” happiness, such as the
pursuit of happiness as envisioned
through the Meiji constitution.
Chris Winkler also provided alongitudinal study through his analysis of LDP manifestos between
1955 and 2011. The manifestos
show three phases in regards tofamily policies, pointing to a muchgreater interest by the LDP in
welfare politics than family politics. The pursuit of quality of life
only began in the second phase,after the urgent quest for material
wealth shifted to the LDP having
to adapt to the public’s post-materialist policy preferences as wellas the harsh fiscal realities of thetime. Tim Tiefenbach’s quantitative
study on neighborhood associa-

tions and the distinction between
voluntary versus involuntary participation stresses the significanceof free choice in the participation.
Phoebe Holdgruen presented
preliminary results from a projectshe
conducts
withBarbaraHolthus on parental well-being
in response to Japan’s nuclear
radiation crisis. Findings from their
participant observation among
activist mothers in Chiyoda-ku
were summarized as the motherhood dilemma of women who feelthey cannot protect their children
as traditional gender roles prevent
them from rallying against what
they perceive as a threat for theirchildren.
In the session on “Happiness andeducation”, Anne-Lise Mithout
asked if Japan’s special education reform has contributed tooffering a happier life to disabled
youth. Mithout sees the situation
rather critical, due to the neoliberal
impact on politics, the diversity of
impairments and the ability of theteachers who might not be suitably trained to diagnose disability.
Besides special support programs
and integration, also autonomy
and self-esteem are equallyimportant elements to increasehappiness. Christopher Bondy’s
ethnographic research in juniorhigh schools in Buraku districts
focuses on how schools can
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function as a “protective cocoon”
from having to face the possibilityof being detected as outsider ofsociety and thus contribute to theyouth’s sense of well-being. The
implementation of gender equality
guidelines was the focus of Aline
Henninger. Through a detailed
distinction of all actors on thelocal school level Henniger paints
a critical picture by pointing at thedifficulties in the implementation
process.
The presentations in session“Emotions and happiness infamilial relations” showed how theideals of a happy marriage cangreatly vary. Dalit Bloch determined the importance of social
context and the shifting conjugal
roles in her in-depth case study of
one couple, whereas Laura Dales
concentrated on the connection
between marriage and friendship.
Marriage influences friendships
in a myriad of ways. Overall,marriage does not delimit theemotional needs for friendship,
yet reduces the time for friendship. Hiroko Umegaki Constantini studied recently retired men
searching for happiness and theirplace within the family. In thecase of one grandfather, he chose
grandchild-rearing as the rightsolution, providing him regularaccess to his own daughter,
nurturing emotional bonds and56

his desire to still be the financial
provider of sorts.
“Gendered Views and experiencesof well-being in contemporary
Japan” saw three papers that
focused on the youth subculture, youth’s desires, values andelements creating happiness forgyaru and gyaru-o (Arai Yusuke),
on the creation of fantasiesof happiness for middle-classwives (Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni),
and the study of the workplaceand its relationship to the happiness of Japanese women (Maya
Todeschini). Todeschini points towomen choosing a “winding road”
approach, distancing themselvesfrom “traditional” corporate Japan,
by working on the margins, eitherin smaller companies, having
multiple career switches, or
becoming free-lancers working as
consultants or advisors, complementing the activities of traditional
companies.
The panel on “Re-imagining
masculinities in contemporary
Japan: How marginalized men
seek happiness and well-being”
ran over two sessions. Presenters
Kato Etsuko, Ono Mayumi, andSuzuki Ayako focused on lifestyle migration of young men
to Canada, the US, Ireland andSoutheast Asia in the search forikigai. Hikikomori were the focus

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015of Horiguchi Sachiko’s presentation, in which she concentrated on
support groups trying to provide
jobs, dismantle salaryman ideals,
further communication and intimate relationships with a significant other. The search of young
Japanese salarymen for self-fulfillment through physical appearance
rounded out this panel with thepresentation by Kristina Barancovait-Skindaraviciene. The desire
to be accepted is the driving force
for young salarymen to understandtheir bodies as a “project” to beworked on, as part of their selfidentity, and as an expression of
their individuality.
In the session on “Happinessand sexualities” Erick Laurent
argued that there is happinessin the Japanese closet for Japanese homosexual men. Western
activism understands “coming out”
not just as a rite of passage but
as the universal key to freedom
and happiness. Through his
in-depth ethnographic research
however, Laurent has found thathappiness cannot be automatically linked to coming out, but that
there can be happiness in thecloset indeed. Takeda Hiroko
and Ishiguro Kuniko in theirpaper analyzed young non-elite
women working in kira, meaning
sexual or pornographic services
jobs. These jobs are advertised

as transforming the women into
something special. Adrian Ovidiu
Tamas and Carmen Tamas in theirjoint ethnographic research at an
Osaka bar described the late night
customers as lonely and looking
for companionship. The spontaneously created community ofcustomers acts as a surrogate forthe basic human need of companionship. Customers develop the
habit to going to the bar, even on
weekdays, which the researchers
analyzed in terms of addiction.
Iza Kavedzija’s presentation on
old people’s attempts to createa meaningful and fulfilling life
opened the first Friday morningparallel session on “Constructionsof happiness”. Happiness of theelderly is searched for in the enjoyment of hobbies, a more contemplative lifestyle, and gratitude
for the little things in life. But her
account also countered the stereotypical image of the dependent
seniors. Since her informants
were well aware of the difficulties in balancing between theirown desires for securing a certain
sense of freedom with maintaining
warm interpersonal relationships,
achieving a sense of happinessturned out to be a practical form of
moral judgment. Nataša Visoĉnik
researched the role of machizukuri, public housing policy, andcommunity projects on bringing
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happiness to the socially andspatially
marginalized
burakuand Korean neighborhoods inSouthern Kyoto. Debra Occhi also
looked at the spatial dimensions ofaction and emotions. Her researchcompared interaction patterns
between masked characters andparticipants of traditional community festivals with the ubiquitousconsumption of the more recently
designed, regional tourism characters; both are clearly about raisingstrong emotional responses, suchas anxiety or laughter, to chaseaway evil or simply to bring about
instant moments of happiness.
The second parallel section on
Friday morning presented “Survey
data on happiness” and thus only
featuredquantitative
studies.
Economist Sebastian Lechevalierasked if increasing inequality inJapan is correlated with unhappiness and if so, if widespreaddissatisfaction will eventually leadto a heightened interest in redistributional policy. His findings indicate that particularly those forcesin society that expect the state tolevel off socio-economic disparities are dissatisfied with their life
in general and the result of government interference in particular.
Sociologist Carola Hommerichdiscussed the contribution of social
capital to social and subjective
well-being. David Green studied
58

regional and work-related issuesof happiness and their impact on
fertility outcome. Estimation resultsof regression analysies revealed
that marriage age, spouse’s
education and working hours arenegatively associated with thenumber of children, while spouse’s
income, the living arrangementwith parents and regional satisfaction are positively associated.
The panel entitled “Phenomenologies of Japanese Happiness”
concluded the last two session of
the Anthropology and Sociology
section. Gordon Mathews’ twenty
year-long study of the changing
life trajectories of Japanese adults
demonstrated great variability ofsources of happiness and unhappiness. While work turned out not
to have been a calling for most of
his informants, in retrospective
they regretted putting too muchpressure on their own offspring inorder to follow in their footpaths,
by placing work over family roles.
Osawa Makoto who researches
urbanites
turning
farmers
discussed the pursuit of happinessin the context of individual motivations, lifestyle patterns and theinstitutional framework of regional
political economy. Susanne Klien
revisited her informants froma previous research project onvolunteering in disaster-hit Tohoku
to find that post-volunteering activi-EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

ties consist of spatially differentiated and diversified lifestyles thatcombine economic activities tomake a living with contributions
to society for making sense outof living. Continuing the panel,
Joy Hendry presented first reflections from a recent research stint
on what is retired life is like. Her
Kyoto-based informants revealed
that health and grandchildren are
as much a source of happinessas are social encounters and“work-like” activities. Finally, Lynne
Nakano looked at women’s takeon marriage, comparing Japan,
Shanghai, and Hong Kong. With
universal
marriageremaining
the ideal, single life is seen as
an unconventional life choice,demanding conscious efforts tonegotiate between societal expectations and personal desires.
Singlehood, considered by family
members and others a transitory state, eventually becomes
accepted as permanent withwomen getting older.
Rounding up three days of intense
scholarly exchange, the session
organizers initiated the final
discussion by reflecting on “Whatwe came to know and still would
like to know about happiness inJapan”. In sum, the overall impression gained from the presentations
was that Japanese seem rather
happy through the anthropo-

logical lense, with the sociologicalapproach delivering a less happy
picture. Since the majority ofpresenters were from the field ofanthropology, with only a small
number of sociological analyses,
we wonder if this cleavage is partly
caused by the disciplinary selfselection bias or related to separate disciplinary conceptualization
and research strategies. We haveseen throughout the conference
that there is a methodologicaltendency in anthropology formaking use of biographies, and it
is not unlikely that the human driveof making sense out of one’s life isultimately conducive to more positive assessments.
The great variety of case studies
reminded the audience that happiness is not universal, and it is not
the same emotional state of mind
to any and all, and that it evencannot be taken as a cultural
construal. When asked, people
tend to see happiness as a very
personal and immediate issue.
They give less significance tothe weight and impact of sociostructural conditions, which arerather taken for granted, eventhough they are seen as shifting,whereas the self remains rather
stable. The life stages people findthemselves in are putting different
demands on their lives and thus59

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60

exert changing influences on theirpersonal desires.

and the materiality of happiness inJapan.

Some questions however have
not yet been fully addressed
throughout this dense, three-day
section, yet which are worthwhileand should be the subject of
future, ongoing investigations.
Uchida in her keynote speechpresented a noticeable gap
between the ideal state of happiness between Japan and the U.S.
How are other societies faring
in regards to their ideal states ofhappiness and in comparison totheir actual levels of happiness?
We further wonder to what degree
findings from the case studies canbe generalized. What is the interaction between larger data sets
and ethnographic data, and whatkind of interaction can be beneficial for sociologists and anthropologists working on the topic? Wealso think that the role of the mass
media, whether on the generationof desires and emotions, or on the
public discourse about and theperception of happiness deserves
further investigation. And finally,
what is the connection between
the subjective appraisal of institutions and structural conditions andtheir objective conditioning within
the larger framework of happiness
and well-being? In other words,
more research is needed to cometo terms with the conceptualization

In late 2015, the section convenors
will publish an edited volume of
selected anthropological contributions to the conference.
Section 5b: Media Studies
Convenors:
Griseldis
Kirsch(SOAS, University of London) andBlai Guarné (Universitat Autònoma
de Barcelona)
This was the first time that asection on Japanese media
studies has been convened at
an EAJS conference. For thatreason, we had an open call for
papers and welcomed scholars of
all levels working on any aspectof Japanese media. As convenors
we were very happy to see theinterest aroused by the section
and, due to the high number ofquality proposals received in thecall for papers, we were glad toschedule a parallel session on thethird day of the conference.
As inaugural keynote speaker we
had the honor to have Professor
Iwabuchi Koichi (Monash University, Australia) who delivered
a lecture titled “Paradigm Shiftin the Critical Study of Media
Culture? – Some Thoughts fromJapanese Cases.” In his keynoteEAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

address, Professor Iwabuchi highlighted the significance of critical
media studies in the wake of
3/11, combining both theoreticalconsiderations on media and theirrole in society with more practicalelements of analysis. His trip to
Europe was possible thanks to theco-founding of the Great British
Sasakawa Foundation, the University of Vienna, and the Faculty of
Languages and Cultures at SOAS,
University of London.
After Professor Iwabuchi’s keynote
speech on Thursday morning, we
had an entire day on media andgender. Three panel-sessions took
place: “Interdisciplinary Analysis
of TV Dramas: The Example ofKaseifu no Mita,” chaired by Hilaria
Gössmann (University of Trier,Germany); “Culture of Their Own?
Questioning Gender Normativity inJapanese Media Cultures,” chaired
by Elizabeth Grace (Universityof Cambridge, UK); and the individual papers presented under
the rubric “Media and Gender,” ina session chaired by Blai Guarné(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain). The
papers presented in those panels
approached the constructions ofgender in the media from various
angles and through various
genres. Two of the panels had
been pre-organised, one of which
ran entirely in Japanese and wason a television drama that was
extremely successful after 3/11,
Kaseifu no Mita, and the other one
on gender normativities in various
media/genres.
On Friday, we ran parallelsessions throughout the day. In
one of the sessions, we had apanel on Fukushima and film titled“3.11 Cinema – Disaster and the
Nuclear Unconscious in PostFukushima Films.” The panel waschaired by Livia Monnet (University of Montreal, Canada), andThomas Lamarre (McGill University, Canada) acted as discussant.
This panel was followed by various
individual papers gathered in threedifferent panels around the topicsof “Historical Media,” “Media andMemory,” and “Media and Politics.”
Simultaneously, in the parallelsessions, we enjoyed two subsequent panels on historical picture
postcards as media focused on
the topics of “Imagi(ni)ng History”
and “Imagi(ni)ng Modernity,” thatwere respectively chaired by Sepp
Linhart (University of Vienna,
Austria) and Susanne Formanek(University of Vienna, Austria).
These panels were followed byindividual papers that addressed
the two main topics to which the
day was devoted, media anddisaster, and media and historical
records, as well as another preorganised session on mediated61

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voices chaired by Kerim Yasar(Ohio State University, USA)
under the rubric “The Voice in
the Machine – Mediated Voices
in Historical and Anthropological
Perspectives.”
On Saturday, we started the
day with another pre-organised
session on “Trans-national Agentsand Social Change in Japanese
Cinema – 1920s-1960s,” that waschaired by Griseldis Kirsch (SOAS,
University of London, UK), and weclosed the section program with
the individual papers presented in
the panel session “Media and theFantastic.”
All in all, we ran seven preorganised panels and nineteen
individual papers. The speakers
came from various countries,
including, but not limited to,Japan, Canada, the US, the UK,
Germany and Spain. We had far
more submissions than we could
accommodate, and it was a very
successful first conference for theMedia Studies section.
The convenors wish to thank theorganising committee in Ljubljana
for their efficiency and swift help
for whichever problems arose, as
well as the EAJS and the funding
bodies that made Professor Iwabuchi’s trip to Europe possible. We
are looking forward to another62

successful section in Lisbon in
2017.
Section 6: Economics, Business, and Political Economy
Convenors:David
Chiavacci(University of Zurich) andSébastien Lechevalier (EHESS)
Diversity and institutional change
in the Japanese economy were
proposed as topics in the callfor papers of the section of
economics, business, and political
economy. Still, as at earlier EAJS
conferences, we also accepted
good papers on other topics
related to the section. Our keynote
speaker was Prof. Mari Sakoof Oxford University, who had
kindly accepted our invitation. Her
presentation “Whither the Japanese Model?” was a stimulating
introduction into the section topic.
It gave an overview of the localization and theorization of Japan
as economic model in political
economy research and raised thequestion if the Japanese economy
could still today be regarded
as a model of its own in view of
economic and structural reforms
and increasing diversity since theburst of the bubble economy in theearly 1990s.
The section included a total of
29 papers and an invited round-EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

table. We had in the section twoorganized panels. One contained
three papers on the persistenceof life-time employment in Japan
under the pressure of economic
stagnation. The other was devoted
to Japan‘s economic history. Itsfour papers focused on economic
development and global financein inter-war Japan. The otherseven sessions consisted of 21
individual papers in total, which
covered a wide range of economic
topics on Japan like homelessness, history of whaling, orentrepreneurship and innovation.
Some papers analysed aspectsof certain markets and industries
in Japan by focusing on cosmetic
industry, digital product market,
medical engineering, or tourism
industry. Furthermore, inter- andtransnational topics of Japan‘seconomy were also discussed liketrade agreements, female foreign
workers, or foreign-owned firms.
The theme of the round-table was“Board Diversity and Leadershipin Japanese Corporations”, which
included as participants externalboard members of Japanesecompanies. It was a welcome
opportunity to bring academics
and practitioners together, which
led to new insights into changing
practices of boards in Japanese
corporations.

We thank again our keynote
speaker Prof. Sako and all participants for joining us in Ljubljana
and for their efforts! The localorganizers made a perfect job, andthe section of economics, business, and political economy hadvery interesting and intensive daysof scholarly exchange.
Section 7: History
Convenors: Hans Martin Krämer(University of Heidelberg) andEllen van Goethem (Kyushu
University)
The History Section was convened
by Hans Martin Krämer (University
of Heidelberg, Germany) and Ellenvan Goethem (Kyushu University,
Japan). We decided to issue a callfor papers for two subsections,which would allow for openness interms of both historical period aswell as methodological approach.
In other words, subsection 1,“Japan in World History,” aimed
more at modern and political
history, while subsection 2, “Reorientation: Alternative Sources forJapanese History”, was designed
to draw more proposals fromthe perspectives of premodern
and cultural history. Overall, we
received 13 proposals for panelsand 51 individual paper proposals.
Although we had the privilegeof being able to fill slots for two
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parallel sessions throughout all
three conference days, we could
only accommodate two thirds ofthe applications we received.
Thankfully, the applications weredivided nicely between the two
subsections, so we were able toselect papers for strong three-day
programs for both topics. Much
like in previous years, the earlymodern period and the early twentieth century figured most prominently in the papers eventually
selected. In contrast, the historyof the ancient, medieval, and postWorld-War-II periods were grossly
underrepresented. In terms of
speakers, the anonymous selection of papers did little to change
the geographic pattern also visible
in the past. Almost half of all
speakers in the section came fromeither German or English speaking
countries,
while
contributors
from Southern Europe, includingFrance, were far and few between.
A positive development is that
there were more representatives ofEastern Europe than usual.
In fact, one of the highlights ofthe subsection “Japan in WorldHistory” was that two wholeslots were devoted to Russia
and Japan, one being a grouped
panel on Soviet Russia. Thissession also sparked a lively
debate due to the presence of64

many Russian specialists in theaudience. Another highlight was
the section’s keynote speech by
Yamashita Norihisa (Ritsumeikan
University, Japan) on “The ‘Long
Twentieth Century’ and Japan asa Non-Axial Civilization”. Professor
Yamashita’s broad placement ofJapan within world history fit invery well with the first subsection’s
theme and also, somewhat
surprisingly, with the conference
key note by Karatani Kōjin held
one day earlier.
Thanks not in the least to the
local organizers, everything went
very smoothly. There were nolast-minute cancelations; turnout
was high throughout, averaging
between 30 and 50 per subsection; and the quality of the papers
was also generally perceived to bevery high. Some topical clusters
other than “Russia and Japan”
were the role of non-state actors
in foreign relations of Japan during
the second half of the nineteenth
century and new approaches tofascism in Japan. In both cases,
controversial discussions ensued
from the audience concerning thefeasibility of new approaches tothe subject matter at hand, andthis is perhaps the most that one
can hope from a large and interdisciplinary meetings such as the
EAJS International Conference.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Section 8a: Religion and Historyof Ideas
Conveners: Erica Baffelli (University of Manchester) and Anna
Andreeva (University of Heidelberg)
The meeting of the section 8a“Religion and History of Ideas”
opened with the keynote lecture
by Professor Paul L. Swanson(Nanzan Institute for Religion
and Culture, Nanzan University,
Nagoya). He noted that several
trends gained prominence in thescholarly publications on Japanese religions over recent years:
the discussion of the very term“religion” and the applicability of
its Japanese counterpart “shūkyō”;
the investigation of Japan’s religiosity in the Meiji to early Shōwa
periods; the scholarly attempts toelucidate the history of “Shinto”;
and the study of Japanese religions in the aftermath of the“Aum affair” in 1995. In addition toother important topics, Professor
Swanson also drew attention to
the state of academic publishingand raised the issue of “openaccess” and “business model”,
regarding the future and challenges the scholars are facing in
the twenty-first century.
The second session of day one
started with three individual

papers. Janine Tasca Sawada’s(Brown University, USA) paper
focused on the historiography ofwhat she calls “people‘s religion”,
drawing on the example of theFuji-kō in early Tokugawa Japan.
Mick Deneckere (University ofCambridge, UK) discussed theperiodical press and Buddhism
in early Meiji Japan, while Tinka
Delakorda Kawashima (Universityof Tsukuba, Japan) presented apaper reappraising the historyof “kakure kirishitan” through theWorld Heritage Site nomination
process.
The afternoon was busy with twopanel sessions. One, chaired by
Ian Reader (Lancaster University, UK), was entitled “Mediated Religion and Charismatic
Imagery in Contemporary Japan.”John Schultz’s (Kansai Gaidai
University, Japan) presentation
zoomed in on the rising popularityof mascots used by Buddhist
temples and organizations, while
Isaac Gagné’s (Waseda University
Institute for Asia-Pacific Studies,Japan) paper approached theissue of charisma and socialityof religious groups online. Erica
Baffelli (University of Manchester,UK) discussed the shifting patternsof authority in Japanese ‘New Religions.’

