Timetable

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Time zone: Europe/Brussels

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Timetable

14.00–14.15 Opening remarks by the conference organizers 
(Angelika Koch, Andreas Niehaus, practical information: Anna Andreeva)

Panel I Panel chair: Andreas Niehaus (Ghent)

14.15–15.00 Daniel Trambaiolo (University of Hong Kong, in person)
Popularizing Medicine as Encyclopedic Knowledge: 
Hongō Masatoyo's Idō nichiyō kōmoku 医道日用綱目 (1709)

15.00–15.45 Yasui Manami (Nichibunken, Kyoto)
The Body and Yōjō in Visual Images in early modern Japan
近世日本のビジュアル・イメージにおける身体、そして養生

15.45–16.00 Short break

16.00–16.45 Angelika Koch (Leiden)
Sexuality, Health and the Ethical Male Body in Early Modern Health Cultivation and Beyond

16.45–17.30 Joshua Schlachet (Arizona)
Knowing What’s Good for You: Moralism, Reprimand, and the Trouble with Eating Right in Early Modern Japan

17.30–17.45 Short break

17.45–19.00 Keynote lecture and Q&A
The Shadow of Time in the Art of Cultivating Life
Shigehisa Kuriyama (RIJS, Harvard University)

Abstracts

Daniel TRAMBAIOLO (Hong Kong)

Popularizing Medicine as Encyclopedic Knowledge: 
Hongō Masatoyo's Idō nichiyō kōmoku 医道日用綱目 (1709)

The mechanisms by which older styles of medical thinking and intervention were maintained and disseminated in early modern Japan have hitherto received less attention than the conceptual and practical innovations taking place during the same period. In this paper, I argue that one such mechanism of continuity in medical culture was the compilation and reproduction of popular kana medical manuals such as Hongō Masatoyo's Idō nichiyō kōmoku 医道日用綱目 (1709), one of the most extensively reprinted medical treatises of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japan. The contents of this manual were wide-ranging, from the structures and organs of the body, pulse diagnosis, and disease categories, to basic herbs and formulas, massage, and acupuncture; it thus presented a comprehensive practical overview of medical knowledge in a form suitable for moderately sophisticated but non-expert audiences similar to those of typical yōjō treatises. The continuing circulation and reception of this manual more than 150 years after its initial publication presents a challenge to simple linear accounts of changing medical culture in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Japan, suggesting a need to explore more thoroughly how popular and elite understandings of the body and medicine may have diverged.

YASUI Manami 安井眞奈美 (Nichibunken, Kyoto)

 The Body and Yōjō in Visual Images in early modern Japan 

Kaibara Ekiken’s Yōjōkun ([Teachings on Nourishing Life], 1713) had certainly influenced the Japanese literati, but as a practical book, it also had impact on the broader audiences in early modern Japan. The “art of nourishing life” (yōjō) entails restricting the desires that damage the body (food and drink, sex, and sleep), which prevents damaging one’s health or genki (“original energy”) and thus ascertains longevity. There were likely those who devoted their lives to yōjō and aimed for “ethical bodies,” but suppressing desires was not generally a standard practice.

Popular with large audiences were the colorful woodblock prints and the literature geared towards adult readers that included images, such as the “yellow cover books” (kibyōshi). They advocated the yōjō practices and also included playful and satiric images of the body.

The anatomical depictions of the body from the New Book of Anatomy (Kaitai shinsho, 1774) spread among intellectual circles, but with the masses, Toriyama Sekien’s Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons (Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, 1776) gained popularity. Not only it depicted the human bodies, but also those of yōkai. Subsequently, the external evils that caused disease were identified with yōkai, and compositions were made with body parts fighting yōkai, or maladies fighting medicines. In this presentation, I want to display the popular imagination on this subject and the unique developments in depicting yōjō and the body at a time when the Edo-period woodblock printing flourished. (transl. by Elias Bouckaert) 

Angelika KOCH (Leiden)

Sexuality, Health and the Ethical Male Body in 
Early Modern Health Cultivation and Beyond

Sex and the erotic famously occupied a central place in early modern Japanese culture, capturing the imagination of writers, painters and print-makers; but it also drew the attention of physicians, quacks, healers and lay health-seekers. This talk examines sexuality as a health and disease concept for men in early modern Japan, exploring the variety of cultural associations it encompassed in the medical field. Normative notions of gender roles, masculinity and the household all played a part in constructing sexual pathologies and, conversely, a ‘healthy’ sexuality. Through a discussion of a range of widely circulating healthcultivation manuals and medical texts, but also lay diaries, fiction and advertisements for patent medicine, the work reveals the tensions and competing attitudes which surrounded sexuality, from the viewpoint of both the medical expert and the lay public.