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The second afternoon panel,chaired by Fabio Rambelli (University of California, Santa Barbara,
USA) was dedicated to a newresearch angle in the study ofJapanese religion: the maritime
themes and links with the sea.
The exploration of new perspectives for the study of maritime
religiosity was the focus of the first
paper (Fabio Rambelli). Gaynor
Sekimori (SOAS, UK) investigated
the status of maritime deities
throughout the period of criticalreassignment of religious roles andpurposes during the Meiji Restoration. Emily Simpson’s (Universityof California, Santa Barbara)presentation focused on the imageof Empress Jingū and maritime
religiosity in medieval Japan. Max
D. Moerman (Barnard College,
Columba University) respondedwith comments on the panel’s
introduction and presentations andsuggested further research questions for this new field of inquiry.
Day two started with the roundtable entitled “The Sensorial
Construction of the Body inMedieval Religion: Voice, Taste,Form, Performance,” and waspresided over by Lucia Dolce(SOAS, University of London,
UK). The presenters, including
Abe Yasurō (Nagoya University, Japan), Itō Satoshi (Ibaraki
University, Japan), Shiba Kayono
66(Chiba University, Japan), Yoneda
Mariko (Kobe Gakuin University,
Japan) and the panel chair, Lucia
Dolce, introduced the new sources
recently discovered in Japanese
temple archives and proposed
new approaches to the study of
medieval Japanese Buddhism.
The topics discussed ranged fromenacting of the “living body of the
Buddha” (Abe), voice as a part ofreligious body (Shiba), drinking tea
and the thought of the medieval
monk Yōsai’s (Yoneda), to theimpact of Tantric notions on the
medieval Shinto discourses on
sexual desire (Itō), and conceptualizations of colour and formin Tantric visualization practices(Dolce).
The late morning session, chairedby Anna Andreeva (University
of Heidelberg, Germany) was
dedicated to individual papers.
StevenTrenson(Hiroshima
University, Japan) continued thetheme of esoteric Buddhism withthe paper on the cult of ‘Tripartite
Wish-Fulfilling Jewel’ in medieval Shingon. Peiying Lin (The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Israel) presented her analysis of
the tathāgatagarbha theory in atext known as Shōtoku Taishi’s
Commentary to the Śrīmālā Sūtra,from a comparative perspective. Fumi Ouchi (Miyagi Gakuin
Women‘s
University,
Japan)EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015questioned the dynamics of ritual
performance, focusing on its
aspects as ritual and entertainment.
The afternoon of day two was busy
with two stimulating panels. One,
entitled “From temple archive to
public performance” presented
a range of case studies focusing
on ritual texts and preaching theBuddhist doctrines. The panel’schair and first presenter, Chikamoto Kensuke (University ofTsukuba, Japan) elucidated therole of religious preaching throughthe texts penned by the Kōfukuji
monk Jōkei found at the Tōdaiji
temple library. Unno Keisuke’s(National Institute of Japanese
Literature, Japan) paper focusedon the ritual procedures of wakakanjō involving the image of
Kakinomoto Hitomaro. Michael
Jamentz(KyotoUniversity,
Japan)’s paper continued thetheme of poetry and Buddhist
liturgy by discussing the twelfthcentury Fugen kōshiki lectures.
The last session of the day,chaired by Michael Conway (Otani
University, Japan) was dedicatedto the images of the Kamakuraperiod Buddhist thinker Shinran(1173-1262) in twentieth-century
Japan, and offered perspectives
from inside and outside the Shindenomination. Through the caseof Kurata Hyakuzō’s (1891-1943)
play, The Priest and His Disciples(Shukke to sono deshi), Ama
Michihiro (University of Alaska,
USA) analyzed the literary representations of Shinran and theburgeoning production of the
Buddhist literature in the Taishō
period (1912-1926). The panel was
closed by the response by Robert
Rhodes (Otani University, Japan).
Inoue Takami (Otani University,
Japan) investigated the revivalof Shinran’s ideas in Japan’scontemporary thought, through thewritings of Japan’s leading intellectuals: Yoshimoto Takaaki (19242012), Karatani Kōjin (1941-), andothers. Michael Conway offeredan analysis of significant shifts
in the Otani-ha doctrinal studies
regarding Shinran during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The last day of the conference
started with the morning session
chaired by Erica Baffelli (Universityof Manchester, UK). The session
consisted of two individual papers.
Elizabeth Kenney (Kansai Gaidai
University, Japan) cast light on
the daily life of the Yoshida Shinto
shrine priests, Yoshida Kanemi(1535-1610) and his younger halfbrother, Bonshun (1553-1632).
Jane Alaszewska (SOAS, UK)re-examined the ritual performances of kagura on the Southern
Izu islands.
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The second morning panel,chaired by Carina Roth (University of Geneva, Switzerland),was dedicated to the creation ofsacred sites and focused on therelationship between the histories of temples and shrines (jishaengi) and religious space. Heather
Blair (Indiana University, USA)questioned the nature of medieval
engi as a genre, arguing that suchtexts have been ‘in flux from theirvery inception’ and could betterbe understood as ‘representationsof constantly re-negotiated institutional identity’. Kawasaki Tsuyoshi (Shūjitsu University, Japan)
traced the evolution of mountainascetic practices (Shugendō) andthe perceptions of sacred mountains during the Insei period via
the literary representations of En
no Gyōja. Carina Roth followed
this theme with an analysis of
the tales of En no Gyōja’s travels
to the Kumano region, and thecompeting claims laid by different
lineages over the Ōmine mountains.
The last panel of the conference,chaired by Fabio Rambelli, wasentitled “The Faces of Shinto
in Modern and Contemporary
Japan”. Its first presenter, Michael
Wachutka (Tübingen University,
Germany) surveyed the processof canonization of the Shinto
scriptures by the Ōkura Institute68

for Research of Japan’s Spiritual
Culture(Ōkuraseishinbunka
kenkyūjo) in the early twentiethcentury. Elisabetta Porcu (International Research Center forJapanese Studies, Kyoto, andLeipzig
University,
Germany)offered an ethnographic account of
the neighbourhood and ‘preservation’ associations (chōnaikai andhozonkai, respectively) and theiractivities during the Gion festival
in contemporary Japan. Paul B.
Watt’s (Waseda University, Japan)
paper focused on the representations of Shinto as seen through thecase of Ōmiwa shrine in nowadays
Nara prefecture.
During the several busy andstimulating days in Ljubljana, theparticipants of Section 8a brought
forth a wealth of new ideas andlively discussions on a multiplicity
of topics, ranging from ‘New Religions’, religious preaching, andesoteric Buddhism to the studies
of engi texts, Shinran, maritime
religions, and much more. Thanks
to the support of the Japan Foundation, the 2014 keynote lecture
was very well attended and wasa great success. These fruitful
discussions, lectures, and events
amply demonstrate that thestudies of Japanese Religions, set
in both pre-modern and contemporary contexts, continue to be avital area of scientific inquiry in the

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

studies of Japan in the twenty-first
century. Thank you, Ljubljana, andsee you next time in Lisbon!
Section 8b: Intellectual History
and Philosophy
Convenors: Raji Steineck (University of Zurich) and Wim Boot
(Leiden University)
At this year‘s EAJS conference,
section 8b “Intellectual History
and Philosophy“ was initiated as a
new branch of what was formerly
section 8 “Religion and the Historyof Ideas.“ The motive behind thisdecision had been to allow for
more room for papers dedicatedto non-religious aspects of theintellectual history of Japan, andfor papers with a distinct focus
on ideas (religious or otherwise)
as opposed to religious practices,
rituals, and so forth. The number of
proposals the convenors received
proved that there was ample
demand for this new subsection
from the side of potential participants. The scholarly quality of thepresentations and the ensuing
discussions, as well as the size ofthe audience, which even necessitated a change of venue to a largerroom, further substantiates thisevaluation.
The convenors decided to place,for this initial running of the sub-section, an open call for papers,
which was met with a large
number of incoming proposals (53papers, among which were 23 individual papers and 8 panels witha total of 30 papers). In spite ofinitial misgivings on the side of theconvenors about accepting panels,
a close review of each proposal
with respect to their subject, originality, and scholarly quality led tothe decision to accept 8 individual
papers and 7 panels (with a totalof 22 papers). Speakers camefrom all regions of Europe, as well
as from Japan, North America, and
New Zealand.
As keynote speaker, we invited
Prof. Sueki Fumihiko, renownedfor his works on the intellectual
history of Japanese Buddhism.
Prof. Sueki gave a tour d‘horizonof current issues in the field,
focussing on the conceptualization of, and taxonomical distinction between, intellectual history
and philosophy. He combined
this with a forceful call for a new
approach in Japanese philosophy,
one that would be characterized
by a “critical continuation“ of older
traditions, as opposed to apologetical hermeneutics, historicist
positivism, or an all-out rejection ofthese traditions.
The program of the subsection
covered all periods of Japanese69

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intellectual history, from ancientJapan to the contemporary era,
and a wide range of approaches,from close philosophical-hermeneutical readings to institutional
history. A recurring theme was therelation between the spheres of
the religious and the secular, andthe different conceptualizations ofboth over time.
As was to be expected, we
received some complaints that thecreation of this subsection forced
difficult choices on members of
the audience between the subsection on religion and that on intellectual history and philosophy.
All things considered, we still
believe, however, that this is agood problem to have, because it
points to the high level of interest
generated by both sub-sections.
Section 9: Politics and IR
Convenors: Ian Neary (University of Oxford) and Paul O’Shea(Aarhus University)
Coming back to this job after 20
years – I was section convenor for
Politics twice in the early 1990s – I
was pleasantly surprised by how
much easier it is now that the
EAJS office is much better staffed
and the local organisers play amore positive supportive role.
This plus the assistance of my70

co-convenor Paul O’Shea madethe whole process relatively painless.
There is a trend within US politicalscience to undervalue and moveaway from anything that might beconsidered ‘area studies’ suchthat there is a declining number ofpolitical scientists there who havethe language and regional skills.
Happily I can report that this has
not happened (yet?) in Europe if
we are to judge from the evidenceof the number and quality of
papers presented in our session.
We began with a keynote presentation from Professor Takayuki
Hirosawa from Fukuoka University.
His comments on the corporate
dominated society recurred atvarious points in our discussion
over the three days.
Altogether we had 28 papers witheight of them firmly in the area of
IR with the rest mainly focused on
domestic politics, although there
were several on the boundary of
the two. On topics we heard about
a broad range – energy, genderequality, agriculture
protection,
the new growth strategy. But
predictably there were a number of
papers about developments in therelationship with China and which
commented on some way on the

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record of and prospects for PM
Abe Shinzo.
There has been some criticism
recently that political science
writing about Japan has been
‘theory taking’ rather than ‘theory
making’ but in this area too I canreport that a healthy number ofthe papers in our session sought
not merely to report but also tocontribute to the developmentof political science method andtheory. On the evidence of thepapers presented in our session
we can conclude the politicalscience studies of Japan are able
to contribute to the broader knowledge about Japan but also to thedevelopment of the twin disciplines
of Politics and IR.
Section 10: Japanese Language
Education
Convenors:
NorikoIwasaki(SOAS, University of London) andAnca Focseneanu (University of
Bucharest)
Section 10 was convened by
the Association of Japanese
Language Teachers in Europe
e.V. (AJE). AJE has held anannual symposium on Japanese
language education in different
parts of Europe since 1996, incollaboration with other organizations keen to promote Japanese

language education in Europe.
(For example, the 2013 symposium was co-organised by AJE
and Asociación de Professores deJaponés en España; it was held in
Madrid.)It was the second time for the AJE
to take part in the EAJS conference to hold its annual symposium
as an EAJS section, following
the 2011 conference in Tallinn,
Estonia. Because the participation in the EAJS conference wasvery successful and rewarding, wetook part in the EAJS conferencein Ljubljana as well. We are truly
grateful that we were given theopportunity to do so again.
Our
theme
was
“Mediating
between languages and cultures”,
which represents one of theimportant capacities that we aim
to promote among learners ofJapanese as a second language.
This is closely related to “plurilingualism” and “pluriculturalism”, thekey concepts embedded in CEFR,
the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages:
Learning, Teaching, Assessment(Council of Europe 2001). Though
this framework was originallydeveloped for language learners
and educators in Europe, recently
it is increasingly used in othercountries, including Japan. Plurilingual and pluricultural individuals
71

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

are not just familiar with morethan one language and culture.
By using multiple linguistic andcultural repertoires, they could also
play an important role in mediating
between languages and cultures.
The programme consisted of a
keynote speech, a special guest
speaker‘s lecture, and an invited
panel, in addition to panels, oral
and poster presentations selectedfrom the submissions. We received
over 120 proposals in total, fromwhich we accepted 4 panels, 33
oral presentations and 30 poster
presentations. The presenterscame from 16 countries altogether. (The programme was also
preceded by a pre-symposium
joint event on Japanese language
educationandnetworking,co-organised by AJE and the
University of Ljubljana. This event
featuring Professor Jae-ho Lee’s(University of Tsukuba) report on
remote language learning system
was very well attended.)
The keynote speaker, Professor
Noriyuki Nishiyama (Kyoto University), specializes in language
policy, foreign language education,
and French language education.
He gave a talk about the objectivesof (foreign) language education.
Prof. Nishiyama maintains that thegoal of foreign language education
is not just to meet students‘ needs
72

by helping them to improve theirlanguage skills. Learning anotherlanguage helps learners develop
their capacity for mutual understanding and respect, which are
fundamental in democratic citizenship.
The guest speaker was Mr
Saburo Shimada, who is thestage director of a theatre groupcalled Lasenkan, based in Berlin,
Germany. He shared his stories
about how he became interested
in theatres performed in multiple
languages (Japanese language
varieties, German and Spanish).
His lecture was accompanied bypowerful performances by two
actors, Ms Kei Ichikawa and Ms
Kana Torino.
The invited panel, chaired by Dr
Nana Sato-Rossberg, discussed
the potential of translation work
and insights from translation
studies for language education.
Three talks were given by Dr
Sato-Rossberg, Professor Jeffrey
Angles (Western Michigan University) and Professor Kikuko Tanabe(Kobe College).
Both the EAJS office andthe organising committee atthe Ljubljana University were
extremely helpful and accommodated a number of requests wemade in order to meet the needs

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015of the large number of participants
and special arrangements required(e.g. for poster presentations). We
are wholeheartedly grateful forthe efficient and friendly support
we received from EAJS staff,
colleagues from the University of
Ljubljana and their students. We
thank them all again!

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Minutes of the EAJS General Meeting
Time: 30 August 2014, 16:00-18:30•

Place: Slovenian Philharmonic
Building, Marjan Kozina Hall,
Ljubljana, Slovenia•

Moderation by Rein Raud, outgoing EAJS President
The outgoing EAJS President Rein
Raud (hereafter RR) welcomed themembers to the General Meetingand expressed gratitude to boththe participants and the Section
Convenors for their contributions
to what proved to be an extremely
successful and stimulating Conference.
(1) Report by the EAJS President:
Report on activities of the association (RR)
The President gave a detailed
report on the activities promoted
and organized by the EAJS in thelast three years (2012-14).
1. TIFO (Toshiba International
Foundation) scholarships weregenerously offered to support the
research of three grantees in 2013:•74

Allessandro Bianchi 		(University of Cambridge)

Miriam Grinberg 		
(University of Warwick)
Oliver Kühne(University of Trier)

RR also reported that TIFO has
decided to upgrade the fellowship
program from a grant program to a
non-grant activity; the implication
being that the TIFO Scholarships
will be treated as a continuous programme, funded without any needfor the EAJS to apply for grants
on a yearly basis. RR expressed
deep appreciation and contentment about this positive development. With regard to the futureuses of the TIFO scholarships, RR
announced the EAJS Council’s
intention to ensure that one of thescholarships will be allocated to a
meritorious candidate who studies
in a European country with fewer
scholarship opportunities in thefield of Japanese Studies (e.g.,
Eastern Europe countries).
2. EAJS PhD workshops
RR reported about the three successful PhD workshops organizedby the EAJS since 2012 (Newcastle University, 30 May - 2 June
2012; organizer Laura Moretti),
2013 (Goethe University Frankfurt,EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

March 07 - 08 2013; organizer
Cornelia Storz) and in 2014 (Ljubljana University, 23 – 26 August;organizer David Chiavacci).
3. RR reported about the 1st EAJSJapan Conference (Kyoto University, Sept 28 - 29 2013; organizer
Harald Fuess). This conference
was considered a real success,both in terms of its scale (118presented paper and about 250
participants) and of the academic
quality of the papers. The EAJSCouncil expressed the intention tocontinue this activity in the future,
as it is deemed to be an invaluable
way to establish closer connections
with the academic community inJapan.
(2) Report by the EAJS Treasurer:
Financial report and budget (VBT)In her report, the Treasurer Verena
Blechinger-Talcott (VBT) reported
about the following points.
1. EAJS membership development
VBT identified a satisfactory trend
is the steady growth in membership, moving from 1174 members
in 2011 to 1500 members in 2014.
While most members live in Europe(followed by Japan and the Americas and Oceania), a closer lookreveals that the EAJS still has far
more members in Western Europe

than in Eastern Europe. To address
the issue of weak participation from
Eastern Europe is considered apriority for the EAJS and VBT has
re-confirmed the intention of the
EAJS Council to work hard on the
promotion of Japanese Studies in
Eastern Europe.
2. EAJS financial situation
VBT explained that the EAJS
finances are supported by threeforms of funding: Japan Foundation(main sponsor of the EAJS), Toshiba International Foundation (TIFO)
and membership fees. TIFO’s
financial support is proving stable
and can be expected to remain so
in the next years. The membershipaccount has also developed rather
positively in the last years, thanks to
the increase in members’ numbersthat has been mentioned above. It
is a rather normal trend to witness
a decrease of membership applications in non-conference years. Thismeans that a lowering in membership fees is expected in the period
between the 2014 Conference andthe 2017 Conference. As regards
the main sponsor, though, concerns have been expressed aroundthe funding to be expected from theJapan Foundation. VBT noted a net
decrease in funding from this mainsponsor due to a combination of
causes: the Japan Foundation itself
has undergone financial cuts; the75

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

strength of the Japanese currency
in recent years has resulted into
an unfavourable exchange rate.
The direct consequence of thisunfortunate situation is the need for
the EAJS to find alternative ways
to sustain costs in the future. Thismeans, in turn, that membershipfees will need to be raised around50%, a measure that had been already decided upon at the General
Meeting 2011 in Tallinn.
The Treasurer’s report was accepted by the General Meeting(one abstention).
(3) Membership fees
This topic has been discussed aspart of the treasurer’s report. Seeabove (2) 2.
(4) New EAJS Constitution
A draft of the new Constitution was
distributed among the members
attending the General Meeting.
The Treasurer explained what
happened after the EAJS General Meeting in Tallinn (2011). Upon
scrutiny from legal advisors, thedraft of the new Constitution that
had been adopted by EAJS members back in 2011 unfortunately
proved legally invalid. This meantthat a new, revised draft had to be
produced in the interim. The newdraft is worded by a lawyer and is76

thus legally valid. In order to adopt
this draft officially as the new EAJS
Constitution, the following procedure was suggested:a) EAJS members are given time toconsider the new draft until November 1, 2014.
b) A Special General Meeting will
be scheduled for spring 2015 to beheld in Berlin. It was agreed that
all members will receive the text ofthe new draft of the Constitution as
well as an invitation for the extraordinary meeting in due time.
c) During the meeting in Berlin,
members will be asked to vote on
the adoption of the new Constitution.
d) Once the new Constitution isadopted by the EAJS members,
the Association’s seat can finally be
registered in Berlin and the newly
Elected Council can be registeredwith the Berlin court.
VBT then outlined the major changes in the new draft of the Constitution by comparing it with the oldConstitution that is still in use.
Questions were then taken fromthe members sitting in the audience. One member asked whether
the EAJS Elected Council is considered big enough. RR replied
positively but emphasised the possibility for those members who are
unhappy with the current number
to bring in a motion to increase

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

the size of the Council. A second
question was addressed aroundwhat happens in the eventuality of
the Treasurer being somebody notfrom Germany. VBT reassured themembers about this point, by explaining that should that eventuality
arise, no problems are foreseen.
This is because all the banking is
now done online and will be accessible from any country.
At this point the General Meeting
discussed briefly the conditions
for becoming Supporting Members
and the role of such a category.
It was agreed that associations,companies or individuals canbecome Supporting Members andare indeed welcome to do so, as
long as they share the goals of the
EAJS.
(5) Outcome of council elections,
appointment of incoming council
members and farewell to outgoingcouncil members (RR)
RR reported about the outcome of
the Council election. For details see
the records of election outcomes inthis volume. The President is Bjarke
Frellesvig, the Treasurer is Verena
Blechinger-Talcott, the Secretaryis Laura Moretti. The extended
Council includes Anna Andreeva,
Andrej Bekeš, John Breen, Andrea
Germer, Michael Kinski, Matthias
Zachmann.

RR then introduced each of theElected Members and welcomed
them in their new role. He also
thanked the outgoing Council
members for their hard work andprecious contribution for the EAJS
in the past years.
Bjarke Frellesvig (BF) assumed
the Chairmanship. He thanked the
EAJS for participating in the voteand made the motion to invite RR
as Immediate Past President to join
the Council. RR was confirmed by
the General meeting as memberof the Council as Immediate Past
President. BF thanked RR for his
efforts and successes as the past
EAJS President.
Moderation by Bjarke Frellesvig,
new EAJS President(6) EAJS conferences
1. 15th EAHS International Conference (2017)
BF announced that the site decided
for the 15th EAJS International
Conference by the EAJS Extended
Council (both old and new) will
be Lisbon. Questions were addressed to the new Chair about thischoice. One member asked the
EAJS Council to explain and givesome background for the choice ofLisbon for the 2017 Conference.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

BF explained that Lisbon waschosen for a variety of reasons:the attractiveness of the venue; thelow-cost budget presented by the
local organizer; the existence of an
online paper submission systemalready well-thought through. BF
also emphasized how this choice
will allow the EAJS to contributeto the development of JapaneseStudies in Portugal, where, despite
the long history of contact between
Japan and Portugal, JapaneseStudies are not yet fully developed.

BF noted that, as usual, there will
be an open call for Convenors. The
Council will then decide upon Convenors for each Section. The General Meeting was reminded thatmembers can nominate others orthemselves. In case two convenors
are selected, they will have equal
rights. BF also noted that no morethan 50% should be ‘closed panels’(submitted as such by a Panel
Organizer) and that the rest of thespace should be allocated to ‘open
panels’ or individual presentations.

There was some discussion about
whether the decision of future conference venues should be made by
the General Meeting rather thanthe Council. It was agreed that thisissue would be put on the agenda
for the next Ordinary General
Meeting, to be held at the end of
the conference in Lisbon in 2017,
but that current practice would continue until then.

Discussion followed around a variety of issues related to the above
point (6)2.
1. Some convenors expressedunease about the lack of anonymity of Convenors (who organize andoversee the review process) andabout the fact that they had been
contacted by rejected candidates
receiving unpleasant complaints.
They asked that the Convenors
should be somehow ‘protected’.
2. Concerning the desire for written
feedback justifying the rejectionof submissions, some Convenors
noted that this would mean an unreasonable increase in the amountof work requested to Convenors.
3. Some Convenors and members
expressed disagreement with therule of the 50% of closed panels,by pointing out that while closed
panels were generally good, individual presentations were not

2. Panels, anonymity and Convenor guidelines
BF noted the decision of the EAJSCouncil around anonymity in Panelsubmissions. In order to avoid
panels with no regional, institutional and gender variety, the Council
decided the first round of reviewsof Panel submissions to be anonymous and the second round toreveal the composition of the Panel.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

always so. However, the opposite
view was also advanced, and it
was decided that the establishedpractice will continue.
4. It turned out that we had casesof Presenters who presented twicein the Ljubljana Conference. It wasagreed that this should be avoided
and that the names of those who
presented twice should be reportedby the Convenors to the EAJS
Office.
5. It was noted that an author-index
should be added to the Conference
booklet.

Local Organizer of the next conference in Lisbon.
(8) Closing ceremony
Thanks were expressed by the
Local Organizer. BF joins the General Meeting in thanking the Local
Organizer and all its team. The
General Meeting was closed.

There followed the reports by Section Convenors (convenor who
reported):
Section 1 (Maren Godzik)
Section 2 (Sven Osterkamp)
Section 3a (Simone Müller)
Section 3b (Michael Watson)
Section 4a (Ewa Machotka)
Section 4b (Andreas Regelsberger)
Section 5a (no convenor present)
Section 5b (Griseldis Kirsch)
Section 6 (David Chiavacci)
Section 7 (Hans Martin Krämer)Section 8a (Erica Baffelli)Section 8b (Raji Steineck)
Section 9 (Ian Neary)
Section 10 (Noriko Iwasaki)(7) Any other business
The General Meeting agreed to the
Extended Council co-opting the79

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

15th EAJS International Conference in 2017
Conference Site
By the deadline of July 30, 2014, six bids were received to host the 15thEAJS International Conference in 2017. All bidders presented their bid to
the EAJS Council during the conference in Ljubljana. There was a numberof very strong bids, but the Council eventually decided on Lisbon, Portugal,
as the venue of the next conference, after carefully scrutinizing anddiscussing each of the bids. The 15th EAJS International Conference will
be held in Lisbon from 30 August to 2 September 2017.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Changes in the EAJS Constitution
As decided at the EAJS General
Meeting in Ljubljana on 30 August
2014, the Council of the European
Association for Japanese Studies
invited all ordinary EAJS members
to a special general meeting in accordance with § 6 (7) of the EAJS
constitution.
The reason for the Special General Meeting was the need to voteon the new EAJS Constitution. As
had been discussed in Ljubljana,
the German associations law has
recently been changed. As the
EAJS is chartered as a non-profit
association according to German
law (“eingetragener Verein, e.V.”),the EAJS constitution needed to be
adjusted to the new legal requirements. Failure to do so would haveresulted in the loss of the EAJS’
tax-exempt status.
In cooperation with a lawyer specialized on association law, the
EAJS office has been working on
a draft constitution which was discussed by the EAJS Council andat the General Meeting in Ljubljana
in August 2014. All aspects of thedraft were debated in great detail.
All points raised by EAJS members during the discussion were
included into the new draft, which

was then checked by the lawyer
and presented to the German tax
authorities for a screening.
The EAJS constitution required thatchanges to the EAJS constitution
need to be voted on by a general
meeting, and German association
law requires that all constitutionalchanges are communicated to association members in writing prior
to the general meeting. Therefore,
the general meeting in Ljubljana decided that once the text of the new
constitution has been screened by
the appropriate tax authorities, aspecial general meeting should beheld with the sole purpose to voteon the new constitution.
Invitations to the special general
meeting were sent by email andpostal mail to all ordinary EAJS
members in February 2015. The
special general meeting was held
in Berlin on 20 April 2015, and the
new consitution was unanimously
adopted on that occasion. After the
meeting, the EAJS office has initiated the necessary steps to update
the entry in the German register ofassociations in cooperation with anotary.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Minutes of the Special General Meeting
Time: 20 April 2015, 10:30-11:55
Place: Hittorfstr. 18, 14195 Berlin,
Germany
Present:
BjarkeFrellesvig,
Verena Blechinger-Talcott, Laura
Moretti,Matthias
Zachmann,
Katja Schmidtpott, Marie Roesgaard, Roger Greatrex, Susanne
Brucksch, Cosima Wagner, Oliver
Hartmann, Anastasiya Skavysh,
Gerhard Krebs, Andrej Bekeš,
Ljiljana
Markovič,
Alexandra
Vraneš,Ljiljana Bajič, Dinah Zank,
Tim Herbort, Matthew Königsberg.
The meeting started at 10.30am.
BF welcomed all present andexpressed gratitude for attending
the
EAJS
SpecialGeneralMeeting.
BF explained that the EAJSSpecial General Meeting has
been convened in order to voteon the new EAJS Constitution.
BF highlighted that the changes
to the old Constitution had been
already discussed during theGeneral Meeting in Ljubljana. He
also pointed out that the German
text is the one which is legallybinding while the English version is82

simply an explanation of what theGerman text says and has no legal
status.
VBT reminded to the members theprocess that has been followed
to produce the draft of the New
Constitution:
1.
The old Constitution was inneed of revision because of threemain reasons: a) changes in theGerman Association Law that were
not reflected in the old constitution; b) allow the legal changethat is necessary to move theSeat of the EAJS from Munich to
Berlin, upon decision made at theGeneral Meeting in Tallinn; c) the
old Constitution stated a precise
number for the membership fee
and this needed to be made more
flexible in order to have a sustainable Constitution.
2.
A preliminary draft of theConstitution was discussed ingreat detail by the EAJS Council
and at the General Meeting in
Ljubljana in August 2014.
3.
All the points raised by
EAJS Members during the discussion were included into the newdraft and then checked with alawyer who is specialized inGerman Association Law.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

4.
The draft was presented to
the German tax authorities for ascreening and considered correct.
5.
In accordance with German
Association Law, after having
been screened the revised draftof the new Constitution was sent
to all EAJS members two months
prior to the deciding meeting (20February 2015) for them to beable to comment on the final text.
No comments have been received
during these two months.
6.
The EAJS Special General
Meeting was convened for 20 April
2015.
VBT also noted that threemembers who were not physicallypresent at the Special General
Meeting had sent written authorization for the officers to vote on
their behalf. She also noted thatthe quorum, viz. at least 12 ordinary members of the EAJS, wasreached by the physical bodies in
the room.
The Members attending theSpecial General meeting wereasked to go through the constitution and VBT explained whatchanges had been made and why
they had been made.

§1
The change of the Seat of the
Association to Berlin mirrors what
was agreed in Tallinn. The new
Seat will become active once the
new Constitution will be successfully registered.
§2
The following changes in wording
were made:German: “Der Satzungszweck wird
verwirklicht insbesondere durch[…] ideelle Unterstützung der
Bildung internationaler und nationaler zweckverwandter Einrichtungen auf dem Gebiet der Japanstudien sowie Zusammenarbeit mit
diesen zur Erreichung der Vereinszwecke insbesondere durch denregelmäßigen Austausch von Informationen über geplante Veranstaltungen, die Einladung vonVertretern solcher Einrichtungenzu
wissenschaftlichen
Veranstaltungen des Vereins und die
Entsendung eigener Vertreter zu
den wissenschaftlichen Veranstaltungen dieser Einrichtungen.“English: “The objectives of the
Association shall be implemented
through […] non-monetary support
for the formation of national andinternationalorganizations
inthe field of Japanese studies
83

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015that pursue similar objectives;
co-operation with such organizations to foster the objectives of the
Association; especially through theregular exchange of information onplanned events, the invitation ofrepresentatives of such organizations to events organized by the
Association and the dispatch of its
own representatives to events ofsuch organizations.”► Insertion of “non-monetary”.
§3
The category of ‘supporting
members’ is new to the EAJS.
It allows associations, companies and individuals to financially
support the association, thus
becoming a type of ‘sponsor’ to the
Association. Supporting members,
though, do not have a right tovote and therefore hold a form of
passive membership. It was notedthat this is standard practice inGerman Associational Law. It wasalso noted that the EAJS has nosupporting members at present,
and that there therefore is no needto consult supporting members
about the provision in the constitution that supporting membership
does not give the right to vote.
In reply to AB, it was noted that JF
is not a supporting members. We
are grantees of JF.
84

The following change to the textof the Constitution was adopted in
the meeting.
German: “Ordentliches Mitglied
des Vereins kann jede an der
Verwirklichung der Vereinszieleinteressierte natürliche oder juristische Person, ungeachtet desWohnsitzes und der Nationalität,
werden. Wissenschaftliche Vereinigungen, Unternehmen oder natürliche Personen können Fördermitglieder werden, sofern sie bereit
sind, den Verein durch jährliche
Zahlungen zu unterstützen.”
English: “Any individual or institution interested in the achievementof the objectives of the Association
may become a regular member,irrespective of residence or nationality. Scholarly associations, business enterprises or individuals
may become supporting members,
as long as they are committed tosupport the objectives of the Association through annual financial
contributions.”► Insertion of “regular”.
► Replacement of “Scholarly
associations or business enterprises” by “Scholarly associations,business enterprises or individuals”.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015§4
The second paragraph in thisarticle is new and is standard
procedure in German Associational Law. The reason for thischange lies in the fact that wehave many Members who havenot paid their membership fees
for a long time and there was not
system in place to deal with thisdifficult situation. The new clauseallows a clear process to be inplace.
The third paragraph is new andis standard procedure in German
Associational Law.
§5This point was discussed at length
at the General meetings in both
Tallinn and Ljubljana. Due to thestructure of EAJS, it is important to
ask for paying a membership fee
for three years in order to ensuresmooth and uninterrupted runningof the Office.
§8
The election of Council Members
was not regulated in the oldConstitution but the lawyer has
asked to describe the process thatis in place.

Because of the wish among
membership to have more than
one vote for the Members of
the Extended Councils, the newConstitution allows up to threevotes in the election for theextended council, but noting thatno more than one vote could begiven to one candidate.
The following changes were madein the text of the Constitution.
German: “Bei der Wahl des
BGB-Vorstands (§ 8 Abs. 2) hat
jedes Mitglied jeweils eine undbei der Wahl des erweiterten
Vorstandes jeweils drei Stimmen.“[…] „Ergibt sich bei der Wahlin das Amt des Vorstandsvorsitzenden
Stimmengleichheit,
wählt die Mitgliederversammlung
in einer Stichwahl in geheimer
Wahl zwischen den Kandidaten
mit den meisten Stimmen den
Vorstandsvorsitzenden.“English: “For the election of theother members of the Council,
each voting member can vote forup to three people.” [...] „In case ofa parity of votes for the position of
the President of the Association,
the General Meeting shall decide
by secret-ballot vote on the candidates with the highest number ofvotes as received in the ballot-bymail process.”
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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

► Replacement of “shall havethree votes” by “can vote for up to
three people”.
► Replacement of “by voting on
the two candidates” by “by secretballot vote on the candidates”.
§11This article was not present in
the old Constitution but is now
required by the new German Associational Law.
―
VBTinvitescomments.

questionsandIn reply to RG, VBT noted that
there is no need to mention in theConstitution financial audits. Thisis because there is a legal requirement on the part of the Fiscal
Authority to audit Charitable Associations every three years, and the
EAJS has always gone throughthis process.
BF invites the members to vote. 21
members (17 individual members,
1 institutional member and 3
members whose vote was delegated to the three Officers) voted
in favour of the new Constitution.
The new Constitution was therefore unanimously adopted.

86

BF thanked VBT and her teamfor putting together a Constitution
which is legally viable and also
clear and accessible.
The meeting ended at 11.55am.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Constitution of theEuropean Association for Japanese Studies§ 1 Name, Seat and BusinessYear
The name of the Association shallbe “European Association for Japanese Studies” (EAJS). The Association shall be listed in the Registry of Associations. The Seat of the
Association shall be in Berlin. The
business year of the Association
shall be the calendar year.
§ 2 Objectives of the Association; Non-Profit Status
The Association shall pursue exclusively and directly charitable objectives as defined in the section on
tax-privileged purposes in the German Fiscal Code.
The objective of the Association
shall be the promotion of scholarship and research.
The objectives of the Association
shall be implemented through:•the organization of conferences, workshops, academic
events, seminars and symposia in
the field of Japanese Studies;•support for young scholars
in Europe, for example through theorganization workshops for doctoral students or through the provisionof short-term grants; the respective
research results of which shall bemade publicly available;•
publications in the field ofJapanese Studies, especially publication of the results of scholarly
research;•
publication and distributionof a Bulletin for EAJS members;•
non-monetary support for
the formation of national and international organizations in the field ofJapanese studies that pursue similar objectives; co-operation withsuch organizations to foster theobjectives of the Association; especially through the regular exchange
of information on planned events,
the invitation of representatives ofsuch organizations to events organized by the Association and thedispatch of its own representatives
to events of such organizations.
The Association shall not pursue
private interests; it shall not pri87EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

marily pursue its own economic
gain. Association funds shall only
be used for the objectives statedin this Constitution. The members
shall not receive remuneration fromthe funds owned by the Association. No person may receive compensation for expenses that are notin accord with the objectives statedin this constitution. No person may
receive unreasonably high compensation.
All officers of the Association
and all members of the Extended
Council shall serve on a voluntarybasis. Council members may only
be reimbursed for actual expenses
spent according to the objectives of
the Constitution.

Precondition for membership shallbe an application, in written or electronic form, addressed to the Council of the Association. The Officersof the Association shall decide
about the acceptance of the membership application. In the application, the applicant shall declare toadhere to the terms of this Constitution.
Persons who have made eminentcontributions to the objectives of
the Association may be appointed
honorary members by the General
Meeting after having been nominated by the Council.

§ 3 Membership§ 4 Termination of Membership

The Association shall have regularmembers and supporting members.

Membership shall end by voluntary
resignation. Termination of membership shall only be possible at theend of the calendar year. For a termination of membership to become
effective, members who would liketo terminate their membership shallnotify the EAJS Council in written
or electronic form no later thanSeptember 30 of a calendar year.

Any individual or institution interested in the achievement of theobjectives of the Association may
become a regular member, irrespective of residence or nationality.
Scholarly associations, businessenterprises or individuals may become supporting members, as longas they are committed to support
the objectives of the Association
through annual financial contributions. Supporting members shall88

not have voting rights in the General Meeting.

In cases where a member has not
paid his/her membership fees despite being reminded twice, themembership may be terminated byCouncil decision.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

A member may be expelled by adecision of the Council when heor she has grossly violated the interests of the Association. The expelled member may lodge a complaint, which shall be heard andvoted on in the next General Meeting.
§ 5 Membership fees
Members shall be required to pay
a membership fee for a three-year
period. The amount of the membership fee shall be decided by theGeneral Meeting. New members
shall pay their first membership feeat the time of joining the Association.
In special cases, the Council may
reduce or waive the membershipfee for members in need.
Honorary members shall pay no
membership fees.
A member terminating membershipshall have no claims to have all orpart of his/her membership fee refunded.
§ 6 General Meeting of the Association
The General Meeting shall be convened at least once every three
years. The Council shall call a

General Meeting by a written or
electronic invitation which includes
the General Meeting’s agenda atleast four weeks prior to the General Meeting. The invitation shallbe considered as received if it is directed towards the last known contact address of each member.
An extraordinary General Meetingshall take place on the basis of adecision by the Council or at therequest of at least one tenth of all
members, stating the reason andthe objective of the request in written or electronic form to the Council.
The General Meeting shall decideon the following items:•
Receipt and approval of
the Council’s report on budget andspending over the past three years;•
Approval of the Council’s
report of activities during the past
three years;•
Decisionsaboutamount of membership fees;

the•Decisions about changes
to this constitution as well as about
the dissolution of the Association;•
Decisions about the appointment of honorary members
nominated by the Council.

89

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

The General Meeting shall bechaired by the President, or if he or
she is absent, by any other Council
member, preferably the Treasurer.

§ 7 Officers and Council

Decisions of the General Meeting shall be recorded in minutes of
the General Meeting. The minutes
shall be signed by the chair of theGeneral Meeting and the keeper ofthe minutes.

•••

The General Meeting shall reacha quorum when at least twelve or
more members who are entitled tovote are present. Decisions shallgenerally be made by open ballot.
However, a secret ballot may beheld when it is requested by one
third of those members who arepresent and eligible to vote.

The Council may pass a resolution
to add the Local Conference Organizer of the next conference andthe Immediate Past President as
part of the Council.

If not stated otherwise in this constitution, decisions at the General
Meeting shall be passed by a simple majority of all votes cast. Abstentions shall not count. A member
who is not present may authorize
another member to exercise his/hervoting right. In such cases, a letterof authorization must have been received by the Council at least two
weeks prior to the meeting.
Changes to this constitution anddecisions about the dissolution of
the Association shall require a majority of three quarters of all valid
votes cast.
90

The Council consists of the following elected members (the Officers):
the President
the Treasurer
the Secretaryand six further members of theCouncil.

The Association shall be represented judicially and extra-judiciallyby the President and the Treasurer
according to Section 26 BGB (German Civil Code). Both may individually represent the Association.
President, Treasurer and Secretaryshall have the right to make decisions on behalf of the Association
as long as their actions do not interfere with the rights of the Council
and the General Meeting.
Responsibilities of the Council include:•
Preparation of the General
Meeting; setting of the agenda;•

Implementation of the deci-EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

sions made by the General Meeting;•
Allocation of responsibilities within the Council as well as
decision on rules and guidelines onprocedures;•
Decision about the exclusion of members.
§ 8 Election of Council Members
As long as not stated otherwise inthis constitution, members of theCouncil shall be elected by themembers of the Association for aperiod of three years. Membersof the Council shall remain in office until the new council has been
elected.
The President may be elected for
one term only, the Secretary may
be elected for two terms, and theTreasurer as well as further members of the Council may be reelected up to three terms. Only
members paying membership fees
may be elected as Council members.
For the election of the Officers(President, the Secretary, and theTreasurer), each voting member
shall have one vote. For the election of the other members of theCouncil, each voting member canvote for up to three people.