Joshua SCHLACHET (Arizona)

Knowing What’s Good for You: 
Moralism, Reprimand, and the Trouble with Eating Right in Early Modern Japan

At first glance, the opening lines of Kaibara Ekiken’s iconic health treatise Yōjōkun (Precepts on Nourishing Life, 1713) may read like standard Neo-Confucian maxims. His focus on filial piety and heaven-granted longevity draw from a genealogy of thought so thick with precedent from across time and space in East Asia as to make it seem generic, expected. Yet his claims that your body is not yours alone, and that you are worthless without a well-nourished one, suggest a more specific conjunction between healthy bodies and the web of moralized relationships that constitute their social and historical contexts. According to yōjō guidance, surrendering to a desire for the delicious was tantamount to shirking one’s duty, inviting disease, and weakening not only the individual body but the household as well. My paper examines this tension between self-regulation and an expanded, socially and morally embedded conception of bodily care, which became the animating logic behind the dispensation and reception of dietary advice in early modern Japan.

By the early nineteenth century, most vernacular yōjō advice necessitated a constant counterbalance between knowledge internalized and expectations imposed. What one ought to eat for the purported purposes of health maintenance became equally bound-up in social and ethical imperatives on how a health body ought to behave. The market for yōjō-inspired dietetic manuals, however, emerged alongside intersecting genres of popular culinary publications that revelled in the glorification and celebration of luxury consumption. This dynamic necessitated near-constant reprimand to prevent lapses in moderation – the temperament most critical for right eating. In response, nourishing life guides urged consumers to know what was good for them, both in the sense of internalizing knowledge on proper dietary practices and in that of a warning to exercise caution in eating, lest their immoderate appetites invite decay upon their corporeal, social, and moral selves.

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Timetable

Panel II  Panel chair: Angelika Koch (Leiden)

10.00–10.45 Clarence I-Zhuen Lee (Nichibunken, Kyoto)
An Exposition of Yōjō in a Time of Crisis: Suzuki Akira’s Yōjō Yōron (1834)

10.45–11.30 Amanda Seaman (Amherst)
Internal Affairs: A Yōjō Conceit in Ogino Anna’s Kani to Kare to Watashi

11.30–11.45 Short break

11.45–12.30 Anna Andreeva (Ghent)
How to Have a Safe Pregnancy, by a Cautious Physician 

12.30–14.00 Lunch

Panel III PhD training session 
(20 min. paper + 10 min. Q&A), panel chair: Anna Andreeva

14.00–14.30 Elias Bouckaert (Ghent)
The Gozōron Texts in Edo Period Japan: A Different Kind of Ethical Body

14.30–15.00 Stephanie Van Rentergem (Ghent)
Nurturing Relationality: Yōjō in and as Interpersonal Bonds 

15.00–15.15 Short break

15.15–15.45 Jorinde Wels (KU Leuven)
“Wash your hands!” : Behavioral Change Campaigns to prevent Dysentery in Japan, 1868–1945

15.45–16.15 Masami Nakano-Hoffman (Frankfurt)
Exploring Representations of Sexuality in the ‘Common Urban Culture’ during the Edo Period: A Multi-faceted Analysis Across Various Genres

16.15–16.30 Short break

16.30–17.30 Remarks and general discussion

Abstracts

Clarence I-Zhuen LEE (Kyoto)

An exposition of yōjō in a time of Crisis: Suzuki Akira’s Yōjō Yōron (1834)

The Tenpō period (1830–1844) is often highlighted by historians as the beginning of the bakumatsu era. In addition to the growing presence of European colonizers in East- and Southeast Asia, the waning effectiveness of Tokugawa policies and the growing pressure placed on an antiquated social class system were beginning to be visible on an everyday level. The fourth year of Tenpō (1833), more specifically, marked the beginning of a horrific series of crop failures that resulted in famine and social upheaval. In this context, Suzuki Akira’s (1764–1837) Yōjō yōron 養生用論 (The main tenets of yōjō) provides us with a glimpse of the ways in which a kokugaku/confucian scholar attempted to address these social concerns via the method of yōjō. Written in 1834, when Akira was 71, the text is a collection of fifty-seven stanzas with a preface by his close disciple Niwa Bankan (1773–1841) that harked back at Kaibara Ekiken’s Yōjōkun. In my presentation, I will attempt the following: (1) a close reading of Yōjō yōron vis-à-vis Akira’s other writings on the topic of medicine; and (2) the contextualization of the text within the broader history of Sinitic medicine in the latter half of the Edo period, especially regarding Akira’s own expositions of his disagreements with the field of Sinitic medicine. In so doing, I hope to rethink how a Confucian/Kokugaku scholar such as Akira reworks the anthropocosmic ideology of working body as ethical social body using the concept/method of yōjō in a time of severe bodily disjuncture as a result of the growing crisis in society.

Amanda SEAMAN (Amherst)

Internal Affairs: A Yōjō Conceit in Ogino Anna’s Kani to Kare to Watashi

Utagawa Kunisada’s wood block print, Yōjo kagami, shows a seated, neatly coiffed, well-dressed man but his kimono is open, showing his insides. What stands out is that his internal organs are peopled with images of the familiar citizens of Edo, conducting the business that corresponds to what they do in their daily lives. This exteriorization of the internal body allows for understanding of the function of each organ. Yōjo or a balanced life was popular in the Edo, and Kunisada’s picture shows how each organ should work properly but it also shows how people should behave and not eat or drink excessively.