Members of the Council shall beelected through a ballot-by-mailprocess, if not provided otherwise
in this Constitution. Ballots lettersmust reach the office of the Association no less than six weeks prior
to the date of the General Meeting;ballots that are sent in late or thatare not according to standard shallbe treated as invalid and shall not
be counted.
Each member shall have the rightto nominate candidates for thecouncil. Nominations must be submitted in writing and must be received by the office of the Association no less than six months prior to
the date of the General Meeting. A
specific nomination form provided
by the Association shall be used
for nominations of candidates forCouncil membership.
Candidacies for Council positions
must be announced to the membership within a reasonable time
period prior to the date of the next
General Meeting (usually no lessthan four months prior to the dateof the next General Meeting). The
announcement of candidacies may
also be made through the websiteof the Association.
The Office of the Association shallsend out voting documents (separate ballot sheets for the different
positions on the Council, listing91

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

candidates’ names, as well as ananonymized envelope for the ballot sheet and a return envelope)
usually three months prior to thedate of the General Meeting to allmembers entitled to vote. Returnenvelops for anonymized ballot envelopes shall contain the number of
each voter as listed in the electoralroll.
All ballots must be received by theoffice of the Association no lessthan six weeks prior to the date of
the General Meeting. Upon receipt
by the office, ballots shall be kept
in a sealed ballot box. Ballots shallbe counted by the staff members of
the Association’s Office under thesupervision of an electoral committee. The members of the electoralcommittee shall be nominated by
the Council. Council members may
not be members of the electoralcommittee.
If a candidate receives a simple
majority (plurality) of votes, he/she shall be elected. In case oftied votes for the position of Treasurer or Secretary, or for a seat asa member of the Council, the voteby the President of the Association
shall be decisive. In case of a parity of votes for the position of the
President of the Association, theGeneral Meeting shall decide bysecret-ballot vote on the candidates with the highest number of92

votes as received in the ballot-bymail process.
§ 9 Decision-Making by theCouncil
The Council shall make decisions
in board meetings. A written recordof the meetings shall be filed. The
Council shall meet at least once
every three years.
The President shall send out the invitation for a board meeting at least
four weeks prior to the date of theCouncil meeting; when prevented
from doing so, the Treasurer shall
replace him/her.
Council decisions may also bemade in writing or through electronic communication (by email),
as long as no Council member disagrees. Council decisions shall bemade by simple majority (plurality).
In case of tied votes, the vote of the
President shall be decisive. The
Council shall also be able to have aquorum in times when positions on
the council are vacant.
§ 10 Amendments to the Constitution by the Officers
The Officers may decide on amendments to this constitution in casethey are required by a court of law
or government authorities.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

§ 11 Dissolution of the Association, Liquidation of Assets
The dissolution of the Association
may only be decided by the General Meeting with a three-quarters
majority. Unless the General Meeting decides otherwise, the President and the Treasurer shall act
jointly as representatives in theliquidation process. The regulations for dissolution shall also apply
in the case that the Association is
dissolved for another reason or incase it loses its legal status.

The new version of this constitution
was adopted by the General Meeting on 20 April 2015 in Berlin.
According to Section 71 BGB, theauthorized Council of the Association shall take responsibility for theaccuracy and completeness of thisconstitution as follows:
Bjarke Frellesvig
Laura Moretti
Verena Blechinger-Talcott
Andrej Bekeš
Matthias Zachmann

In the event that the Association is
dissolved or that its tax-privileged
status does no longer exist, theassets of the Association must betransferred to a legal entity underpublic law or another tax-privileged
corporation for the purpose of thepromotion of scholarship and research.
Decisions about changes to thisConstitution or about the dissolution of the Association shall beannounced to the responsible tax
office. Amendments to the constitution that affect the non-profit objectives stated in Section 2 must be
approved by the responsible tax
office.

93EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

10th EAJS PhD Workshop, Ljubljana, Slovenia
August 23-26, 2014
Report by the
Academic Organizer
In 2014, the EAJS PhD workshop
could celebrate its tenth anniversary. Like earlier EAJS PhD workshops, it was a unique opportunity
for PhD students to reflect on theirown research project, to receive
feedback and new input from specialists in their field and to discuss
their projects with fellow students
and senior scholars. It was also
event of European integration thatallowed academics from all over
Europe with different academic traditions and systems to meet, to network and to exchange ideas. All participating PhD students and seniorscholars agreed that the workshop
had been highly successful and thatthe workshop gave us all not only
new ideas in our research, but enlarged also our academic horizon
about Japanese studies in Europe.
From August 23 to August 26, thetenth EAJS PhD workshop took
place at the Davcen Tourist Farmin the mountains near Ljubljana in
Slovenia. It preceded the 14th International EAJS Conference thatwas held from August 27 to August
30 at the University of Ljubljana.
In total 55 PhD students applied
94

for the EAJS PhD workshop. The
senior scholars participating at
the workshop and the board of the
EJAS selected among these submissions twenty promising projects
for the workshop. The main criteria for the selection was the quality of the project, but a balance
between disciplines, the PhD students’ countries of origin, and their
institutional affiliations were also
taken into consideration in the selection process. The final selection
included four PhD students from
East Europe, three PhD students
from South Europe, five Japanese
PhD students, two PhD students
from the United States, one PhD
student from Northern Europe, andfour PhD students from continental Western Europe. All accepted
PhD students were enrolled at European or Japanese universities.
Two PhD students represented auniversity from Southern Europe,
six PhD students were affiliated toa university in continental Western
Europe, ten PhD students studied
at a northern European university,and two PhD students came all theway to Slovenia from a Japanese
university. According to research
field, social sciences were represented by four PhD students in

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015social anthropology, three in political sciences, and one in sociology.
Two PhD students were writing
their thesis on Japanese history.
Art and art history was the research
field of five accepted PhD students.
Finally, Japanese literature and linguistic were each the field of specialization of two PhD students.
As advisors of the PhD students,
we had at the workshop a team ofsix senior scholars: Dr Erica Baffelli(East Asian Studies Department,
University of Manchester), Prof Andrej Bekeš (Department of Asianand African Studies, University of
Ljubljana), Prof David Chiavacci(Institute of Asian and Oriental
Studies, University of Zurich), Dr
Helen Macnaughtan (School of
Asian and Oriental Studies, University of London), Dr Jordi Mas
Lòpez (Department of Translation
and Interpretation, Autonomous
University of Barcelona), and Prof
Fabian Schäfer (Department ofMiddle Eastern and Far Eastern
Languages and Cultures, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg). This
team of senior scholars covereda wide range of research interests: religion and media studies(Erica Baffelli), linguistic and second language acquisition (Andrej
Bekeš), sociology and political sciences (David Chiavacci), economics, economic history and genderstudies (Helen Macnaughtan),literature and translation (Jordi

Mas López), and philosophy andcultural studies (Fabian Schäfer).
The program of the PhD workshop
consisted of eight session with twoor three projects. For each project
about 40 minutes were reserved.
PhD students first presented theirproject (about 15-20 minutes) andreceived constructive comments
and feedbacks from a senior scholar working in their field of research(about 10 minutes). Then the floor
was open for a discussion of the
project with all PhD students andsenior scholars (about 10-15 minutes). In order to prepare discussions and feedback, each PhD student had submitted a project reportof about 5.000 words in early Julythat had been read before the workshop by all participants. In theseproject report the PhD students
discussed the current state of research in their field, their concrete
research question, the theoreticalframework and methodological approach of their project, hypotheses
and/or preliminary results as wellas (possible) difficulties in realizing their research project. This
comprehensive preparation of theworkshop allowed a very lively andqualitatively good discussions of
the PhD projects. As the workshop
took place in a quite remote location, the whole group stayed over
the time of the workshop together
and developed into a real academic community. During the free time95

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

at Davcen Tourist Farm, we hadmany bilateral and multilateral discussions and exchanges about the
research projects, research on Japan in general, and the differences
between academic systems in European countries. In the final discussion all the participants agreed
that the workshop had been a very
intensive, but scholarly rewarding and also enjoyable time witha lasting impact. Not only the PhD
students benefited from the advice
and comments of the senior scholars and discussions among themselves, but the workshop gave also
the senior scholars the opportunity
to meet a young, innovative andenthusiastic generation of upcoming scholars working on Japan.
It is my pleasure to thank in thename of all participating PhD students and senior scholars the people and organizations that made therealization of the workshop possible. We are grateful to the Toshiba
International Foundation for theirgenerous financial support of theworkshop. We thankfully acknowledge the kind and time-consuming
support by the local organization
board of the 14th EAJS International Conference in Ljubljana andin particular Dr Nataša Visočnik
who took care of all our transportation and accommodation. A special thank goes also to Prof Andrej
Bekeš. Although he was very busy
as the leader of the local organiza96

tion board of the 14th EAJS International Conference, he still manged
to join part of the EAJS PhD workshop as senior scholar. Finally, organizational support by the EAJS
office and especially Ronja Meising was also of crucial importancefor the success of the workshop.
We hope that this year’s workshop
was not the last anniversary andthat many PhD students and senior scholars will be able to profit
from the workshop in the future.
David Chiavacci
Mercator Chair in Social Science ofJapan
Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies
University of ZurichEAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Reports by the Participants

ity of my dissertation.

I was fortunate to be selected forthe 10th EAJS PhD Workshop in
Ljubljana. It was a unique opportunity both to develop my research,and to interact with colleagues withsimilar interests.

From the point of view of human relations, the workshop was a fun experience. At first, I was a little skeptic at the idea of having to spend
three days in a very close community up in the Slovenian mountains.
However, I found good friends fromacross the world (an astonishing
three other fellow countrymen from
Italy!), with whom I shared doubts
and hopes about the future, butalso fun nights playing games or
eating together. That applies also tofaculty members, who always welcomed a private chat on our topics
and encouraged us to pursue ourinterests while coping with the difficulties of PhD life – a stage in theirlife they still remembered vividly. All
along, the environment was alwaysof an informal tone, which promoted free discussion and a degree ofcomradeship.

At the end of my first year as a PhD
student, I had narrowed down myresearch questions, and given mydissertation project a direction thatwas satisfactorily definite, for thatstage. However, I had never confronted the state of my research asa whole outside of my home University. I found such an opportunity at
the workshop, where I was able todiscuss my project in general withother students and faculty members from across the world. Rather
than being at a conference, or at
an examination where a presenter
needs to deal with the uneasinessof having his/her work criticized,
the workshop had in fact a friendly
atmosphere, where the professors’
and the students’ comments weremainly aimed at giving advice on
how to improve the dissertation.
Personally, I found it very helpful, because it was an importantchance to confront the solidity ofmy project against a board of competent academics and students.
I received very useful feedback,which prompted me with renovatedenergy and confidence in the valid-

All of this took place in the beautiful scenery of the Slovenian countryside, where we could take nicewalks to see breathtaking views,
and obviously enjoy the good local
food.
In conclusion, the 10th EAJS PhD
Workshop was a very well-organized experience. Not only did it
give me a valuable opportunity togain confidence about my work andenvision ways to improve it, but it
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also helped me build good contacts with future colleagues in mychosen field of research. My gratitude therefore goes to the Toshiba
Foundation, EAJS, the faculty
members and to all who took partin the workshop and made it possible. I recommend it strongly to all
PhD students in Japanese Studies.
Filippo Cervelli
University of Oxford, UK+++
My doctoral research is on thehistory of military medicine inJapan at the turn of the twentiethcentury, and I feel very fortunate
to have been selected to present
my dissertation at the 10th EAJSWorkshop for Doctoral Students in
Ljubljana on 23-26 August 2014.
This was a great opportunity to
discuss my research outside theusual context of cultural historians
at my home institution, who do
not necessarily possess muchbackground context in Japanese
history. It was a stimulating
experience for me to shape mythoughts in dialogue with thecurrent debates and research at
the forefront of Japanese Studies.
The most valuable features of theWorkshop were its interdisciplinary
natureandinternational
environment. Participants fromseveral universities in and outside98of Europe delivered presentations
on a wide range from diverse
viewpoints, while also reflecting
different national traditions ofJapanese studies.
Another nice feature of theworkshop were the joint breakfasts,
lunches and dinners that provided
invaluable
opportunities
toexchange ideas and opinions about
each other’s research projects ina more detailed manner. Away
from the noise of the city center,
the working atmosphere wasmost inspiring and the forum of
discussions was highly supportive
for my ongoing research process.
I want to express my deepest thanks
and appreciation to the EAJS,
especially Prof. David Chiavacci,
for organizing this workshop, andto Dr. Helen Macnaughtan - mysupervisor - for the instructive
feedback that I received on themethodologicalframeworkofmy PhD project. Finally, I wish
to extend my gratitude to the
Toshiba International Foundationand the Japan Foundation, whose
generous support made thisworkshop possible.
Ken Daimaru
Paris West University Nanterre La
Défense, FranceEAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015+++
The 10th EAJS PhD Workshop wasa great opportunity for me to reflect
on my dissertation project. Throughinsightful feedback from mysupervisor, Prof. Dr. Fabian Schäfer,other academic supervisors andparticipants, I could clearly see
what kind of problems my research
had and how I could improve myresearch. Getting involved withothers’ dissertation projects throughreading their papers and listening
to their presentations was also a
useful experience which helped
me to objectively understandwhat stage my dissertation project
was at. Furthermore, the multidisciplinary setting offered me achance to reconsider how I could
effectively present my research
to different kinds of audiences,and how I could link up with otherresearch in different disciplines.
I also enjoyed the informal
occasions during the three days
we spent together. It was very
exciting to share and exchange ourknowledge and experience as PhD
students in the field of Japanesestudies. Moreover, since the venue
was in the mountain area far awayfrom the city area of Ljubljana, we
could spend whole days together.
Such an environment, surely,
was useful for us to have ‘dense’communication with each otherand to get a closer and morerelaxed atmosphere among theparticipants. We were saying with alaugh that this was like “Gasshuku(Japanese summer camp)”.
Lastly, I would like to express mysincere gratitude to the organizers,
Prof. Dr. David Chiavacci andthe University of Ljubljana. I am
extremely grateful to my supervisor,
Prof. Dr. Fabian Schäfer for hisvery insightful comments on myresearch and to the other academic
supervisors. I also deeply thankall sponsors of the workshop, theToshiba International Foundationand the Japan Foundation.
Rie Fuse
University of Tampere, Finland+++
Attending the 10th EAJS PhD
Workshop in Ljubljana was awonderful formative opportunity
and a great experience. I
appreciated and treasured thefeedback received by the threeexpert scholars who supervised thewhole event, especially because
they each came from a different
research area than my own. Thisassured a multiplicity of points ofview and fresh takes on a topic
that, given every PhD student’s
high level of specialization, risks to
become solipsistic.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

I also appreciated the format of
the workshop, which allowed allparticipants ample time to present
their research and receive a numberof comments from peers andsenior scholars. Because I foundit both physically and intellectually
demanding, I think that suchan event should not last longer
than three days and that such an
amount of time is appropriate when
considering the sort of commitment
required of all parties involved. The
time spent with other PhD students(at close quarters!) was sufficientto establish an initial relationship(not unlike that of camaraderie)with excellent young researchers
from the most disparate fields ofinquiry. Here lies, in my opinion, themost valuable aspect of the EAJS
PhD Workshop: as well as beinga great opportunity for networking,in fact, this event opens up a lively
intellectual space for discussion
and provides each participant the
chance to look back at his or her
work from fresh, new perspectives.
On yet another level, I found it very
illuminating to get to know what asample of the next generation ofresearchers on Japan is currently
working on: in a way, this provides
each participant with an ample
overview of what is going on in theircommon, brother field of studies,over a large number of disciplines
and across the whole of Europe
and beyond.
100

In sum, I am extremely thankful
to the EAJS and the Toshiba
Foundation for giving me theopportunity to attend this wonderful
event, and I would recommend all
PhD students, especially thoseat an intermediary stage of theirresearch, to try to take part in it,
as it is bound to become a rareoccasion to foster fruitful thinking,fruitful working and fruitful fun.
Andrea Giolai
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice,
Italy and Leiden University,
Netherlands+++
The 10th EAJS Workshop for
Doctoral Students provided mewith a fruitful, stimulating andenjoyable opportunity to interact
with scholars and students fromdifferent branches of JapaneseStudies.
First of all, the constructive
feedback I received from Prof.
Andrej Bekeš as well as othersenior lecturers and participants(both formally and informally) was
thought-provoking,encouraging
and definitely helpful for the further
progress of my study. Furthermore,
I was grateful that this workshop
gave me a challenging but valuable
experience in communicating myon-going research to an audienceEAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

from various disciplines.
I also found the presentations ofother participants very stimulating
and inspiring because of theworkshop’s interdisciplinary nature.
Their presentations and discussions
helped me to gain knowledge about
various theories, methodologies
and approaches in different
disciplines,
includinghistory,
religion, art, literature, media, andanthropology. Furthermore, theyalso made me take a step backand contextualise my study froma broader perspective. Our lively
discussions and exchanges ofideas continued until late at night
over delicious meals in a relaxedand friendly atmosphere.
I am very grateful that I was
given this precious opportunity toparticipate in this workshop, and I
would like to thank all the organisers
for organising this wonderfulworkshop for us. I would also like toexpress my gratitude to the Toshiba
International
Foundationforgenerously funding this workshop
and making it possible.
Eiko Gyogi
University of London, UK+++
I was delighted when my application
for the 10th EAJS PhD workshop

was accepted – although I do
have to admit that I did not quite
know what to expect! This quickly
changed when we were given
the task to sum up our research
projects and exchange our reports
with other applicants prior to theactual workshop. I was amazed atthe variety of research conductedby PhD students in Europe, andalthough only a few projects
were related to my own researchinterests (linguistics and translation
studies), I really enjoyed reading
about what are no doubt going to
be valuable contributions to thescientific discourse in JapaneseStudies.
The research projects presented
during this workshop included awide range of topics from all areasof Japanese Studies, such aspolitics, religion, culture, literature,
linguistics and translation studies.
This presented a great opportunity
for PhD students studying at
relatively small departments who
may not have peers in relatedareas of research at their home
universities. I was positively
surprised that research projects
from the very early up to the final
stages were included, which
provided an excellent basis for
feedback and discussion among
peers.
For me personally, the mostimportant and helpful part of the101

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

workshop was the session with
our mentors, who were professors
from universities all over Europe
with related research interests.
My personal mentor, Prof. Andrej
Bekeš from the University of
Ljubljana, provided me with detailed
feedback, constructive criticism
and invaluable data sources for myresearch project.
And last but not least, I havenothing but praise for the locationof the workshop: a lovely little farm
high in the mountains of Slovenia,
where we could watch the sun
rise over green valleys coveredin mist while enjoying homemade
food and freshly brewed coffee.
All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable
and academicallychallenging
experience
that
I
would
wholeheartedly recommend to all
PhD students working on research
projects in Japanese Studies andrelated fields.
Mareike Hamann
University of Manchester, UK+++
I was very glad to have theopportunity to participate in the10th EAJS PhD Workshop outsideof Ljubljana, Slovenia. Since
there are few scholars working
on Japanese history in Sweden
where I study, the workshop was102

a particularly valuable opportunity
for me to present my research
to experts and fellow graduate
students in the field of Japanesestudies. I am very grateful for thehelpful feedback as well as theencouragement I received. The
peaceful rolling hills around thefarm where we stayed provided aperfect environment for reflection
and intellectual exchange.
Perhaps more important still
was the chance to get to know
other PhD students in Japanesestudies from around Europe. The
multidisciplinary character of theworkshop exposed me to newperspectives and research fields
that I was previously unfamiliarwith. Establishing relationships
with other junior scholars from
Europe will also undoubtedly prove
important when I apply for researchfunding in the future, as European
Union multinational grants andinternational exchange programs
come to play an increasingly
importantrole
at European
universities. More personally, I am
grateful for the friendships withother PhD students that began at
the workshop. I have already beenable to visit two of the workshop
participants in the UK while I was
there for another conference andlook forward to meeting others fromthe group at events in the future.
Japanese studies is still relatively

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

small compared with many otherfields in Europe and I think that
the EAJS PhD workshops play animportant role in drawing together
this community.
Lastly, I am grateful for theworkshop’s partial sponsorshipof my participation in the EAJS
conference that was held directly
afterward in Ljubljana. I consider theopportunity to present my research
to senior scholars and learn more
about cutting-edge research in myfield at that conference to have been
an important step in my career. I
would like to express my gratitude
to the Toshiba Foundation, theadministrators at the EAJS officeand the senior scholars who served
as commentators at the workshop
for making this possible.
John Hennessey
Linnaeus University, Sweden+++
I would like to express, first of all,my gratitude to the EAJS for giving
me an opportunity to present mythesis at the PhD workshop in
Ljubljana. For my research focuseson the intersection between ‘area
studies’ scholarship, the conditionsof knowledge, and the horizonsof political imagery, and therefore
not necessarily qualifies as‘Japanese studies,’ the workshop

was one that I found exciting andsimultaneously very challenging.
Yet I believe that this alone
exemplifies the magnanimity of the
EAJS in accommodating diverse
research interests that cut acrossdisciplinary boundaries and slightly
unusual interlocutors like myself.
The feedback and suggestions
I received from the supervisors
had helped me immensely to put
things into perspective, and at thesame time to go outside the box. I
am particular grateful to Professor
David Chiavacci for giving me
constructive advice on the structureof my thesis, and to Professor
Fabian Schäfer for his comment on
the philosophical and theoreticalunderpinnings of the thesis. Other
participants of the workshop
engaged me in thought provoking
debates, and their comments havenever failed to be stimulating andchallenging. I am certain that manyof us will remain friends throughout
our careers.
I believe that we, PhD students,
benefit greatly from interdisciplinary
discussions with scholars andstudents working in different
fields, for those provide us with
an opportunity to reflect uponconcepts, theories, categories, anddata that we otherwise assume
as axioms. As one whose interest
revolves rather around theoretical103

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015questions, discussions with area
specialists certainly encouraged
me to reconsider the importance ofthe empirical, and to question what
I hitherto never questioned.
I would like to express once
again my appreciation to the
EAJS, the supervisors, and theparticipants, all of whom provided
me with an intellectually stimulating
environment. I have learnt morethan I expected to learn during thisunique yet valuable workshop.
Aya Hino
University of London, UK+++
I would like to thank the organisers
and sponsors very much for holding
the 2014 EAJS PhD Workshop,
as it was a really beneficial
experience for me. The locationof the workshop was excellent,
and the event was well organised,
rewarding and very enjoyable.
I was pleased to meet so many
interesting and engaging people atthe EAJS Workshop, both seniorscholars and PhD candidates.
Through the disciplinary diversityof workshop participants’ topics I
learnt a lot about the broader scopeof Japanese studies from the otherpresentations. PhD candidates
were also afforded a useful
opportunity to write for, and present
104

to, a general Japanese studies
audience, rather than an audiencethat was specific to our individual
fields. This was useful as thevariety of disciplinary backgrounds
provided questions from a different‘lens’ with which to view our own
subject and study.
I was grateful to the seniorscholars (Fabian Schäfer, Erica
Baffelli,
Helen
Macnaughtan,
David Chiavacci, Andrej Bekeš
and Jordi Mas-López) who had
clearly spent time considering ouradvance-reports, and the feedback
I received was thorough, insightful
and constructive. Following theworkshop, David Chiavacci kindly
gave me contact information for a
useful scholar relevant to my topic.
Attending the EAJS Workshop
gave me an excellent and unique
opportunity to meet with otherJapanese studies PhD candidates
from across Europe. Both during
the workshop sessions and in theevenings I enjoyed the opportunity
to discuss ideas related to Japanin a stimulating atmosphere withcandidates and senior scholars.
The friendships and connections
made at the workshop continued
during the EAJS Conference in
Ljubljana following the workshop,and since, with regular updates
to our 2014 EAJS Workshop
Facebook group.
Overall the 2014 EAJS Workshop

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

was an invaluable experience forme.

Japanese Studies to apply to theworkshop in the future.

Robert Horn
University of Sheffield

Isabelle Lavelle
Paris Diderot University, France

+++

+++

The 10th EAJS PhD Workshop in
Slovenia was a valuable opportunity
to meet doctoral students andexperts working on a large range of
topics within the Japanese Studies
field. The mountains around
Ljubljana provided an ideal setting
for focusing on each research
project. I got a better understandingof how my own research topic
relates to the broader field ofJapanese Studies, learned about
the subject matter that the other
PhD students are working on, andbuilt networks with them as well as
established researchers in the field.
I am now entering the final stageof my PhD project, and focusing
on the feedback from the otherparticipants, be it students or
scholars, really helped solving thelast issues I was struggling with.

I was very happy to be accepted
to the 10th EAJS PhD workshop
in Ljubljana. I particularly enjoyed
the opportunity to present myproject to senior scholars andfellow PhD students and to hear
their critical remarks. Not only did
they comment on my theoreticaland methodological approach, but
I also got a lot of new ideas fromvarious fields such as politicalsciences and linguistics that I hadn't
previously thought about. What I
liked most was that discussions
did not end with the presentations,but continued during the breaks,
the meals and in the evenings,
where academic topics and casualconversations merged to create ahighly inspiring atmosphere. Being
accommodated on a farm in themountains turned out great for thegroup's coherence and I enjoyedthe company of people in similar
situations and with similar interests.
As the PhD process can at times
be quite isolating, it was great how
supportive the senior scholars andthe students were with each other.
I am glad I made many new friends
that I hope to meet again at similar

I am very grateful to the EAJS
for organizing the workshop andI thank the staff from Berlin andfrom Ljubljana University. I am also
very grateful to the scholars andthe other students for their positiveenergy and useful insights. I highly
recommend to any PhD student in105

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

events or maybe even work withlater on.
I would like to thank the EAJS for
this great opportunity, the Toshiba
Foundation for the generous
funding of the workshop, theorganizers at Ljubljana University
who made everything possible, thesenior scholars for the time andeffort they took to give us feedback,and the hosts at Davčen farm forthe wonderful meals and their
hospitality.
Dorothea Mladenova
University of Leipzig, Germany+++
It was a great pleasure for me
to participate in the 10th EAJSWorkshop for Doctoral Students.
It was an intense and challenging
experience, surely one of the mostuseful I have had during my PhD.
The workshop format allowed
everyone to have enough time
to discuss his or her own projectin a friendly atmosphere anda supportive and stimulating
environment.
Moreover,thecomplete isolation in the beautiful
setting of the Slovenian mountains
proved to be the absolutely perfectelement for an inspiring workshop.
I believe that the opportunity toshare my ideas and the progress of
my work in such a multidisciplinary106

environment has been invaluable:
the comments and questions
coming from people with diverse
backgrounds and interests mademe reconsider aspects of myresearch and see it from different
perspectives.
From a personal point of view, I am
really grateful for the opportunity
to meet other doctoral students,
to share with them experiences,
dreams as well as doubts andpreoccupations and to create(hopefully) lasting friendships.
This gave me extra strength andcertainly improved my morale andmotivation.
I would like to thank the EAJS
and the Toshiba International
Foundation for funding andorganizing
such
a valuable
workshop, all the participants, theorganizers and commentators
and, especially, Dr. Erica Baffelli,
for her insightful comments andconstructive advice.
Silvia Rivadossi
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice,
Italy
+++
I am very thankful for the opportunity
to join the 10th EAJS PhD
Workshop in Ljubljana in August
2014. The whole workshop was

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015very well organized, starting withthe precise information regarding
the application documents and the
preparatory requirements for theworkshop. In fact, the application
was a great opportunity for me
to rethink my PhD project in its
overall structure, my methodical
approach, and my research goals. I
also took the required report for theworkshop as an opportunity to write
a first draft of my introduction, thus
starting to assemble previous text
fragments and conference papers
into a pre-script of my thesis.
Although Japanese studies served
as the overarching frame of theworkshop, it was fascinating to
notice that everybody was actuallysocialized in a somewhat different
scholarly community due to theirlocal roots and subject-specificdirection towards different fields
like economy, sociology, literarystudies, or art history as in mycase. In this regard, the workshop
helped me to train presenting
my research to an interested,
professional, but non-specialized
audience and to think about it fromvarious angles. Looking at thedifferent projects presented during
the workshop was very inspiringand I gained lots of methodical andpractical knowledge. It was alsointeresting to learn much about thedivergent requirements of working
on a PhD as well as publishing a

PhD thesis not only in the different
fields of Japanese Studies, but also
in different European countries.
This helped me to reflect my own
demands concerning my PhD
project in relation to the norms of
the field of East Asian Art History.
The general atmosphere of theworkshop was very encouraging―I
very
much
appreciatedthecomments of all senior scholars
as well as the ongoing scholarly
exchange between the student
participants. I am looking forward
to see the participants again in thecourse of future conferences andprojects.
Wibke Schrape
Free University of Berlin, Germany+++
The 10th EAJS Workshop for
Doctoral Candidates in Ljubljana,
Slovenia, was a truly interesting
and motivating experience.
As I am writing my PhD thesis
in Japanese, it was a great
opportunity, and I may say also achallenge for me, to try to transfer
the core part of the paper into
English, and to present it to a nonJapanese audience. I found thatmany things have to be explainedin more detail and that writingin English gives you a clearer
107

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

picture of your own ideas andarguments. After the presentation,
I received valuable insight into
the methodology, structure andapproach of my paper, as well as
helpful suggestions and commentsthat allowed me to gain a new,western, perspective on the main
focuses of my paper.
I owe a debt of gratitude to theorganizers who gave me thisopportunity and offer my sincere
thanks to Dr. Erica Baffelli, mysupervisor, the other academic
advisors, EAJS and Toshiba
International Foundation. I would
also like to thank my fellow
participants for generously sharing
their projects and experiences, forthe advice, insight, and interesting
conversations along the workshop.
I would highly encourage PhD
students researching on Japan to
apply for the next workshop. It is an
excellent opportunity to interact withresearchers from around the world
in a stimulating and welcoming
environment.
Mihaela Sighinas
Osaka University, Japan+++First of all, I would like to express
my sincere thanks to the organizersof this workshop and to the Toshiba
International Foundation for making
108

it possible for PhD students from
Europe and Japan to present theirresearch projects, make contact
with other researchers, and to
discuss different approaches andmethodologies. I am grateful tohave been invited to participate in
the 10th EAJS PhD workshop in
Ljubljana. I especially would liketo thank Prof. David Chiavacci for
his efforts in organizing this event
and Prof. Fabian Schäfer for his
detailed and supportive comments.
It was very helpful for me toreceive constructive feedback on
my research project from seniorscholars. It was informative andencouraging. Also, the commentsbyotherresearchersgave
me additional information andbroadened my view of the topic.
The interdisciplinarity of theworkshop offered a stimulating
forum for discussions on a wide
range of topics and involving different
methodological approaches. Prior
access to the texts of the research
projects gave all participants anopportunity to get acquainted withthe details of other research topics
and questions beforehand. The
fact that the presentations weregrouped according to their areaof research was helpful for finding
connections between research
topics and establishing contacts forpossible joint projects in the future.
The workshop offered an exchange

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015of knowledge not only regarding
research topics, but also regarding
scholarships and further work
opportunities in Europe and Japan,
which is an important issue for
doctoral students.
The
friendlyandinformal
atmosphere of the workshop
allowed for intellectual exchange
not only during the sessions, butalso in informal conversations
outside of them, which I reallyappreciated.
Anastasiya Skavysh
Free University of Berlin, Germany+++
The 10th EAJS PhD Workshop
has been an excellent opportunity
to interact with senior scholars
and fellow students specializing
in Japanese studies, all of them agreat inspiration for their passion,
knowledge and determination. It
was also a chance to review myresearch technique, and I am
grateful for the valuable feedback
and corrections that I have received
from Professor Jordi Mas-López
and Professor Erica Baffelli, and forsuggestions regarding my method
and topic both during and after theworkshop from my fellow students.
I have felt that the workshop,
through its diversity of subjects,
many of them multidisciplinary

approaches to a given topic,
provided a chance to expand myknowledge in areas I had little
familiarity with, but that proved to be
exciting and worthwhile for further
personal investigation. I was lucky
to find inspiration and subjects that
had a certain relevance to aspectsof my own thesis and that I could
make use of in my PhD project.
The workshop’s location was
marvelously chosen away from thebusy city, a beautiful place wherestudents could feel relaxed while
focusing on their research andexchanging ideas and experience.
Coming from an university locatedin Japan, it was interesting
discussing different European PhD
programs and the best chance forme to expand my network of peers
in Europe as well.
I would like to express my gratitude
to the European Association ofJapanese Studies, the JapanFoundation and the Toshiba
Foundation for their generous
sponsorship and for organizing thisacademic event. As well, I believethat the workshop’s successis greatly due to Prof. David
Chiavacci’s diligence in organizing
it and to the senior scholar’s broad
perspective on Japanese language
and culture, and their interest in our
research.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Monica Tamas
Osaka University, Japan+++I am very glad I was given theopportunity to participate to the10th PhD Workshop in Slovenia.
As I hoped – or actually morethan I had hoped – it has beenan opportunity to receive inspiring
comments on my research, butalso to meet future colleagues in
the field of Japanese Studies.
What
I
have
especiallyappreciated on this occasion
was the decompartmentalizing
effect: though Japanese studies
is a limited field in each national
context, occasions for exchangewith scholars from other countries
tend to be very scarce, especiallyfor young scholars. Getting to knowcolleagues from other European
countries
wasindeedvery
enriching, both on the intellectualand the personal level.
Finally, the isolated location of theworkshop ended up being a very
positive factor: it helped maintaining
anintellectuallyconcentrated
atmosphere during the two days of
the workshop, but it also provided
many daily occasions for getting
to know each other. I believe thisedition of the workshop to havebeen particularly rich in this last110

regard.
All in all, I think the EAJS PhD
workshop is a very precious
researchandnetworking
opportunity for young researchers,
and I do hope many other PhD
students might benefit from it in the
future.
Sarah Terrail-Lormel
Institut national des langues etcivilisations orientales (INALCO),France+++The 10th EAJS PhD workshop
in Slovenia provided us a great
experience to present and discuss
our PhD projects, in particular fromthree perspectives.
First, an academic diversity ofparticipants provided breadth of
discussions. Participants camefrom diverse disciplines including
history, literature, political science,
anthropology and so forth. Thus agreat benefit of the workshop was toinvite us to think carefully about our
topics from different perspectives,
but still focused on the Japanesecontext. I found discussing various
topics stimulated me to think of myown topic from different angles andpossible approaches which I would
not otherwise have thought of.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Second, I was very grateful toreceive the feedbacks from thefaculty involved in the workshop.
The comments and feedback
I received during my individual
tutoring were not only useful but
also inspiring.
Third, meeting and spending fourwhole days together with PhD
students and faculty from various
universities in difference countries
was truly enjoyable and a great
contribution to broadening anddeepening our academic networks.
Staying at a mountain farm was a
precious experience!
Lastly, I would like to express all
my gratitude to the sponsors fortheir support of the workshop andall the faculty involved, in particular
to the organizer Professor David
Chiavacci, and to the PhD
participants for the wonderful time
together. I do hope that our network
stays connected for many years
ahead. Thank you very much.
Hiroko Umegaki
University of Cambridge, UK+++
We had a privileged encounter
where everyone was eager to know
everyone else. It had the feeling ofa trial, an experiment, and so it felt
safe to talk more plainly. We wereencouraged to be more honest
about what’s wrong - allow you
inside my ivory tower. And honesty
flowed, like confessions, like chatswith the aunts and uncles we miss.
Taking turns in being teachersand students and advisors – theinterchangeability of those roles
became apparent. Academia iscreated out of micro-communities
such as this one: a heterotopia
superimposing a micro-European
community, a Japan evoked likea family member, and a specificvillage in Slovenia. A sharehouse.
The wine was cheap, the food
was great and you could see
where it had been reaped from –green hills all around, below thesea of clouds. We were above– a particularly pure form ofretreat, pilgrimage, chrysalides; anecessary disconnection since weare Internet addicts, and scepticalof complete meanings. The baldheaded phantom of discourse
hovers above – how do we frame
ourselves – whose words do weborrow? Everything is online, but
it’s changing as we speak. The
remedy to the vacuum of immediacy
is opening up and sharing. I mime
my thoughts hoping that you
guess what I mean. I push throughdiscourse to a place where I say
what I mean. Meaning was never
fixed and we should enjoy that,everything is negotiated. We aretranslators carrying meaning for111

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015a certain stretch of the road – welike to have our pockets full – until
we deliver it to someone curious.
Telling stories by the fireside,
nomadic ideas traveling from one
mind to the next.
Radu Alexandru Leca
SOAS, University of London, UK

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Toshiba International Foundation Fellowships
Reports by the 2013 TIFO Fellows
Report by Oliver E. Kühne, Freie
Universität Berlin
Re-Mapping Okinawan Literature: (Resistance) Literature in a
Neo-Imperial Context?
Since writing my MA thesis about
contemporary Okinawa literature
in Trier (Germany), I have had
two opportunities to research in
Okinawa at the University of the
Ryūkyūs. After receiving a formal
invitation from Professor Till Weber
(Professor of German language at
the University of the Ryūkyūs andhonorary consul of the Federal
Republic of Germany), my first,
longer research stay commenced
in July 2012 with generous
funding of the German Academic
Exchange Service (DAAD). This
stay enabled me to research at
Waseda University in Tokyo afterwards for more than eight months
under the guidance of Professor
Katsukata-Inafuku Keiko and the
Ryūkyū-Okinawa Research Group
until April 2013.
While living in Okinawa, I gained
access to primary and secondary
sources that are unavailable inGermany. Many Okinawan mono-graphs are not available via international book delivery services
such as Amazon or Kinokuniya
as they are published by small
publishers in Okinawa (e.g. bōdaa
inku (border ink) or Nirai-sha). This
creates an enormous obstacle
for my research on Okinawan
literature. Even important periodicals, such as the Shin okinawa
bungaku (New Okinawan Literature), and newspapers, like the
Ryūkyū Shinpō, are not available
in Germany.
Aftermeetingexpertslike
Michael Molasky, Shinjō Ikuo,
and Yamazato Katsunori, fundamental questions of my projectchanged or had to be revised.
My initial research focused on
the question, “What kind of religious and spiritual influences
can be found in contemporary
Okinawan literature?” centeringon the works of Me­doruma Shun(*1960) and Mata­yoshi Eiki(*1947), both renowned authorsof Okinawan descent. However,while researching Okinawa andTokyo, I found out that a much
more fundamental issue has notbeen touched, causing various
misconceptions
inresearch
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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

about Okinawan literature: Whilescholars in the field tend to define
the term “Okinawa bungaku”(Okinawan literature) quite differently1, everybody seems to agree
on a certain canon of Okinawan
literature as defined by Nakahodo Masanori and Okamoto
Keitoku, both former professors for
Okinawan literature at the University of the Ryūkyūs until the late
1990s. After meeting younger and‘un-canonized’ authors, like Ōshiro
Ako (*1980) and Ikegami Ei’ichi(*1970), I started to change myresearch layout and defined a new
fundamental question: How should
one define the term Okinawa
bungaku and what caused thechanges in the writing of authors
with Okinawan descent in the
1990s_Can one perceive a shift
away from canonized /taikō suru
bungaku (resistance literature) in
the writing of young authors like
Ikegami Ei’ichi and even in thewriting of the Akutagawa prize(most prestigious annual prize forliterature in Japan) laureate Matayoshi Eiki? In my research, anotherrelated, yet also unanswered1
For example, there is not even a
consensus whether writing by mainland (notfrom Okinawa prefecture) Japanese authorsthat incorporates ‘Okinawan elements’ (e.g.
Okinawan locations or Okinawa typicalissues) should be considered as being partof Okinawan literature, or if only authorsborn and raised on Okinawan should beconsidered authors of Okinawan literature.

114

question arose: How should one
read this “canonized” Okinawan
literature? How did this canon
and its predominant writing strategies actually come into being, andcould one grasp it with phrases
like “regional” literature, “minority”
literature, “minor” literature, oreven “postcolonial” or “neo-imperial” literature?
Davinder Bhowmik, who wrote theonly monograph solely focusing on
Okinawan literature in the English
language, tries to answer thisquestion of if Okinawan literatureis “regional,” “minority,” or “minor”
literature. After a long chronological analysis of various key works
of Okinawan literature starting at
the end of the 19th century andfinishing with the works of Sakiyama Tami (*1954) written in the
1990s, she reaches the conclusionthat Okinawan literature should
be understood as “minor” literature, as defined by Felix Guattari
and Gilles Deleuze. However, shedoes not take into considerationthat Okinawa is a de facto internalcolony of Japan2, and so its literature could also be understood asa form of postcolonial literature.
In support of this, scholars like Ina
Hein from the University of Vienna
2
For further reading about thehistory of colonial powers on Okinawa,
please refer to Kerr (2008 [1958]) andKuehne (2012).

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

consider Okinawan literature to
be postcolonial literature. I takethis endeavor up in my research,
and also understand Okinawan
literature as neo-imperial literature.
The contemporary colonial powersof Japan and the USA haverather different goals comparedto the imperial colonizers of the
19th century, such as the Brittish
Empire and Meiji Japan. In thisregard, Pacific islands with a hugepresence of US military bases, like
Guam or Hawai’i, share various
neo-imperial or colonial experiences, like media censorship,
ethnic discrimination, territorial
disruption, and so forth.
In addition to being introduced
to experts in the field, I had theopportunity to meet authors suchas Ōshiro Tatsuhiro (*1925) andŌshiro Ako during this initial periodof research. Moreover, I wasable to become good friends withthe authors Matayoshi Eiki andŌshiro Sadatoshi (*1949) while
the latter worked as a professor
for the department of education
at the University of the Ryūkyūs.
Since Matayoshi does not use theinternet, I always had to contact
him via letters or through Oshiro
Sadatoshi, who is very goodfriends with Matayoshi. I had avery interesting interview with both
authors in August 2012, but since
my research agenda changed

tremendously I strongly hope to
get an opportunity for a second
interview. The same is true for
Ikegami Ei’ichi. This is not due
to my personal, positive experiences with these authors, but
because my PhD thesis focuseson their literary works. The mostfascinating aspect in analyzing
the works of these three authors(all nearly untouched in the fieldof scholarly research) is theirdiversity. While Ikegami is a wellestablished author of light novels,
fictional history novels, and fantasy
literature in mainland Japan,
Matayoshi and Ōshiro Sadatoshi
write prose that could be labeled
jun-bungaku (high literature) to an
Okinawan and mainland Japaneseaudience.3
I was delighted to receive apo­sitive reply from the Toshiba
3
The author of this report is very
well aware of the fact that using taxonomies
like “high and low” for the quality of literary
products is rightfully disputed, but that itshall suffice here to show the differences
between audiences/readers groups andrelationships targeted by the authors. While
young authors like Ikegami make use of
popular media, and even has adaptationsof his novels in anime, games and manga,
Mataoyshi and Ōshiro Sadatoshi do notintend to participate in the popular MediaMix market in mainland Japan. This mightalso be due to the shift in values - Ikegami’s
writing is not as esteemed by experts in thefield of Okinawan literature when comparedto the highly praised writing of authors like
Sakiyama Tami or Medoruma Shun.