Author Ogino Anna (1957-), who is known for her love of parody and absurdism in her literature, gestures to this picture in the “Utage” [Banquet] chapter of her novel Kare to Kani to Watashi (2007) that she wrote about the death of her lover from cancer. Stunned by his diagnosis, Ogino seeks to understand his cancer, through metaphor and fantasy. In the “Utage” chapter, her lover is waiting in the hospital to have surgery to remove his cancerous esophagus. This will completely change how and what he is able to eat. She and her friend decide to throw him a farewell banquet for his esophagus complete with luxurious foods and wine. 

As she watches her lover and her friend enjoy the meal, she ponders the mystery of cancer and his possible death, she is allowed to see inside his body. Once inside, she is able to understand cancer and the extent of its spread. Rather than seeing people performing the normal functions of the organs, she witnesses cancer, anthropomorphized as crabs, talking and spreading. Ogino’s story shows both the drive for exteriorization is traceable to the Edo era pictures as well as the banquet that she and her friend throw for her lover once they realize that the after his surgery, he will no longer be able to eat.

In this paper I will explore how the banquet they eat before his surgery plays with the rules of proper nutrition and lifestyle. I will also consider the juxtaposition of exteriorizing the healthy body and the sick body, probing how one is for amusement while the other is for medical and scientific reasons.

Anna ANDREEVA (Ghent)

“How to have a safe pregnancy, by a cautious physician”: 
An annotated translation and study of an anonymous medical manuscript 
from Sonkeikaku Bunko

Sonkeikaku Bunko, established by the Kaga lord Maeda Toshinari in Tokyo, has preserved an anonymous medical manuscript, currently titled Ika 9 医家九 ([Written by a] Physician’s House, MS 9) in the archive’s catalogue. It appears to be a late Kamakura-period handbook written by a court physician and focusing on the formulas and prescriptions for pregnant and postpartum women, most likely, of elite noble descent. There is no particular title on its modern binding cover, nor inside it. Such absence suggests that this manuscript may have been a part of one of the middle volumes in a multi-volume medieval work on women’s health, possibly lost by now. If its compilation indeed dates to the late Kamakura period, it could correspond with an approximate date of compilation of another important medieval Buddho-medical treatise, the Encyclopedia of Childbirth (Sanshō ruijūshō 産生類聚抄, ca. 1318), currently preserved in two versions at esoteric temples Daigoji 醍醐寺 in Kyoto and Shōmyōji 称名寺 near Kamakura. 

What does the Sonkeikaku manuscript tell us about the ethical and practical concerns of medieval court physicians in medieval Japan? One of their main worries were dietetics, namely, the importance of ethically nourishing the developing fetus and strictly following the dietetic taboos during pregnancy. The contents of this work make it a thought-provoking addition to the volumes on pregnant women’s health included in the Japanese medical classic, the Ishinpō (984), and its less well known medieval successor, the Encyclopedia of Childbirth (1318).

Elias BOUCKAERT (Ghent)

The Gozōron Texts in Edo Period Japan: A Different Kind of Ethical Body

Besides yōjō texts, other types of literature pertaining to the care of the body circulated in Edo–period Japan. One example is the gozōron texts. Where yōjō is concerned with curbing the gluttony and desires that harm the body, the gozōron texts deal with the ontological predecessor to this discourse by asking the questions: “What is the human body composed of?How does it work?” They explain the internal structures of the body, particularly emphasising the make-up and topography of the so-called “five viscera and six entrails” 五臓六腑 (gozō roppu). In this presentation, I will identify the “ethical body” of gozōron texts using primary sources and explore how it relates to that of yōjō literature. The ethical dimension of yōjō finds its counterpart in the esoteric Buddhist views of the body contained within the gozōron texts. The visual charts and diagrams that are typically included in many of these texts indicate the connections to such esoteric Buddhist views. This ethical body can be characterised as that of a male enlightened ascetic. It lives on breath and the vibrations of sound alone. The chanting of esoteric Siddhaṃ syllables sustains the viscera of this body and activates the seeds of enlightenment inherent in it. In contrast to the fascination with digestion in yōjō literature and despite its focus on the internal organs, food intake and digestion are barely discussed in the gozōron discourse. The implication is clear: this ethical body does not eat.