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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

International
Foundation
andthe EAJS (European Association for Japanese Studies), andto receive the TIFO scholarshipin 2013. Thanks to this gracious
funding, I was able to travel toTokyo and Okinawa for a second,
final research trip in August 2013.
During this very intensive research
period, I acquired various additional sources such as print copies,
digital scans, and scholarly monographs. Another vital part of myresearch trip was meeting experts
and Okinawan authors with whom
I conducted interviews, such as
Ikegami Ei’ichi, Ōshiro Sadatoshi,
and Matayoshi Eiki.
I spent the first two weeks of myresearch trip in Tokyo. During thisperiod, I met with some of themembers of the Ryūkyū-Okinawa
research group at Waseda University and had a very insightful talkabout the new layout of my PhD
research with Katsukata-Inafuku.
I also visited professor Molasky(formerly of Hitotsubashi University; full professor at Waseda
University since September 2013),
who became (also due to thisvisit) the second formal advisorof my PhD thesis. I was also very
fortunate to meet Ikegami Ei’ichi
in Tokyo again, and had an interesting interview with him.

116

Besidesmeeting
importantexperts and authors, the second
task of my stay in Tokyo was toacquire monographs available
in mainland Japan, and to copy
various research reports andarticles about Ikegami Ei’ichi’s,Ōshiro Sadatoshi’s and Mata­yoshi Eiki’s fictional writing, as well
as reports and research articles
about contemporary Okinawan
literature in general. Due to myintense research at the Library ofCongress and the Waseda University library, I was able to obtainvery interesting research accounts
about Ikegami Ei’ichi’s fantasy
writing, something I thought would
not exist since many experts on
Okinawa appear absolutely uninterested in his work; despite it
being tremendously multi-layered
literature for Okinawan literature. This seemingly stems fromhis apparent popularity in themainland Japanese market. For
example, his fictional historicalnovel Tenpesuto (Tempest) thatrevolves around the last years of
the Ryūkyū kingdom (published in2008 in two volumes as hardcoverbooks and in 2010 printed in four
volumes as A6 softcover books)
was not only a bestseller, but also
adapted as a historical drama(jidaigeki) for television.
After these two initial weeks inTokyo, I made my way to Okinawa

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

and stayed in Naha for more thanfour more. Visiting the largest bookstore on Okinawa (the Junkudōbook store in Naha city) for fiveconsecutive days gave me theopportunity to order and acquirevarious texts on Okinawan war
memory, self-perception, colonial
history, Okinawan manga, andvarious light novels written by
Okinawan authors. As mentioned
above, many of those sources are
not even available in Tokyo.
I also visited the libraries of the
Okinawa International University
and University of the Ryūkyūs,
and made copies of various periodicals. The reason why I also
focused on acquiring copies of
Okinawa periodicals for literature,especially the first periodical ofthis kind after WWII called Ryūdaibungaku (Literature from the
University of the Ryūkyūs) is so I
could examine how the contemporary canon of Okinawan literaturecame into being. The perception of
Okinawan literature as resistanceliterature is very much due to theanti-Japanese and anti-US American tone apparent in works suchas Ryūdai bungaku. The transformation of themes and sociopolitical connotations in Okinawan
postwar literature, also stressed by
Bhowmik, Nakahodo Masanori and
Kawamura Minato, comes fromthe fact that Okinawan people felt

like they were being sacrificed by
the imperial ruler and hegemonic
power Japan, and exploited by
the US government. This counterhegemonic impetus is still vividly
displayed in the writing of canonized Okinawan authors like Medoruma Shun and Ōshiro Tatsuhiro.
The main canon became the
Okinawabungakuzenshu(Complete works of Okinawan
literature; published since 1991),
which was strongly influenced bypeople who had helped create the
Ryūdai bungaku and the following
magazine for Okinawan literature,
the Shin Okinawa bungaku. Since
this process of canonization has
not been researched thoroughly, it
will be mentioned in one chapter ofmy PhD thesis and in a research
article that’s still in progress.
I also had the opportunity to meetagain with Shinjō Ikuo and also
conducted another row of interviews with Matayoshi Eiki andŌshiro Sadatoshi in Ōshiro’s
office at the University of the
Ryūkyūs.
Fortunately,
duringthese interviews I had one of themost insightful accounts for allof my PhD research. After Mata­yoshi showed me on a map where
he lived in different stages of his
life, and which places he usedin his novels (all in close c­on­ne­ction to the places where he
was living), Ōshiro started to talk117

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

118

about his negative experiencesthat occurred while working on ascript for the movie called Himawari (sunflower), first shown in
2013. He intended to create amovie about a fatal airplane crush
in 1959 in which 17 primary school
children got killed. After receiving
his script, the people in charge ofthe movie production actually hired
a second Japanese script writer,
who wrote a new version for themovie production that focusedmore on the contemporary dimension of memory with framing story
focused on university students inTokyo who plan a peace concert
for people to remember the crashof the US American fighter jet in
1959. Within the next six months,
I intend to publish an English
translation of this interview in the
research journal Japan Focus.

Throughout my research, I cameto the conclusion that, even if it
is radical, it may be a very fruitfulperspective to read Okinawan
literature as not being part of“Japanese national literature”, but
as a form of writing with its own
independent history and narrative and topological concepts.
Since the colonization of Okinawa,
and after standard Japanese(hyōjungo) became the standard
language on the Ryūkyū Islands atthe end of the 19th century, topics
and narrative styles in Okinawan
literature developed nearly independently from the mainland
Japanese context, especially after
WWII. This means that one should
appreciate Okinawan literature as
literature written in Japanese, but
as a form of independent literature
in its own right.

While traveling the main islandby car, I acquired some footage(photographs and pamphlets) for
two articles I’m still planning towrite about Okinawan’s images asa tourist destination between war,
indigenous
self-represe­ntationand self-Okinawasation, reflectedin Okinawan theme parks like the
Ryūykū mura (the Ryūkyū village)
and the Himeyuri Peace Museumat the Himeyuri no tō (tower of theprincess lilies).

After coming back to Germany, I
immediately started to transcribe
the interview with Matayoshi Eikiand Ōshiro Sadatoshi. However,I’m still in the process of reviewing
the monographs and researchaccounts I acquired in those very
intense six weeks of research.
Moreover, right after coming backfrom Japan, I got the opportunity
to work as a research associate at
Freie Universitaet Berlin.
I want to thank the EAJS andToshiba International FoundationEAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

once again for their kind support
and generous funding for myresearch. Without financial aid, itwould have been impossible forme to travel to Japan for a final
research, one that brought about
very insightful research results andinvaluable interviews. Thank youvery much.
For further reading:
Bhowmik, Davinder (2008): Writing
Okinawa. Narrative Acts of Identity
and Resistance. London & New
York, Routledge.

Colonial Oppression to Reversion
Movements). Tokyo, Shinyōsha.
Okamoto, Keitoku (1996): Gendai
bungaku ni miru okinawa nojigazō. Okinawa in Contemporary Novels and Dramas. Tokyo,
Kōbunken.
Shinjō, Ikuo (2007): Tōrai suru
Okinawa. Okinawa hyōshō hihanron (Arriving Okinawa. A Treatise
Against the Symbols of Okinawa).
Tokyo, Inpakuto shuppan.

Kerr, George H. (2008 [1958]):
Okinawa. The History of an Island
People. North Clarendon, Tuttle
Publishing, 2000.
Kuehne, Oliver (2012): Research
Report. Historical Amnesia andthe “Neo-Imperial Gaze” in the
Okinawa Boom. In: Contemporary
Japan, Vol. 24, 213-241.
Molasky, Michael (2000): Southern
Exposure.
ModernJapanese
Literature from Okinawa. Honolulu,
University of Hawai’I Press.
Oguma, Eiji (1998): ‘Nihonjin’ nokyōkai. Okinawa, ainu, taiwan,
chosen, shokuminchi shihai kara
fukki undo made (The Boundariesof the Japanese. Okinawa, Ainu,
Taiwan, Korea, from the Era of119

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Report by Alessandro Bianchi,
University of Cambridge
The practice of satire in
early-modern Japan: politicalmockery in manuscripts andwoodblock-printed texts.
Research topic and methodology
Satire was one of the pivotal
aspects of the literary and artistic
panorama in Tokugawa Japan(1603-1867) but, despite its
cultural significance, this topic has
not been granted much recognitionin academia so far. For my PhD
I aim to describe some aspectsof the practice of satire in earlymodern Japan by focusing on the
study of political themes in various
instances of popular comic fiction
produced between the eighteenth
century and the early nineteenth
century. It is in fact in this period —which coincide with an era of instability, social distress, and financial
crisis — that we observe the creation of a rather consistent body ofliterature which satirised politicalauthorities.
My thesis mainly focuses on the
production and circulation ofpolitical satire, both in manuscripts
and woodblock-printed texts. The
object of my investigation encompasses a wide selection of primarysources which belong to different
120

textual typologies and publishinggenres. In this fashion, my study
takes into consideration not only
those genres which have been
traditionally associated with satire,but also other kinds of comic
writings considered germane tothe satiric mode. Literary works
belonging to the macro-genre
termed gesaku 戯作 (playful writings) will be the core of my analysis — that it to say, dangibon 談
義本, sharebon 洒落本, kibyōshi 黄
表紙, and the like. Furthermore, I
shall expand my area of enquiry toinclude ephemera such as rakusho
落書 (graffiti) and jitsuroku 実録(true records). Kabuki and jōruri
plays, ukiyoe, as well as Japaneseand Chinese comic poetry will not
be examined in my dissertation,
for the satirical elements characterising these kinds of texts havebeen formerly studies by various
scholars.4
The close reading of primarysources, which is the core of mythesis, has two main objectives: onthe one hand, I attempt to identify
political and historical particulars
within popular comic prose; on
4For instance the articles by
Donald Shively ‘Chikamatsu’s Satire on The
Dog Shogun’ and ‘Bakufu Versus Kabuki’
both published in the Harvard Journal of
Asiatic Studies or the book by Asō Isoji and
Tōgorō Koike entitled Senryū-Kyōka 川柳・
狂歌 (Nihon koten kanshō kōza 日本古典鑑賞講座23).

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

the other hand, I am interpretingthese data in order to understandwhether they were portrayed satirically. Theory on satire developedin the West has been appliedin a critical way to examine thecontents and mechanisms of satirein each of the chosen texts.5 Thus,
the analysis of primary sources
makes use of a mixed approach,in the attempt to blend together thelong tradition of Western literary
criticism on satire with Japanesetraditional scholarship, which isless speculative and mainly built
on a textual-based analysis.
The significance of my researchlies in this comparative perspective. The study of early-modern
Japanese satire will in fact challenge our understanding of thisliterary phenomenon itself, for themild and playful nature of Japanese satirical writings very muchdiffers from the caustic undertoneof their Western counterparts.
Eventually, this will allow a discussion on satire as a phenomenonof world literature as well as aphenomenon bearing countryspecific features.

5
See for example, Dustin Griffin’s
Satire: A Critical Reintroduction or Brian
A. Connery and Kirk Combe’s Theorizing
Satire: Essays in Literary Criticism.

Aims and results
The period of research in Tōkyō
funded by the EAJS/TIFO scholarship gave me not only the opportunity to finalise my thesis, but also
to survey under-researched texts
and thus shed light onto unexplored aspects of my PhD topic.
The major goal of my fieldwork
was to collect new materials andinformation concerning the bodyof satirical texts which I examinedin my PhD thesis. This includes
secondary sources, which havebeen recently published in Japanbut are not yet available in Europe,and in particular primary sources,
which are held by Japanese institutions. Despite the substantial
progress in the creation of digitalarchives and online repositories— such as those sponsored by
the Waseda University Library,
National Diet library, The University of Tōkyō Library, or the
National Institute of Japanese
Literature, to name but a few —the accessibility of primary sources
still remain a considerable problem
for scholars of early-modern literature who are based in Europe.
Many useful materials are stillavailable in their original format
only, and libraries or archives mustbe accessed in person in orderto make use of these resources.
The six weeks I spent in Japan onbehalf of the Tōshiba International
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Foundation allowed me to collectvaluable primary sources whichwere essential for the completionof my PhD thesis. In addition tothat, during this period of researchabroad I was able me to engage
in enlightening conversations withseveral scholars and specialists ofTokugawa literature and Japanesebibliography. This was indeed avaluable opportunity to discussmany issues relates to my PhD
thesis as well as precious chance
to exchange ideas about myresearch interests.
Archival research
I surveyed several primary sourcesin search for new or understudied
instances of political satire which
circulated in manuscript form,
mainly rakusho. Differing from thevast body of jitsuroku, which arewidely available thanks to transcriptions and critical editions,
there are not many graffiti thatsurvived until nowadays andeven less are edited in criticaleditions, let alone translations.6
The canonical reference works on
Tokugawa-period graffiti is Edo
jidai rakusho ruiju 江戸時代落書類
聚, a collection of texts compiled
6
See the multivolume collection
Kinsei jitsuroku zensho 近世実録全書 (vols.
1-20) or the recent scholarship by Kikuchi
Yōsuke.

122

in the Taishō era.7 However there
are many ephemera which are yet
to be transcribed and studied. For
example, lengthy collections ofgraffiti were found in multivolume
zuihitsu 随筆 compiled in the lateTokugawa period, such as Kokon
momoyogusa sōsho 古今百代草叢書 (National Diet Library) or Tenpōzakki 天保雑記 (National Archives,
Naikaku bunkō). The analysis ofthese works proved useful to study
the modalities of circulation of graffiti in early-modern Japan: not only
as leaflets stapled on trees anddoors or scattered on the ground(otoshibumi 落とし文), but also as
pamphlet or booklets passed down
by scribal transmission.
The days spent at the Tōkyō
Central Library and Institute ofJapanese Literature Library werealso very productive, and there I
managed to finalise my chapterson satirical writings which circulated as woodblock-printed booklets. Not only I had the opportunity
to access the vast collectionsof kibyōshi and other works ofgesaku which are held by these
two institutions. Meanwhile, I wasable to compare different editions
and reprints of the same texts.
This survey was beneficial for
7
Other important studies on
Japanese graffiti are Rinoie Masafumi’s
Rakugakishi らくがき史 and Kida Jun’ichirō’s
Nihonjin no fūshi seishin 日本人の風刺精神.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

several reasons, most importantly
the study of some handwritten
marginalia
andam­endments
imposed by censors, which
provided useful hints concerning
how satirical writings were readand understood in Tokuagwa
Japan, both by commoners andauthorities.
Meetings and Conferences
At the beginning of my fieldwork,
I arranged a meeting with Prof
Kojima Yasunori, whose recent
research interests concern parody
in early-modern Japan. This
meaningful discussion had a very
positive impact on my PhD thesis,
for I could share my views on therelation between parody and satirein Tokugawa-period literature, withparticular regard to the widespreadconsensus that both the parodic
act and the practice of satire are‘committed’ literary form.
During my regular meetings with
Prof Sasaki Takahiro I had theopportunity to discuss extensively
on various aspects of Japanesebibliography, especially on what
concern the relationship between
text and images in early-modern
printed texts. Moreover, I attended
several conferences organisedby the participants of the EIRI
Project (Keiō Univeristy), in whichscholars discussed similar topics
from a comparative (Europe-Asia)

perspective. Together with Prof
Sasaki I also worked on various
issues broadly related to myresearch topic, amongst which
the role of illustrations in satiricalprose texts produced in earlymodern Japan.
By the end of my stay I was
invited by Prof Tsuda Mayumi(Keiō University) to the monthly
Kusazōshi
Kenkyūkai
atMusashino University. In thismeeting I had the chance makeacquaintance with several scholars
and students who all work on
various aspects of Tokugawaperiod comic literature, both prose
and poetry. This meeting was very
beneficial to my research, for I wasable to broaden my views on earlymodern Japanese popular literature and culture, while learning
about very up-to-date scholarship.
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to the
Tōshiba International Foundation for its invaluable contribution
and support during my research
activities in Tōkyō. In particular,
I would like to express my gratitude to Ms Ōbayashi Masae, TIFO
senior program officer, and Mr
Shirai Makoto, TIFO president,
who warmly welcomed me at theTōshiba headquarter upon myarrival. Furthermore, I would like toextend my thanks to the European
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Association of Japanese Studies,
which backed my candidacy to
the TIFO scholarship, and especially to Ms Ronja Meising who
provided a thorough guidanceand support before and after myarrival in Japan. A special word of
thanks goes to Prof Sasaki Takahiro (Shidō bunko, Keiō University), whose genuine interestin my research and continued
support have made my fieldwork
an even more rewarding experience. Finally, I would like to thankProf Tsuda Mayumi (Keiō University), Kojima Yasunori (ICU) and
Gotō Tomoko (ICU) who kindly
shared their knowledge withme and engaged in meaningful
discussions as well as in thoughtprovoking conversations.

Report by Miriam Grinberg,
University of Warwick
The US-Japan alliance and therelocation of Futenma: Sites
of discursive exchange in the
reproduction of security alliances
From my office in the Faculty of
Law and Letters at the Universityof the Ryukyus in Nishihara, an
area of southern-central Okinawa
prefecture, I can often hear thesound of US military planes
taking off from and returning toFutenma Air Base in Ginowan,
just a few minutes away by bus
from campus. The noise can beincredibly distracting dependingon the frequency of the exercises
conducted on a day to day basis,but I find that—whenever I look up
to observe the planes flying fairly
close overhead—I am the only
person doing so. Everyone elsein the local area has, by contrast,
become accustomed to the disruption in the sixty-plus years thathave passed since Futenma wasoriginally built.
It is in this manner that I haveacquired some first-hand experience of how something as large
and abstract-sounding as the‘US-Japan security alliance’ has
an impact on everyday life here in
Okinawa, and specifically on the124

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people who live close to Futenma,
the base which sits at the centreof my research’s case study. Built
in the aftermath of the Second
World War by the US military, theland Futenma currently takes up
was once home to three separate
villages—Ginowan,
Kamiyama,
and Aragusuku—but in the postwar period, as locals returningfrom Okinawan internment camps
have continually constructed theirhomes and businesses aroundthe base, it now sits precariously
close to the densely-populated
Ginowan, a city of about 95,000
residents (Augustine 2008; McCormack and Norimatsu 2012). This
proximity has led to a notable
number of unfortunate incidents
and accidents between the US
Marines and the local populations, two of which have gained
particular notoriety: the 1995 rapeof a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl by three Marines, and the 2004
crash of a Marine Corps CH-53D
transport helicopter into the sideof an administrative building on
the campus of Okinawa International University. The first of theseincidents spurred the formation of
the Special Action Committee on
Okinawa in 1996 and its subsequent final report, which recommended the closure of Futenma
and the return of its land to theprefecture.
Nonetheless,this
return was predicated on the relo-cation of Futenma’s capabilities toanother site within Okinawa, andwithin a year of the report’s publication, US Marine Corps Camp
Schwab, located on Oura Bay
in the rural and less populated
Henoko, a village in Nago to thenorth, was chosen.
Since then, however, little progresshas been made on the relocation and return of Futenma—thislargely as a result of the widespread and sustained opposition
to the condition that it be relocatedwithin Okinawa to Henoko, whose
Oura Bay is home to endangered
species like the dugong (a relativeof the manatee) which might bethreatened by the earth and sediment landfill needed to construct
the planned Futenma Replacement Facility (FRF) (Spencer
2003; Hook 2010). The closest
the US and Japanese governments have come to moving therelocation forward was the recent
deal struck between the Shinzo
Abe administration and Okinawa
Governor Hirokazu Nakaima in
December 2013, which sti­pulates
that the central government will
provide the Okinawan economy
with about ¥300 billion yen peryear until 2021, move sometraining operations of the controversial MV-22 Osprey helicopters
outside of the prefecture, andrenegotiate some aspects of125

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the Status of Forces Agreement(SOFA) between Japan and the
US pertaining to environmental
issues in return for an approval
permit issued by the Governor to
begin the offshore land fill work for
the FRF (Yoshida 2013).
The deal has caused a further rift
to blow up between supportersof the Governor’s decision—
namely, the central governmentin Tokyo, the US government,
and local contractors and otherbusinesses in Okinawa with aninterest in the base construction
proceeding—and
opponents,
which, according to a poll takenby the Asahi Shimbun before thedecision was made, number up
to 64 per cent of Okinawa voters
who wanted Nakaima to reject thecentral government’s application(Asahi Shimbun 2013). The decision also attracted international
attention in the form of a letter ofprotest signed by many prominent
activists and intellectuals, including
Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone,
Mairead Maguire, and John W.
Dower (Ryukyu Shimpo 2014).
Although Futenma may seem, at
first, like little more than a local
battle between pro-and anti-baseforces with the occasional intervention of the central governments
in Tokyo and Washington, thecomplex and fascinating background of this issue allows us to126

see that symbolically—as well as
actually—it has become more thanjust a ‘thorn’ in the US-Japan alliance’s side in the nearly twenty
years since the original SACO
report was published. The struggle
to resolve the problem is indicativeof the fact that, although security alliances are often taken for
granted by government officials
and ordinary citizens alike as
unequivocally strong and bound tocontinue for the foreseeable future,
there is always an underlying
potential for something as seemingly insignificant as a conflict overa basing site to cause a tangible
impact on the tenor and health ofinterstate relations.
It is for this reason that Futenma
became the focal point of mydissertation research on how
security alliances persist after
the original threat against which
they were formed has diminishedor disappeared altogether—and
how they continue to reproduce
themselves in the face of sometimes intense opposition, as in thecases of Ginowan and Henoko.
The prevailing arguments in theliterature on persistence, however,tend to have a top-down focus,
privileging the discourses of elite‘insider’ actors with direct accessto the inner-workings of an alliance’s management over thecontributions of lived experienceEAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

to the policymaking process from‘outsiders’ like local ­g­o­ve­rn­ mentofficials and civil society. Furthermore, these arguments tend toignore the possibility of internal
divisions amongst these ‘insiders’,
representing the debates within
an alliance as taking place
between the central governmentsof the member states rather than
exploring the many divergencesof opinion that exist within theirgovernments, on the local level,in their militaries, and even within
civil society itself.
My research is thus seeking tounderstand the variables behindpersistence by examining how
alliances are publicly framedand deliberated—not only by‘insiders’ who would seek tomaintain the US-Japan alliancein its current form, but also by
those ‘outsiders’ who contest
the prevailing ‘common sense’
about the necessity of the allianceand, by extension, the necessity of the US military presence,
specifically in Okinawa. In orderto accomplish this, I have therefore been conducting fieldwork
in Japan since mid-January withthe generous funds granted tome by the Toshiba International
Foundation (TIFO), the European
Association of Japanese Studies(EAJS), and the Japan Society for
the Promotion of Science (JSPS):

first, in Tokyo at Waseda University’s Graduate School of AsiaPacific Studies from January to
mid-March under the supervisionof Prof. Chikako Ueki, and then in
Okinawa at Ryukyus from March
until the end of April under thesupervision of Prof. Eiichi Hoshino.
The funding allotted by thesethree organisations has enabled
me to travel easily between Tokyo
and Okinawa to carry out the
primary original contribution of myresearch to the existing studies
in this field: namely, a collectionof nearly thirty interviews (andcounting) with current and former
US and Japanese government officials, military officials, academics,
and activists to gain their insights
not only into the current nature of
the US-Japan alliance and how
its purpose and functions have
evolved since its origin in the postwar era, but also into the issue ofUS military bases in Japan and,specifically, the ongoing conflictover the relocation of Futenma.
These interviews have illuminated the deeper context behindthe sometimes opaque language
found in political speeches, statements, and policy documents,and has given me a better understanding of the motivations behindthe particular discourses promotedby the parties both ‘inside’ and‘outside’ the alliance and how
these discourses have changed
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over the years (for example, theevolution of the central government in Tokyo’s language withregards to acknowledging the‘burden’ of the bases in Okinawa
and making a conscious effort tobe more conciliatory in its dialogue
with the prefectural government, arguably evidenced by theDecember 2013 deal).
Some specific interviewees forthis project have included (or will
include in the near future):
•
•
•
•

•

•
•

128

Yoichi Iha, former Mayor of
Ginowan (2003-10)
Masahide
Ota,
formerGovernor of Okinawa prefecture (1990-98)
Takashi Inoguchi, Professor
Emeritus at the University of
Tokyo
Tomonori Yoshizaki, Directorof the Security Studies Department at the National Institutefor Defense Studies
Noboru Yamaguchi, former
Commanding General of theJapan Ground Self Defense
Forces(JGSDF)
GroundResearch and Development
Command
Satoko Norimatsu, Director of
the Peace Philosophy Centre
Gavan McCormack, Professor
Emeritus at Australian National
University••

Alfred Magleby, US Consul
General in Naha, Okinawa
Michael Penn, Editor andFounder of Shingetsu News
AgencyIn addition, I have conductednumerous interviews with officials
and experts from the Ministry of
Defense, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, the Canon Institute for
Global Studies, the Japan Instituteof International Affairs, the Tokyo
Foundation, the Ryukyu Shimpo,
the Okinawa Peace AssistanceCentre, and the US Marines
Pacific Command. The interviews
have likewise enabled me to visit
several locations of interest to mystudy, including (so far):••Futenma Air Base, where
I observed the proceedings of a Fence Clean event
during which local residents
in Ginowan removed protest
paraphernalia from Gate 3of the base in conjunction
with US service members,
as well as talked with several
members of the local Okinawa
Osprey Fan Club;
Yokosuka Naval Base, where
I was given a tour of the US
Navy’s facilities and was able
to ask questions in order tocompare and contrast the situation in Yokosuka to the one
in Okinawa and get a feel forEAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015•••

the relationship between locals
and the US military;
US Marines Camp Foster, also
located in Ginowan;
Okinawa International University, where I was shown the2004 crash site by Prof. Peter
Simpson;And several other historicalsites of critical importancein understanding the situation in Okinawa, including the
Okinawa Peace Museum,
HimeyuriMonument,
and
Iejima.

The interviews I have arranged
and held so far—along with thematerials I have been able toaccess at such locations as the
National Diet Library in Tokyo, theuniversity libraries of Waseda and
Ryukyus, and the Okinawa Prefectural Archives in Arakawa—represent the first part of my fieldwork
to be completed in 2014 for myoverall PhD project. The second
part, which will be carried out inWashington, DC from the end ofJune until the end of September,will likewise involve archival workat such locations as the Libraryof Congress and the National
Archives as well as interviews withgovernment o­fficials, researchers,
military officials, academics, andorganisations involved in outreachon the US side with the baseissue. Persons of interest for mystudy include such individuals as
former As­sistant Secretary of State
for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Kurt M. Campbell, Professor
Joseph Nye, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, andProfessors Peter J. Katzensteinand Andrew Yeo, among others. I
have already been accepted as a
Visiting PhD Student to American
University’s School of International Studies under Prof. Amitav
Acharya for the duration of mywork there, but depending on
where some of the relevant interviewees or archives are located,
I will likely be travelling outside of
the East Coast as well.
Thanks again to all of my interviewees and other contacts madeduring this trip who so generously
offered their time and energy
to speak with me, and special
thanks to TIFO, EAJS, JSPS,
Waseda, and Ryudai for making
this research not only possible, butalso exceptionally productive andfun.
Bibliography(2013): “ASAHI POLL: 64% of
Okinawa voters want rejection ofreclamation plan for U.S. air base.”
Asahi Shimbun December 17,
available at: http://ajw.asahi.com/
article/behind_news/social_affairs/
AJ201312170044.
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EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015(2014): “International scholars
and peace advocates support
Okinawan struggle to opposethe Henoko landfill.” Ryukyu
Shimpo January 8, availableat:
http://english.ryukyushimpo.
jp/2014/01/08/12746/.
Augustine, M. (2008): “BorderCrossers and Resistance to US
Military Rule in the Ryukyus, 19451953.” The Asia-Pacific Journal:
Japan Focus.
Hook, G. (2010): “Intersecting risks
and governing Okinawa: Americanbases and the unfinished war.”
Japan Focus 22 (1): 195-217.
McCormack, G. and Norimatsu, S.
(2012): Resistant Islands: Okinawa
Confronts Japan and the UnitedStates. Lanham, MD: Rowman &Littlefield Publishers.
Spencer, C. (2003): “Meeting of
the Dugongs and the Cooking
Pots: Anti-military Base Citizens’Groups on Okinawa.” JapaneseStudies 23 (2): 125-140.
Yoshida, R. (2013): “Nakaima
cuts deal with Abe.” Japan
Times December 25, av­ailableat:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/
news/2013/12/25/national/
nakaima-cuts-deal-with-abe/.
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Toshiba International Foundation Fellowships
Reports by the 2014 TIFO Fellows
Report by Dolf-Alexander
Neuhaus,
Freie Universität Berlin

and the indigenous Japanese
Christian non-church movement of
Uchimura Kanzō.

Entangled Asia: Korean Students and Japanese Protestantism, 1900 – 1920

So far, historians have widely ignored the complex and conflicting
dynamics between Japanese Protestantism and Japan’s imperial project. Moreover, previous researchtended to subordinate Korean colonial history to the main narrativesof Japanese imperial history, thereby leaving little room for the agencyof the colonized. In my research
project I aim at overcoming thenational history paradigm and the
top-down approach to imperial history. Furthermore, I challenge theassumption that the emergenceof Protestantism in East Asia wasa mere byproduct of Western-stylemodernization. Instead, my project is centered on Korean andJapanese actors in order to adopt
a multi-layered perspective on Japan’s regional entanglements that
goes beyond Euro-centric models
of modernization.

Research Topic and Methodology
My doctoral thesis “Entangled Asia:
Korean Students and JapaneseProtestantism, 1900 -1920” analyzes how the interaction between
Japanese Protestants and Korean
exchange students during the Meiji
and Taishō eras contributed to theemergence of an ‘Asian identity’among Japanese Protestants. In
the early 20th century increasing numbers of Korean students
flocked to the Japanese metropolis in pursuit of higher education.
Among others, the Korean Young
Men’s Christian Association served
as an important venue for Korean
student activists during the years
between 1906 and 1919. Drawing on recent scholarship in Global
History, my dissertation focuses on
the networks of Protestant Korean
students and Japanese teachersthat emerged within the context ofchurch communities, the YMCA

To this end, I draw on a wide array of sources which have been
produced within the context of Japanese Protestantism and its encounter with Korea. Among others
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these include the Protestant journals Shinjin, Jōmō Kyōkai Geppō,
Kaitakusha and Kirisutokyō Sekai
as well as Korean student magazines Hakjikwang and Ajia Kōron. I
strive to analyze these sources withregard to the discursive creation ofan East Asian brand of Protestantism. The core issue in this respectis the question as to how the actors conceived of the role of Protestantism in the emerging East Asian
regional order. Further materials
comprises newspapers and educational magazines that ran a wholeslew of articles and editorials on the
education (and assimilation) of Korea. While these sources are rarely
available in Germany, most are easily accessible in Japanese archives
such as Meiji Shinbun Zasshi Bunko of the University of Tōkyō or the
National Diet Library. Authors like
Yoshino Sakuzō, Kashiwagi Gienand Uchimura Kanzō used a widearray of magazines and articles toexpress criticism of Japanese colonialism in Korea and other parts of
the Japanese empire, while others
like Ebina Danjō were less critical.
Korean students, too, created theirown media to express their politicalviews toward the Japanese colonial policy and authorities in Japan
as well as Korea. I am very gratefulto the Tōshiba International Foundation for endowing me with an
extraordinarily generous scholarship which enabled me to conduct
132

highly necessary archival research
for my dissertation project.
Archival ResearchThis research stay offered the second opportunity for me to conductarchival research in Japan since I
started the Ph.D. project on the interaction between Korean Students
and Japanese Protestants during
the Meiji- and Taisho-eras at Free
University Berlin in August 2011. I
had already established connections with the University of Tōkyōfrom previous stays as a visiting researcher at the university’s Instituteof Social Science in 2010, when I
collected materials for my master’s
thesis funded through a grant by
the German Academic Exchange
Service (DAAD) and in 2012, whenfunds from the German Research
Foundation (DFG) enabled me tostay at the ISS for three months inorder to do initial research for my
Ph.D. thesis. Under the guidanceof Professor Iokibe Kaoru, I wasable to get a preliminary overview
over the existing Japanese (and as
far as available Korean) literatureand source material.
Through generous funding by the
Toshiba International Foundation,
I gained the unique opportunity to
conduct further research in Japan
from mid-September to mid December 2014. As my Ph.D. thesis

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

mainly examines Japanese Protestant magazines and journals
that were published by Korean exchange students, the main goal of
my fieldwork was to collect mostof the crucial materials in the archives of the University of Tōkyō(esp. Meiji Shinbun Zasshi Bunko
and others) and the National Diet
Library. Furthermore, I was able
to gather secondary sources thathave recently been published in Japan, but are not yet available in Europe. Despite significant progressin the creation of digital archives
and online repositories the accessibility of primary sources and materials – especially when comparedto the situation in countries suchas South Korea – remains difficult
for scholars based outside Japan.
In many cases archives must beaccessed in person in order to obtain certain resources. This evenapplies to recently digitalized material which is retrievable exclusively from inside the particularlibraries ostensibly due to strict orunresolved copyright. The National
Diet Library for instance thankfully
digitalized and put online the larger
part of its materials from the Meiji
and Taishō era. However, thesefiles are for the most part not accessible from outside the National
Diet Library – including the campusof the University of Tōkyō – making
archival research in Japan difficultand exceptionally time consuming.

This is further complicated by theplethora of diverse materials thatare usually distributed across various archives.
Since my dissertation focuses on
Korean students at Christian institutions in Japan during the Meiji
and Taishō eras, a second major
goal was to gain access to the private archives of the YMCAs. However, this again proved to be moredifficult than expected for various
reasons: due to the pluralistic anddecentralized nature of the YMCA
movement, archival research necessitates attending a number ofarchives in Tōkyō alone. Furthermore, in the cases of university
YMCAs it often is only possible toaccess their private archive rooms
through the mediation of members
or former members. In this regard,
I am deeply indebted to Professor
Iokibe Kaoru of the University ofTōkyō who presented me with theopportunity to gain an insight into
unedited, hand written and completely unexplored material available at the archive of the Universityof Tōkyō YMCA that partly dates
back to the 1910s. Further research will be necessary to explore
these materials and those of otheruniversity YMCA and dormitories in
depth.
Despite the difficulties one regularly
encounters doing archival research
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in Japan, in the end I was able tocollect a vast quantity of source
material and literature. Once more,
the well-assorted libraries and archives of the University of Tōkyō
proved to be a veritable gold mineof early twentieth-century Christian journals, magazines and letters. Moreover, I was able to gleansome additional material that will
hopefully shed light onto yet unexplored aspects of my Ph.D. thesis
and probe the archive in order tofacilitate future research on Protestantism in Japan and Korea.
Meetings and Conferences
I also owe a large debt of gratitude
to Professor Haneda Masashi of
the University of Tōkyō who was
kind enough to invite me as a visiting researcher to the Institute forAdvanced Studies on Asia. Thisrenowned institution houses a very
extensive range of literature andsources on Asia in Japanese, Asian
languages and English and attracts
many scholars in the field. This exceptional international environment
provided the perfect opportunity tomeet and discuss with experts inthe field on many occasions and invarious contexts. Weekly seminars
on Global History led by Professor
Haneda, in which Japanese graduate students participated alongsideforeign researchers and visiting
professors and discussed recent
134

publication in the field of Global
History, greatly contributed to theinternational
atmosphereandexposed me to a plethora of approaches to Global History. I could
benefit greatly from the meaningful
discussions and thought-provoking
conversations with many of the participants. At times, however, there
exist diverging views on what constitutes the writing of a history thattranscends borders and/or world
regions. In order to write Global
Histories that are free from Eurocentrism etc., more exchange likethis will be necessary. Besides myarchival research, it has been very
intriguing and inspiring to shareand discuss views and approaches
pertaining to Global History within
a setting that comprised not only
scholars educated within a European and Japanese or Korean context but also from other world regions such as Southeast or Central
Asia that are still underrepresented
at German institutions at least.
As visiting researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia,
I was furthermore given the opportunity to present my own findings at
a workshop held at the institute in
November within the context of the
Global History Collaborative between Freie University Berlin, Humboldt University Berlin, Princeton
University, the University of Tōkyō
and École des hautes études en

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. The invaluable advice of Professors Haneda Masashi, Kuroda
Akinobu of the University of Tōkyō
and Benjamin Elman from Princeton University and other researchers had a very positive impact on
my Ph.D. thesis, for it helped me tobetter understand how to connect
my topic to the diverse approaches on trans-cultural history of East
Asia, a difficult field of Global History.

ticular, I would like to express mygratitude to Ms. Kuwayama Marikoand Mr. Shirai Makoto, President of
TIFO, who warmly welcomed meat the Tōshiba headquarters upon
my arrival in Japan. Furthermore, I
would like to extend my thanks to
the Council of the European Association for Japanese Studies which
has supported my application to
the TIFO scholarship.

During the period of my fieldwork
in Japan, I furthermore arranged
meetings with Professor Lee Yeonsuk from Hitotsubashi University
and Lee Hyeong-nang from Chūō
University whose research interests include the Korean community
in Japan, its interaction with Japanese intellectuals and the construction of the Japanese national language that helped to strengthen thenation state and assimilate minorities. Both kindly shared their knowledge with me and thus significantly
deepened my knowledge about thehistory of Koreans in Japan and themost recent research on the topic
in Japan and South Korea.

Abe Hiroshi, “Fukuzawa Yukichi
to Chōsen Ryūgakusei,” in: Fukuzawa Yukichi Nenkan 2 (1975), pp.
61 – 85.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Tōshiba
International Foundation for its
invaluable support during my research activities in Tōkyō. In par-Further Reading

Abe Hiroshi, “Kyūkanmatsu no
Ryūgakusei (ichi)“, Kan 3:5 (1974),
pp. 63 – 83.
Emily Anderson, Christianity andImperialism in Modern Japan: Empire for God (London: Bloomsbury,2014).
Jon Thares Davidann, A World ofCrisis and Progress. The American YMCA in Japan, 1890 – 1930
(Bethlehem: Lehigh University
Press, 1998).
Klaus Dittrich, “The Beginnings ofModern Education in Korea, 1883
– 1910”, Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of
Education, 50:3 (2013), 265 – 284.
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Jung-Sun N. Han, An Imperial Path
to Modernity: Yoshino Sakuzō anda New Liberal Order in East Asia,
1905 – 1937 (Cambridge: Harvard
University Asia Center – Distributed by Harvard University Press,2012).

Report by Benedikt Vogel,
University of Trier

Haneda Masashi, Atarashi Sekaishi e – Chikyū Shimin no tame no
Kōsō (Tōkyō: Iwanami Shinsho,2011).

When it comes to the Edo-period(1603-1868) in Japan, one easily remembers its lively city culture with its flourishing craftwork
and idle arts (yûgei), which ranged
from the tea ceremony to theatre.
Its significance for the cultural development made it to a prominent
theme in recent research. Whilevarious artistic activities recognizable in the Edo-period were treatedas sociological, economical, andpolitical factors, there seems to be
an implicit consensus about the existence of a sphere of “art”, whichin the course of the increasing material production as well the widespread learning and practice of idle
arts, evolved in its social function.
At that very time these artistic activities did not - despite their expansion - instantly provoke a fundamental change in theoretical
discourse, which mainly remained
focused on the practice (michi).
The question then is, what it actually means to speak of “art” in thisperiod or to what extend it is possible. For a society with omnipresent aesthetic activities a rather dire

Hwansoo Ilmee Kim, Empire ofDharma: Korean and Japanese
Buddhism, 1877 – 1912 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia
Center – Distributed by Harvard
University Press, 2012)
Yeonsuk Lee, Kokugo to iu Shisō.
Kindai Nihon no Gengo Ninshiki,(Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 2012).
Trent E. Maxey, The ‘Greatest
Problem’: Religion and State Formation in Meiji Japan (Cambridge:
Harvard University Asia Center –Distributed by Harvard University
Press, 2014).