Stephanie VAN RENTERGEM (Ghent)

Nurturing Relationality: Yōjō in and as Interpersonal Bonds 

Yōjō 養生, an ideology and practice of personal health care based on (Neo-)Confucianist and Daoist principles which was highly popular in the late Edo period, was not concerned simply with keeping the body healthy for its own sake. Rather, it emphasized the social and ethical dimensions of personal health care, presenting the cultivation and maintenance of a “fit” body as a moral duty to one’s parents as givers of that body and to society at large as the setting through and for which this accountable body moved. However, I would contend that the socioethical aspect of yōjō went considerably further than this one-way sense of dutifulness. Considering that feelings of connection with other human beings are vital to an individual's well-being and ability to function, being a source of such feelings for another is equivalent to enabling them to fully live their appointed roles. Therefore, the performance of yōjō, though always socially oriented, was not a solo but a reciprocal undertaking, which, properly carried out within each pair of connected individuals, made up the building blocks of Tokugawa society even more fundamentally than did the ie 家 system, in that this “yōjō network” extended even to those operating outside of that system, such as the women employed within the licensed quarters and, by extension, their clients. Through the lens of these quarters, this paper serves as an illustration of the yōjō network's functioning.

Jorinde WELS (KU Leuven)

“Wash your hands!” :
Behavioral Change Campaigns to prevent Dysentery in Japan, 1868­–1945

This paper focuses on the visualization of dysentery as a tool in prevention campaigns in This paper focuses on public health campaigns and roundtable discussions among experts focused on prevention of dysentery in Japan from the Meiji period (1868­–1912) until the end of the Second World War. In this period, dysentery had replaced cholera as an acute waterborne infectious disease that demanded the attention of public health experts in Japan. As part of the efforts to prevent dysentery, various public health campaigns were spread with the aim to change unhygienic or unhealthy behavior, often with help of visual elements. This paper will discuss two of such campaigns, respectively of the Meiji period (1868–1912) and the Second World War, in order to compare the visualization of the dysentery, its pathogens, and preventive measures, and to analyze continuities and discontinuities. Both campaigns use a medium that is typical of their time. The campaign of the Meiji period made use of magic lantern slides, which were a popular medium before film was common. The second source is a paper theater play (kami shibai), which was a common wartime medium as it was cheap, easy to spread, and could be performed by anyone. How were these media employed, by whom, and how did this impact the representation of disease? How were new medical theories and subsequent preventive methods, but also traditional Sino-Japanese medical elements, reflected in health campaigns and their preparation? Doctors, bureaucrats, army officials, and hygiene police officers sat together to discuss the dangers of unhealthy behavior and to create health campaigns to educate the public on how to change that behavior and to protect their bodies, and by extension society, from infectious disease.

Masami NAKANO-HOFMANN (Frankfurt)

Exploring Representations of Sexuality in the ‘Common Urban Culture’ 
during the Edo Period: A Multi-faceted Analysis Across Various Genres

The purpose of this presentation is to investigate the representations of sexuality during the Edo period in Japan, focusing on the “common urban culture” (chōmin bunka 町人文化) from various perspectives, such as “humorous book” (sharebon 洒落本), “trivial literature” (gesaku 戯作), “advisory guide” (chōhōki 重宝記), “erotic literature” (enpon 艶本) and “treatise on the path of love” (shikidōron 色道論). These representations are not viewed as a gender study, but rather are investigated from a historical and cultural aspect. This talk focuses on three key characteristics of sexuality during the Edo period: Firstly, the contradictory representations of sexuality. While rules of yōjō methods regarding sexuality were accepted in some contexts, indulging in sexuality following bodily desires seemingly disregarded these yōjō considerations in other contexts. Nevertheless, when viewed holistically, these contradictory elements interacted with one another. Secondly, publications played a role in representing sexuality. They employed humor, wit, and parody as mediums. Lastly, there existed a playful portrayal of the human body. It is conspicuous in the realm of pornography and probably has to be seen in connection with encountering Western medical knowledge. The reception of Western ideas contributed to a gradual trend of scientification and categorization within pornography, and it started at a much earlier time than Kawamura Kunimitsu argued.

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Programme

11:00  Greetings
Didier Davin

Part I Research Support at Kokubunken

11:05 Union Catalogue Database of Japanese Texts (UniCat)
Jeffrey Knott

11:15 International Conference on Japanese Literature (ICJL)
Didier Davin

11:25 Online Journal Studies on Japanese Literature and Culture
Didier Davin

Part II 国文研の新たな研究プロジェクト
Future Projects at Kokubunken

11:35 Model Building in the Humanities through Data-driven Problem Solving
Unno Keisuke

11:45 Material Science in Bibliographical Studies: The Case of Edo-period kusa-zōshi
Matsubara Noriko

12:00 TEI Markup of the Critical Apparatus for Premodern Japanese Texts
LEE Taekjin

12:15 Q&A

活躍する古典籍:国文研の公開ツールと教育への取り組み

11:00 開会挨拶
ダヴァン・ディディエ

Part I 国文研の研究サポート

11:05 国書データベースについて
ノット・ジェフリー

11:15 国際日本文学研究集会
ダヴァン・ディディエ

11:25 オンラインジャーナル:SJLC
ダヴァン・ディディエ

Part II 国文研の新たな研究プロジェクト

11:35 データ駆動による課題解決型人文学の創成
海野圭介

11:45 マテリアル分析を古典文学研究に活用する―江戸時代草双紙の場合
松原哲子

12:00 日本古典籍における校異情報のTEIマークアップ 15分
李澤珍

12:15 質疑応答

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This panel was devoted to the inauguration of exchange between the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS) and East Asian Consortium of Japanese Studies (EACJS). It focussed on how the cooperation between the two associations could be developed in the future.

Main speakers:
Prof. Park Cheol Hee, The First Convenor of EACJS, Chancellor Korea National Diplomatic Academy
Prof. Tsutomu Tomotsune, President of EACJS, Director International Center for Japanese Studies TUFS
Prof. Sonoda Shigeto, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia University of Tokyo
Hara Hideki, Managing Director, Japanese Studies Department, The Japan Foundation
Prof. Verena Blechinger-Talcott, President EAJS Executive Vice President FU Berlin

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 The Art of Herding Cats 

--tips for more memorable and engaging presentations-- 

How can you craft academic presentations that are more engaging and memorable? In this talk, I will offer some simple, practical suggestions that will immediately make your presentations more effective than most. But I will situate these suggestions within the frame of a key idea, namely, that the art of presentation is like the art of herding cats. 

Shigehisa Kuriyama has taught at Harvard University as Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History since 2005. Before Harvard, he served for eleven years on the faculty of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto. His research explores broad philosophical questions through the lens of comparative cultural history and the history of medicine. His best-known book is The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine (ZONE Books, 1999), which has been translated in Chinese, Greek, Spanish, and Korean. His recent work includes a co-edited volume, Fluid matter(s) (Australian National University Press, 2020), which makes creative use of digital media to leverage some of the unique possibilities of online publication. He also has a keen and longstanding interest in the theory and practice of live communication and has conducted workshops on the art of presentation at many universities around the world.

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Seats are limited! (first come, first served)

14:00 - Welcome and musical performance

Welcome note by Prof. dr. Gita Deneckere (Dean Faculty of Arts and Philosophy)
Welcome note by Minister Ogawa Hidetoshi (Japanese Embassy Brussel)
Introduction to Kimono Today exhibition by Marlies Holvoet and Andreas Niehaus

Musical performance:
Banshikichō no chōshi 盤渉調調子 – Fabio Rambelli's shō solo
Seigaiha 青海波 – Thomas Piercy on hichiriki, Lish Lindsey on ryūteki, and Fabio Rambelli

15:00 - Kimono Today Exhibition visit

Exhibition concept:
The kimono is seen today as a symbol of Japanese tradition as well as national and cultural identity. While the kimono is less visible in everyday life than in the 20th century, it still is a garment present in all aspects of daily life in Japan: worn at home, at work, at street festivals and at ceremonial occasions and at the moment we witness a revival in street fashion. This side of the kimono, however, is hardly shown in exhibitions, which often focus on the flamboyant, on the extravaganza of expensive and exclusive kimono worn for special occasions. By showing a selection of kimono from the Ruth Jäschke Private Collection, we will introduce you to kimono in all of its varieties and its relevance in contemporary Japan. Interviews with Japanese exchange students and a kimono master, as well as photos taken by students from Ghent during their stay in Kanazawa additionally provide a more intimate account of the lived kimono experience and add new layers of meaning. Come to the Vandenhove Pavilion to feel and experience the kimono.

With the support of:
VANDENHOVE Paviljoen, City of Ghent, Faculty of Arts & Philosophy Internationalisation@Home, KASK, KOMAKO, Filou & Friends, Royal Museums for Art and History, Brussels

Exhibition website: https://www.kimonotoday.ugent.be

Read more about the musicians:https://eajs.eu/eajs2023-artists/

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Click here for the musical programme of the opening ceremony

There were speeches by the following dignitaries:

President EAJS: Prof. Dr. Verena Talcott-blechinger
Rector Ghent University: Prof. Dr. Rik Van Den Walle
Mayor Of Ghent: Mathias De Clercq 
Japanese Embassy: H.E. Mikami Masahiro
Japan Foundation: Vice President Dr. Sato Yuri
Toshiba International Foundation: President Omori Keisuke
Local Organizer: Prof. Dr. Andreas Niehaus

Opening keynote: Asianization of Asian Studies and its impact on Japanese Studies

Prof. Shigeto Sonoda, University of Tokyo

Since the end of the Cold War, a new concept of “Global Asia” has emerged, triggered by growing attention to the path(s) of globalization. The gravity of Asia and its growing political and economic influence on the global landscape has coincided with increasing awareness of social connectivity; connections between development, the environment and health; and concern for inequality within Asia and beyond. Simultaneously, the limited “ownership” of these issues by researchers residing in Asia has prompted calls for the “Asianization of Asian studies”.