136

The Character of Aesthetic Experience and Atmosphere in the
Idle Arts (yûgei 遊芸) of the Edo
PeriodEAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015question.
Consequently it seems foremost
necessary to shed some light on
this specific sphere and to track the
motions of people and objects, aswell as their complex connections
in performance and imagination - inother words: to clarify the world ofaesthetic experience.
Considering the fact, that not somuch the theoretical discourse
but the practice, performance andthe multi-sensory experience werecharacteristic for this specific aesthetic environment, it seems promising to take a much closer look at
kôdô, the incense ceremony. Itscomplex performative nature aswell as the use of all five senses
makes kôdô especially interestingfor this approach. In an endeavor
to explore the meaning of aesthetic experiences and to clarify as towhat it meant to “appreciate art”,
the current research project wants
to refocus on the aesthetics of theidle arts, taking kôdô as its main
example.
While this research project shall
add an aesthetic dimension to theaforementioned recent research
perspectives, moreover it seeks
to contribute to the field of performance studies by working out thelink between performance andaffective/emotional
experience,

which itself shall become a tool
for the reevaluation of other social
events and rituals.
While these thoughts sum up theinitial starting point for my research
project, I was more than grateful toreceive the gracious grant by the
Toshiba International Foundation,
which made me able to conduct theessential research in Japan, to get
in touch with other scholars and to
experience the fascinating world ofkôdô firsthand.
During my stay in Tokyo and Kyoto
and through the reception of a wide
range of research materials and primary sources, I was able to specify
the theoretical concepts, which will
become the underlying framework
for the following study. According
to the above mentioned thoughts,
which led to this study, aesthetic
appreciation emerges from multiple
elements and therefore seems to
be atmospheric, but its exact character still needs to be explained.
Therefore the project seeks to uncover the role and function implicitly associated with “art” by looking at the “art-events” itself, theirvarious material and performative
constituents and how they were experienced. Firstly, this means thatthe starting point for such an endeavor has to be the human bodyitself. Following phenomenologicalconcepts the body has to be recog137

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

nized as the source of perception
and experience.
Another important constituent of theidle arts arises from the various elements of play and ritual. To grasp
the glimpses of meaning occurringin the complex gatherings of people, “performance” has to becomea key-concept. The body, its movement, and the various sensory perceptions have to be considered.
But it is not only the ephemeral appearance of meaning in the performance, but also the transmissionof supposedly unchanging ideas
and concepts of the specific idle art(e.g. kôdô) itself. Important part of
the aesthetic experience appears
to be the communication throughlanguage, poetry and literary images, and the constant reminiscenceof history, while defining the actionof one’s own as a continuation ofthat very tradition. As such, it has tobe scrutinized.
Since performance is always connected to its material context andobjects respectively, it is important
not only to track the actors but thethings as well. This means to consider the arrangement of the room,
where the events took place, furthermore the trade, reception andpresentation of objects as well as
the consideration and organization of the aesthetic practice andschools. The importance of the ma138

teriality of performance is especially true for the world of incense. Aspart of the chemical senses and thephysical realm it becomes a keyfactor. The process of odor perception, the description of scents andthe complex associative ways ofincorporating fragrance in the incense ceremony will be the targetof analysis.
In order to analyze those elements
and illuminate their diverse connections, appropriate materials andsources are necessary, which showthese exact aspects and movements. The main goal of my stay inJapan was to identify such materials.
While kôdô continues to be a minor
subject of research - in comparison
to the tea ceremony or the flower
arrangement - even in Japan, there
have been a couple of endeavors
to make the handwritten scripturesof the Edo-period more accessible. These transcriptions became
the starting point for my own project. Since the practice itself has
to become the focus of analysis,
it was necessary that the sources
allow an overall reconstructionof the aesthetic events. Because
hidensho, (books of secret teachings) describe in detail, how thesegatherings were to be held, they
were considered as the primarysources. However, it became obvi-

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

ous, that there is a wide range ofwhat is included in these transmissions and how detailed they are.
Therefore it seem not possible tolimit the analysis on just a few texts.
While a complete translation of one
representative hidensho helps toillustrate the overall character ofmethods and events itself, seems
a description of the performative
as well as material elements only
possible through a consideration ofnumerous scriptures.
Moreover, during the examination of various sources it became
obvious that - even so the projectfocuses on the Edo-period - therange of materials can not be limited to this time frame. The constantrecurrence of texts written in previous periods - especially the mid
and late Muromachi- period (13371573) - as well as the mentioningof events occurring in former generations made it necessary to look
more closely at these exact sources as well. Therefore, in addition to
the before mentioned (hi)densho,
selected records of incense gatherings of the Muromachi-period wereadded as primary sources, which
also will be analyzed. This extension is expected to be extremely
valuable, when it comes to describe
for example the decoration and display of rooms and objects, as wellas tracing back different ideas andconcepts.

As this research project seeks
to illustrate the performance andmulti-sensory perception in the
incense ceremony, it was a wonderful opportunity to participate in
an incense gathering of the Shinoschool of kôdô at the Kôdôkan in
Kyoto.
Hachiya Sôhitsu, 21st-Generation
Heir Apparent Grand Master of the
Shino school of kôdô, prepared asimple game of incense recognition
with a literary theme, introduced bypoetry and conducted in accordance with the schools traditions.
To experience firsthand, how close
and at the same time clear-cut playand strict ritual can be intertwined,
made a deep and lasting impression.
At this occasion I was also able tomeet and discuss various aspectsof kôdô with Hachiya Sôhitsu.
As the heir apparent of the Shinoschool - one of the oldest schools ofkôdô, with a tradition reaching backto the Muromachi-period - he granted me some invaluable insights inthe “school- system”, the preparation and handling of incense woods
and in the fundamental ideas of the“Way of the incense”. These experiences and encounters at the Kôdôkan proved to be important for the
progression of my research project.
My stay in Japan, which opened up
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so many new perspectives, wouldof course not have been possible
without the help of others: teachers, colleagues and friends. For
special guidance during this stay I
want to express my deepest gratitude particularly towards Professor
Kodama Ryûichi (Waseda University), who let me join his study
group and helped me clarify many
open questions. Furthermore I want
to express my heartfelt thanks towards Associate Professor Hamasaki Kanako (Senshû University;
Kôdôkan Kyoto), who brought me
to a deeper understanding of kôdô
- not only through discussions but
through the experience of the wide
repertoire of the Japanese aesthetics at the Kôdôkan in Kyoto.
Finally I want to express once more
my deepest gratitude to the Toshiba International Foundation for the
research grant, which helped me
to conduct this research and madenot only possible the unique experiences, but also the encounter withother people, researchers and students. I am thankful for this opportunity and hope that my research
can contribute to the study of earlymodern Japan and to shed somelight on the complex and fascinating spheres between the “social”
and the “aesthetic”.

140

Report by Stefan Jeka,
Goethe University Frankfurt
To Relieve the People From
Hunger and Suffering: A Study
On the Compendium of Agriculture’s (1697) Impact On Agricultural Guidebooks of Early Modern JapanIn 1697 Japan, the outstanding agricultural guidebook Nôgyô zensho
農業全書 (Compendium of agriculture) was published. It’s author Miyazaki Yasusada 宮崎安貞 (given
name alternatively reading Antei;
1623-1697) was born in Aki province as the second son of a samurai, who served the local lord as acommissioner for forest and mountain affairs 山林奉行 (sanrin bugyô).
Already about the age of 25 to 30
he, too, came into employment of
the daimyo of Chikuzen province,
acting as an advisor for forest andmountain affairs. But Miyazaki verysoon left his position, travelled thecountry and gathered information
about how experienced and successful farmers were conducting
agriculture. The acquired information he put to a test by doing farming on his own and then compilingthe results in his agricultural guidebook 農書 (nôsho), which is said tohave been the number one bestseller in Tokugawa Japan. Eventually becoming the standard authority on agricultural writing it had an

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

enormous influence on following
authors dealing with agriculture
throughout the whole Tokugawa
era and even into modern times.
Writing my MA thesis I focused on
the major part of the Compendiums tenth volume “[About] growing
medical herbs in the garden” 園に作る薬種 (sono ni tsukuru yakushu)
and I felt to merely get a glimpse
at the whole genre of Japans earlymodern agricultural guidebooks.
Agriculture and farming activities
played a major role in early modern Japanese society and economy, but while I was conducting myresearch I found western studies
about the diverse genre of nôsho to
be very scarce and even the contents of the canonised Compendium have yet rarely been investigated in the western academia (e.g. inan unpublished Habilitation thesis
by Klaus Müller in 1976).
For my PhD project I now want to
explore about the actual influenceof the Compendium as it marksa methodological turning point inJapanese writing on agriculture towards an empirical approach of obtaining knowledge. Preparing themindset for the economic growthof Meiji-Japan (1868-1912), it has
to be examined why, how, and towhat extent the influence of theCompendium stretched out into
other nôsho. As this project’s topic

is located in the early moderns, itdemands a critical historical approach, combining questions of
power relations and political economy with the detailed mapping of thehistorical settings, not to mention
careful philological work.
To outline the Compendiums diverse and steady influence threetexts have been selected: the Nôgyô kokoro oboe 農業心覚/ Nônin
jôhô 農人定法 (“Agricultural skills
one should remember”/ ”The peasants’ common methods”; 1703) by
Fukamachi Gonroku 深町権六 (?1725), the Nôgyô toki no shiori 農
業時の栞 (“Guide of the times ofagriculture”; 1785) by Hosoi Yoshimaro 細井宜麻 (?-1788) and the
Toyoaki no waraigusa 豊秋農笑種(“The fools bumper harvest”; 1843)
by Toya Genpachi 戸谷源八 (17921872). Many of the early modern
agricultural guidebooks of Japan
have been examined once and by
Japanese scholars only, as in thecase of the Nôgyô toki no shiori by
Arizono Shôichirô 有薗正一郎 of
Aichi University and the Toyoaki no
waraigusa by Uchida Kazuyoshi 内
田和義 of Shimane University andpublished in the most ample “Collection of agricultural guidebooks ofJapan” 日本農書全集 (Nihon nôsho
zenshû).

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Research in Japanare not available in print at all.

I was glad to have been grantedwith the research scholarship by
the Toshiba International Foundation (TIFO), thus being able totravel to Japan to meet the before
mentioned scholars and other researchers in person and to conduct interviews in November andDecember 2014. Professor Arizono
welcomed me in his office in Toyohashi where we discussed difficult
passages of the translations andhe provided help with the researchat the library of Aichi University.

At this point I would like to thankboth Professor Arizono and Professor Uchida, who not only provided
me with various copies of theirworks, working papers and rarematerials they collected throughout their years of research, but also
gave me substantial help with difficult parts of the translations, explaining in detail the history of theworks and lifes of the respective
authors and who helped me mapping the texts within the greatercontext of the nôsho genre.

Visiting Professor Uchida in thecity of Matsue, he took me on a trip
to the nearby village Ôtani, where
we met the descendants of Toya
Gempachi who still continue to livein the same place. There, the challenges of agricultural enterprises
in a narrow mountainous region
with a less favourable local climate
where explained to me by Mr. Toyaand Professor Uchida. In later discussions with Professor Uchida at
his office in Shimane University, hehelped to shed a light onto some ofthe passages of the text that wherepuzzling me, because they refer tospecific local conditions, expressions and agricultural techniques.
Also, Professor Uchida presented
me with copies of new transcriptions he made from another versionof the Toyoaki no waraigusa, which

Doing research at the library of the
Department of Agriculture of Kyoto
University, I got access to various
documents regarding early modern agronomy, e.g. the publications of Kikuchi Isao 菊池勇夫, whoworked on the impact of the major
famines of early modern Japan formany years. According to earlymodern authors the prevention of
famine caused by a meagre harvest or even crop failure very often
was one of the key motivations forcompiling their work, which is why
these have to be taken into accountto outline the very often intended
purpose of nôsho: the promotion ofadvanced techniques to increase
agricultural yields.
While staying in Kyoto I was able
to meet Professor Tokunaga Mit-EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

sutoshi 徳永光俊, president of the
Osaka University of Economics.
For many years Professor Tokunaga was the chief editor of the “Collection of agricultural guidebooksof Japan” where all the primarytexts I am investigating have been
published. His research projects focused on the emergence of nôsho
in early modern Japan under theharsh economic and environmental
influence in the early modern ruralagrarian societies. I am most grateful to have been presented withbooks and copies of the recent publications by Professor Tokunaga,
as well as working papers for theuniversity’s bulletin that are simply
not accessible outside of Japan. In
several discussions his expertiseon early modern agricultural guidebooks, on the history of farming,of rural society and the intertwined
relationship of the rural economy
and the state (e.g. as government
officials) contributed invaluably to
my research project. His current research interest – the transmissionof farming techniques and knowledge about weather, soil and plantconditions but by the semi- or illiterate farmers themselves – helped
me to broaden the perspective of
my research regarding the quite
ambivalent classification of nôsho
into gakusha no nôsho 学者の農書(agricultural writings by scholars)
and hyakushô no nôsho 百姓の農書 (agricultural writings by peas-ants) as it was outlined by Furushima Toshio 古島敏雄 decades ago.
In Tokyo, I used the resources of
the National Diet Library to accesssome of the oldest secondary literature, which is nearly inaccessible
outside of Japan, if available at all.
This does not only count for prewar and wartime publications, like
Senkaku Miyazaki Yasusada 先覚宮崎安貞 (“The pioneer Miyazaki
Yasusada”) by Nakamura Kichijirô
中村吉次郎 published 1944, butalso for relating articles in post-war
periodicals e.g. in Sanrin keizai 林
業経済 (Forest economy) of 1953
or publications in journals and bulletins of the various study groups.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my utmost
gratitude to the Toshiba International Foundation, especially to thepresident of TIFO Mr. Shirai Makoto and Ms. Kuwayama Mariko, whogave me a warm welcome at the
Toshiba main office in Tokyo. On
our final meeting Ms. Kuwayama
again encouraged me to pursue
my project and offered assistanceeven with further research activities. Last but not least I do thankthe EAJS for selecting my research
project for the TIFO scholarship,
thus making this rewarding journeypossible with their very support.

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Bibliography
Furushima, Toshio 古島敏雄 (1962):
Nihon nôgakushi 日本農学史 (History of Japanese Agronomy), Nihon
hyôron sha 日本評論社.
Kano, Kyôji 狩野享二 (1953): Miyazaki Antei no shôgai to sono sanrin keieiron 宮崎安貞の生涯と其の山林經營論 (Antei Miyazaki’s lifeand his treatise on forest management), in: Sanrin keizai 林業経済
(Forest economy) Vol. 6 No 3, pp.
28-34.
Kikuchi, Isao 菊池勇夫 (2003): Kikin
kara yomu kinsei shakai 飢饉から読む近世社会 (Reading early modern society through famines), Azekura shobô 校倉書房.
Miyazaki,Yasusada
宮崎安貞(1697): Nôgyô zensho 農業全
書 (Compendium of agriculture),
in: Yamada, Tatsuo 山田龍雄 (et.
al.): Nihon nôsho zenshû 日本農書全集 (Collection of agricultural
guidebooks of Japan), Vol. 12-13,
Nôbunkyô 農文協 1978.
Nakamura, Kichijirô 中村吉次郎(1944): Senkaku Miyazaki Yasusada 先覚宮崎安貞 (The pioneer
Miyazaki Yasusada), Tama shobô
多摩書房.
Shibata, Kazuo 柴多一雄 (1999):
Nôgyô kokorooboe・Nônin jôhôkaidai 農業心覚・農人定法 解題, in:144

Tokunaga, Mitsutoshi 徳永光俊 (et.
al.): Nihon nôsho zenshû 日本農書全集, vol. 41, Nôbunkyô 農文協, pp.
290-308.
Tsukuba,Hisaharu
筑波常治(1987): Nihon no nôsho: Nôgyô hanaze kinsei ni hattenshita ka 日本の農書: 農業はなぜ近世に発展したか (Japans agricultural writings:
Why did agriculture develop in theearly moderns?), Chûô kôron sha
中央公論社.
Uchida, Kazuyoshi 内田和義 (2000):
Kinsei kôki ni okeru san‘in chihô noinesaku gijutsu - “Toyoaki no waraigusa” no bunseki wo chûshin ni 近
世 後 期 に お ける山 陰 地 方 の 稲 作
技術―『豊秋農笑種』の分析を中心に (Rice growing techniques in the
Sanin district in the late Tokugawa
period: Focusing on the analysis
of “Toyoaki no waraigusa”), in: Nôgyôshi kenkyû 農業史研究 (The
Journal of Agricultural History), No.
34, pp. 55-62.

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Toshiba International Foundation Fellowships
2015 TIFO Fellows
Application for the 2015 TIFO Fellowships opened on 30 January 2015 andclosed on 31 March 2015. After a careful evaluation of the 25 applications
that the EAJS has received this year, the EAJS Council has selected thefollowing three PhD candidates as recipients of the 2015 TIFO Fellowships:
Bernhard Leitner (University of Vienna, Austria)• Dissertation title: “Laboratory Vienna-Tokyo – On the emergence of a
psychiatric thought-style in Austria and Japan circa 1900”
Hai Guo (University of Leeds, UK)• Dissertation title: “Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word: A Lacanian
Discourse Analysis on Sino-Japanese ‘History Problem’“Anita Németh (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)• Dissertation title: “Changes In the Image of Itako Phenomenon at theTurn of the Millennium“

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News from our members
Anderson, Emily (2014): Christianity and Imperialism in Modern
Japan. Empire for God. (SOAS
Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan). London, New York:
Bloomsbury Academic.

Germer, Andrea, Mackie, Veraand Wöhr, Ulrike (eds.) (2014):
Gender, Nation and State inModern Japan. (ASAA Women in
Asia Series). London, New York:
Routledge.

Batten, Bruce L. and Brown,
Philip C. (eds.) (2015): Environment and Society in the JapaneseIslands. From Prehistory to thePresent. Paperback. Corvallis:
Oregon State University Press.

Hagström, Linus and Jerdén,
Björn (eds.) (2014): The East Asia
Power Shift: A Critical Appraisal.
[Special issue]. Asian Perspective,
38 (3).

Cavaliere, Paola (2015): Promising Practices. Women Volunteers in Contemporary Japanese
Religious Civil Society. Leiden,
Boston: Brill.
French, Thomas (2014): National
Police Reserve. The Origin ofJapan’s Self Defense Forces.
London: Global Oriental.
Galbraith, Patrick W., Kam,Thiam Huat and Kamm, BjörnOle (eds.) (2015): Debating Otaku
in Contemporary Japan. Historical
Perspectives and New Horizons.
(SOAS Studies in Modern andContemporary Japan). London,
New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

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Hein,
Patrick(2014):
The
Goddess and the Dragon. A
Study on Identity Strength andPsychosocial Resilience in Japan.
Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing.
Kirsch, Griseldis (2015): Contemporary Sino-Japanese Relations
on Screen. A History, 1989-2005.
(SOAS Studies in Modern andContemporary Japan). London,
New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Kowner, Rotem (2014): FromWhite to Yellow. The Japanese inEuropean Racial Thought, 13001735. (McGill-Queen‘s Studies
in the History of Ideas Series).
Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

Kowner, Rotem and Demel, Walter(eds.) (2014): Race and Racism
in Modern East Asia. Western andEastern Constructions. Vol. 1. Paperback. (Brill‘s Series on Modern East
Asia in a Global Historical Perspective). Leiden, Boston: Brill.
Watanabe, Hiroaki Richard (2014):
Labour Market Deregulation in Japanand Italy. Worker Protection under
Neoliberal Globalisation. (Nissan
Institute / Routledge JapaneseStudies). London, New York: Routledge.

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Items received
Between
March
2014
and
September 2015, the EAJS officereceived the following items.
Please contact the EAJS office inBerlin for further information.
Centre for the Study of Japanese Religions, SOAS, University of London: CSJR Newsletter,vols. 26 and 27 (2013-2014).
DeutscheGesellschaftder
JSPS Stipendiaten e.V.: Neues
vom JSPS Club, vols. 54 (1/2014)
through 59 (2/2015).
Hōsei daigaku kokusai nihongaku kenkyūjo 法政大学国際日本
学研究所 (ed.)
Kokusai nihongaku. Dai 12
gō. Kenkyū seika hōkokusho.『国際日本学』第１２号.研究成果報告書. 2015.
Nihon
noaidentiti to ajia. 2013 nen aruzasu
shinpojiumu hōkoku. (Kokusai
nihongaku kenkyū sōsho 21).
『日本のアイデンティティとアジア』
２ ０ １ ３ 年アル ザス・シンポジウ
ム報告(国際日本学研究叢書2 1 ) .
2015.
Juyō to teikō. Seiyō kagaku
no seimeikan to nihon. Kokusai
148

shinpojiumu hōkoku. (Kokusai nihongaku kenkyū sōsho 22) 『. 受容と抵抗 ・ 西洋科学の生命観と日本』
国際シンポジウム報告(国際日本学
研究叢書22). 2015.
Nihon ishiki’ no mirai. Gurobarize-shon to ‘nihon ishiki‘. 2014
nen aruzasu shinpojiumu hōkoku.
(Kokusai nihongaku kenkyū sōsho24).『<日本意識>の未来・グローバ
リゼーションと<日本 意 識 >』２ ０
１4年アルザス・シンポジウム報告(
国際日本学研究叢書24). 2015.
Japan Association of Translators: Translator Perspectives, eds.
2013 (September 2013) and 2014
(September 2014).
Japanisch-Deutsches Zentrum
Berlin: jdzb echo, vols. 106(March 2014) through 111 (June2015).
Japan Society for the Promotionof Science:
JSPS Quarterly,
vols. 47 (Spring 2014) through 52(Summer 2015).
Japan Society for the Promotionof Science: JSPS Rundschreiben:
aus Wissenschaft und ForschungJapan aktuell, vols. 88 (1/2014)
through 93 (2/2015).

EAJS Bulletin No. 85/86 | October 2015

The Association of Japanese
Language Teachers in Europe
e.V. (AJE): The Proceedings of the
18th Japanese Language Symposium in Europe. 28-30 August,2014. (Japanese Language Education in Europe 19). 2015.
The Japan Foundation: Ph.D.
Workshop in Japanese Studies,
East and Central Europe, Budapest, February 18-19 2013. Workshop Proceedings. 2014.
Toshiba International Foundation: Activities Report 2012/2013.
2014.

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