Conventionally, Japanese scholars have separated Japan from other part of Asia and regarded Asian studies as “area study” to study “them” rather than “us.” The speaker estimates, however, that Asianization of Asian studies has had huge and extensive impacts on Japanese studies in Asia as well as Asian studies in Japan. The boundaries of Japanese studies and (other) Asian studies have become blur, and the frame of “Japan in Asia” is gaining ground among scholars in Asia.

In this talk, the speaker will introduce some observations of changing characteristics of Japanese studies in Asia (mainly in China) and new developments of Global Japan Studies as one area of Global Asian Studies in Japan to explore the possibilities of further collaboration between Asian scholars and European scholars in Japanese studies.

Shigeto Sonoda

Shigeto Sonoda is Professor of comparative sociology and Asian studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia (IASA), the University of Tokyo. He has been serving as director of Beijing Center for Japanese Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University in China as well as program advisor of Collaborative Research Workshop for Young Aspiring Scholars in Japanese Studies hosted by the Japan Foundation since 2018. His major publications include Asiabound of Japanese Company (Yuhikaku, 2001) and National Sentiments in Asia (Chuo Koron, 2020) as well as edited books including China Impact (with David S. G. Goodman, University of Tokyo Press, 2018) and Global Views of China (with Yu Xie, University of Tokyo Press, 2021).

Website: http://shigetosonoda.net/

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The opening reception will take place in the historical building “Aula Academica” (built in 1826), which marks the location of Ghent University’s first campus opened in 1817.

The opening reception follows the official academic opening of the conference, which starts at 16:00. During the reception we will serve drinks and finger food. 

- Panel session 1
- Refreshments
Ground floor, cafeteria (Blandijnberg 2, Ghent University)
- Panel session 2
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Gagaku concert

During the lunch break, head over to to the Japanese garden to enjoy some Gagaku music by Thomas Piercy on hichiriki, Lish Lindsey on ryūteki and Fabio Rambelli on shō.

Read more about the musical program.

Thomas Piercy, already a prominent figure in the contemporary classical world as a clarinet soloist, decided during a visit to Japan in 2012 to start the study of the hichiriki with world-renowned hichiriki player Hitomi Nakamura. In addition to his own compositions for hichiriki, composers whose hichiriki works have been composed for and premiered by Thomas Piercy include Gōya Masatora, Hirayama Tomo, Matsumoto Yūichi, Misawa Yukari, Morita Yasunoshin, Ōhata Daisuke, Chatori Shimizu, Alyssa Aska, Kanokpak Changwitchukarn, Yihan Chen, Melissa Grey, Zhihua Hu, Bin Li, David Loeb, Piyawat Louilarpprasert, Sandro Montalto, Luigi Morleo, and Edward Schocker.

Alicia “Lish” Lindsey (she/her) is the Gagaku Ensemble Director at Columbia University (NYC). She began studying Gagaku with Columbia University professors Sasaki Louise, Sasaki Noriyuki, and Fukui Yōichi and furthered her studies in Japan with Sasamoto Takeshi, Yagi Chiaki, Ōkubo Yasuo, and Echigo Minami. In addition to Columbia University, Lish teaches applied flute, directs/conducts flute choirs, and is an adjunct music lecturer at CUNY Brooklyn College (NYC), New Jersey City University, Wilkes University (PA), and Summer Music in Tuscany (Italy).

Fabio Rambelli is professor of Japanese religions at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is also the director of the UCSB Gagaku Project. He is the author of several articles on Gagaku, and is currently working on a book on the cultural history of this genre of music; he has also written and adapted music for shō and for Gagaku woodwind trio. Rambelli plays the shō; he has studied with Bunno Hideaki, former director of the Gagaku orchestra at the Tokyo Imperial Palace, and with Naoyuki Manabe. The most recent CD of his duo Neo Archē, Pearls, came out in April 2023 (Edgetone Records).

Supported by Shinto Studies – University of California, Santa Barbara; Robert N. H. Ho Family Foundation Global (Buddhist Cultural Heritage Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara)

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This panel featured a lecture by Prof. Tsutomu Tomotsune, acting head of EACJS Director International Center for Japanese Studies TUFS: "Hanga and Manga: Aesthetic Cultural Movement in Post War Japan.”
Moderator: past president of EAJS Andrej Bekeš, (Professor Emeritus, University of Ljubljana).

- Lunch
Ground floor, cafeteria (Blandijnberg 2, Ghent University)
- Panel session 3
- Refreshments
Ground floor, cafeteria (Blandijnberg 2, Ghent University)
- Panel session 4
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Wear a light: The Future with Juvenile Parkinson's Disease

Dir. Shun Coney

Etsuko Yoshida was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in her 20s. Parkinson's disease is an intractable disease that affects about 200,000 people in Japan, and it is said that there are tens of thousands of people with juvenile Parkinson's disease in their 20s to 40s. At the onset of the disease, Etsuko-san suffered from a lack of diagnosis, and doctors suspected that she was faking her symptoms. It was her husband, Tomoaki Yoshida, who accepted Etsuko and proposed to her. Based on his idea that no human being is perfect, he viewed the incurable disease as a kind of trait and decided to spend the rest of his life with Etsuko. Although Tomoaki 's family stubbornly opposed the marriage, calling it reckless, they did not give up and continued to persuade his family to agree to the marriage. Based on the support of the devoted Tomoaki, Etsuko has been making various efforts in their married life. Etsuko had a dream of having a wedding ceremony with her husband in kimono, but it was difficult for her crippled body to wear heavy kimono, and she gave up on her dream. Then, she found a company called Asusakura, which provides a service that improves kimonos for the handicapped and makes it easy for anyone to wear kimonos. Through Asusakura unique technology and service, Etsuko and her husband were able to fulfill their dream of wearing kimono as a couple.

Finding their niche: Unheard stories of migrant women

Dir. Megha Wadhwa

"This film documents the life of two Indian women migrants who moved to Japan more than a decade ago as trailing spouses. 

Jyoti, 41 and Mandeep, 39, grew up in the state of Punjab, northern India, in middle-class households. They received a good education and had promising careers in India. Then, in their early 20s, they each agreed to marry men living in Japan by arrangement. 


The women were excited to move to a foreign country and to be with their husbands but they had no prior knowledge of Japan. Having witnessed at a distance the lives of their relatives settled in the US, UK and Canada, they had similar expectations for their own future lives in Japan. But the reality was to prove different from the expectation. 

In place of comfort, luxury, love, and fun, loneliness and fear took over. Through personal narratives told by the women, we examine past, present and future expectations and see how these affect their roles as Indian women, wives, mothers and workers in a foreign country, as well as the challenges they faced in ‘Finding their Niche’."

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Japan Anthropology Workshop (JAWS)
Media Studies
Intellectual History and Philosophy
Economics, Business and Political Economy

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There was an option for a group visit to the Gregg Baker Asian Art Gallery in Brussels. The gallery specializes in Japanese art, and had a small special exhibition of postwar Japanese art on display.  

- EAJS-TIFO Alumni Reception
Eetkaffee Multatutli, Huidevetterskaai 40, 9000 Ghent
- Panel session 5
- Refreshments
Ground floor, cafeteria (Blandijnberg 2, Ghent University)
- Panel session 6
- Lunch
Ground floor, cafeteria (Blandijnberg 2, Ghent University)
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This panel brought together representatives of key peer reviewed journals in the field of Japanese Studies with interested EAJS members. The session provided information about the journals, the peer review process and related questions of publishing. The session also served as an easy-access opportunity for potential authors to get to know the journals and ask questions about the publishing process.

The following journals were represented (in alphabetical order): Contemporary Japan (represented by Isaac Gagné), European Journal of East Asian Studies (Pietro Masina), Japan Forum (Hannah Osborne), Japan Review (Ted Boyle), Journal of Japanese Studies (Morgan Pitelka), Monumenta Nipponica (Angela Yiu), and Social Science Japan Journal (Meredith Shaw). The panel will be chaired by Urs Matthias Zachmann.

All EAJS members were cordially invited to attend, but particularly so also early career scholars and PhD candidates considering to publish their articles in peer-reviewed journals.

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For BAJS members only.

- Panel session 7
- Refreshments
Ground floor, cafeteria (Blandijnberg 2, Ghent University)
- Panel session 8
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37 Stories about Leaving Home

Dir. Shelly Silver

In this award winning documentary, Shelly Silver presents an intimate portrait of a group of Japanese women ranging in age from 15 to 82, talking about their lives, families and society. In these stories one can begin to see, from very personal and individual perspectives, the societal changes that have occurred over the last three generations for women in Japan, bringing an exciting and often conflicting array of choices and positions. Many of the stories revolve around the relationships these grandmothers, mothers and daughters have with each other, filled with respect, rebellion, loss and love.

Mixing childhood memories, frank statements, epic events and quotidian details; the film bears witness to the strength of these women and the difficulty of their choices, as they navigate between personal needs and familial and societal pressures. 

The interviews are framed by a traditional Japanese folktale; a magical and somewhat shocking narrative of a mother's search for her abducted daughter, kidnapped by a monster on the eve of her wedding.

Rice field instead of Tokyo: The life of young women in the Japanese countryside

Dir. Sonja Blaschke

Tamami Shigitani never thought she would become a farmer in a remote mountain village. The 38-year-old lived in Tokyo, a city of 38 million people, and was stuck in Tokyo's white-collar corset. She was not happy.

Nine years ago, chance led her to the rice chamber of Japan in Niigata prefecture. There she met people who do not consume, but produce, and who organize their own day. In wellies and work gloves, Tamami fell in love with nature, the smiles of the elderly in the village - and a young man. Soon afterwards, the people of Ishidani got to celebrate the first wedding in over forty years. And only a few years later, got to hear the laughter of young children in the village for the first time in decades.

Fascinated by the knowledge of the mostly elderly residents, Tamami has been absorbing everything like a sponge. She enjoys learning all about rice cultivation and the wild vegetable plants on the mountain slopes. Time is precious: Almost everyone in the village is well over seventy years old.

Recently, there has been another newcomer to the village: Kanako Miwa, who continues to work remotely for a consulting firm in Tokyo, and her husband Yoshikazu, who participates in a government program to support rural areas. The couple in their early forties have just survived their first winter in Japan's ""snow country“ and are embracing the lessons of nature and the village's elderly.

A film from Japan about the courage of young women to turn their lives around - and roll their sleeves up -, and the consequences for an entire village.

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An evening to celebrate the 50th birthday of the European Association for Japanese Studies!

The party was held in the historical location of the Old Fishmarket, in front of Gravensteen Castle. The night started with a reception of drinks and finger food, and following the welcome address, DJ'd music and dancing.

- Panel session 9
- Refreshments
Ground floor, cafeteria (Blandijnberg 2, Ghent University)
- Panel session 10
- Lunch
Ground floor, cafeteria (Blandijnberg 2, Ghent University)
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Edited by Hannah Gould and Gwyn McClelland

A uniquely powerful marker of ethnic, gender, and class identities, scent can also overwhelm previously constructed boundaries and transform social-sensory realities within contexts of environmental degradation, pathogen outbreaks, and racial politics. This innovative multidisciplinary volume critically examines olfaction in Asian societies with the goal of unlocking its full potential as an analytical frame and lived phenomenon.
- Panel session 11
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The Squid and the Pine

Dir. John Williams

The tiny village of Kitaushima on Sado Island has only thirty inhabitants and is threatened by all the pressures affecting rural Japan. Despite these problems the people who live in the village are mostly happy, extremely generous, very hard-working and they lead a life that looks like a sustainable model for the rest of the world, with a sense of collective stewardship of the commons (the sea, the forest, the rivers) and a respect for the non-human world. Over the course of eight years we filmed the people in the village and tried to capture the rhythms of their lives and work and their thoughts about the changes in the village. I hope that the film reveals the beauty of this place and some of the knowledge embodied there in people's lives that could provide food for thought for the future of human society.
- Refreshments
Ground floor, cafeteria (Blandijnberg 2, Ghent University)
- EAJS General meeting (hybrid event)
Auditorium 3 Suzanne Lilar, main conference venue (Blandijnberg 2, Ghent University)
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Read a more detailed breakdown of the workshop.

Workshop description

The formation of medieval Japanese culture had been profoundly affected by religion, predominantly Buddhism. This phenomenon led not only to the emergence of particular forms of medieval state rulership, but also gave structure and formative dimensions to the popular religiosity, thus creating a foundation of medieval Japan’s worldview. The major factors and leading roles in these formative processes were not limited only to the Buddhist temple structures and religious founders or high-ranking clerics. Rather, the diverse religious subjects and forces had permeated and positively affected all strata of Japan’s society, creating incessantly new religious spaces and sacred objects, such as icons and symbols, which could be located at the very center of those spaces. The presentations in this workshop will introduce several thought-provoking examples of such religious spaces and sacred objects, discovered as a result of latest investigations and interpretive approaches within the field of researching Japanese religious texts and manuscripts, and will clarify the respective historical and cultural contexts of their production. A particular emphasis will be placed on the theories of embodiment, including the notions of power, icon, media, and gender, with the purpose of uncovering their mutual dynamic relationships.

10.00–10.15 Arrival of the participants, room 6.60, sixth floor, Blandijnberg 2

10.15–10.30 Welcome and introductory remarks by the local workshop organizer 
(Anna Andreeva, Ghent University)

10.30–12.00 Part 1: “The religious context for the production of the Shōtoku Taishi sculpture (Namu Butsu Taishi, ca. 1292) preserved at Arthur M. Sackler Museum (Harvard Art Museums).” 
Abe Yasurō 阿部泰郎 (Ryūkoku /Nagoya University emer.), 
Abe Mika 阿部美香 (Shōwa Women’s University, in Japanese).

12.00–14.00 Lunch break

14.00–15.30 Part 2: “Religious Space, Soteriology, and Gender”
a) “On religious spaces created by an imperial consort in medieval Japan”
Abe Mika 阿部美香 (Shōwa Women’s University, in Japanese)
b) “On diverse historical perceptions of Chiyono monogatari in premodern Japan”
Yoneda Mariko 米田真理子 (Tottori University, in Japanese)
c) “The narrative space, salvation, and gender in the Long Tale on an Autumn Night (Aki no yo no nagamonogatari 秋の夜の長物語)”
Eguchi Keiko 江口啓子 (Toyota College, in Japanese)
Suematsu Misaki 末松美咲 (Nagoya Gakuin Daigaku, in Japanese) 
Or Porath (Leiden University) 
Panel chair: Anna Andreeva (Ghent University)

15.30–16.00 Comments and discussion
Itō Satoshi 伊藤聡 (Ibaraki University)