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JRC news Newsletter of the Japan Research Centre October 2004 Centre Members Dr. Stephen Dodd Dr Dolores Martinez Lecturer in Japanese Lecturer in Anthropology Dr Timon Screech, Centre Chair Department of the Languages and Department of Anthropology and Reader in the History of Japanese Art Cultures of Japan and Korea Sociology [email protected] Department of Art and Archaeology [email protected] [email protected] Dr Lucia Dolce Dr Barbara Pizziconi Professor Timothy Barrett Lecturer in Japanese Religions Lecturer in Applied Japanese Professor of East Asian History Department of the Study of Religions Linguistics Department of the Study of Religions [email protected] Department of the Languages and [email protected] Cultures of Japan and Korea Professor Andrew Gerstle [email protected] Professor Brian Bocking Professor of Japanese Studies Department of the Languages and Professor of the Study of Religions Cultures of Japan and Korea Ms Sonja Ruehl Department of the Study of Religions Chair, AHRB Centre for [email protected] Deputy Director Asian and African Literatures Centre for Financial and Management [email protected] Studies (CeFiMS) Dr John Breen and Department of Economics Senior Lecturer in Japanese Dr David W. Hughes [email protected] Department of the Languages and Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology Cultures of Japan and Korea Department of Music [email protected] Dr Isolde Standish [email protected] Lecturer in Japanese Department of the Languages and Dr John Carpenter Dr Costas Lapavitsas Donald Keene lectureship in Japanese Cultures of Japan and Korea Senior Lecturer in Economics [email protected] Art Department of Economics Department of Art and Archaeology [email protected] [email protected] Professorial Research Associates Dr Angus Lockyer Mr Alan Cummings Lecturer in the History of Japan Professor Gina Barnes Lecturer in Japanese Literature Department of History Department of the Languages and [email protected] Cultures of Japan and Korea Research Associates [email protected] Dr Penelope Francks Dr Helen Macnaughtan Dr Christopher Jones Handa Fellow in Japanese Business and Dr P. Ellis Tinios Dr Philip Deans Management Lecturer in Chinese Politics Centre for Financial and Management Dr Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere Department of Political Studies Studies (CeFiMS) Dr Nicole Liscutin [email protected] [email protected] JRC News• October 2004 Japan Research Centre Seminars Wednesdays, 5pm 12, 15 and 18 November Room G51, SOAS Toshiba Lectures in Japanese Art (Organized by the Sainsbury Institute for Except where otherwise stated the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. Thursday 7 October, Room G3 See below for details) Jointly with CSJR Katja Triplett, SOAS 24 November Human Sacrifice in Japanese Legends Jointly with Taiwan Studies Programme Dr Phil Deans, SOAS 13 October Nationalism on Taiwan and the Dr Angus Lockyer, SOAS Issue of Japan Revolutionary State, Restorative Spectacle: Exhibitions and Early Meiji Japan 1 December Dr Mikiko Ashikari, Cambridge 20 October The Memory of the Women's White Faces: Japaneseness and the Ideal Image of Dr David Williams, Cardiff University Women Will give a talk on his book Defending Japan's Pacific War: The Kyoto School 8 December Philosophers and Post-White Power Dr Chris Aldous, University College Winchester 27 October Typhus in Occupied Japan, 1945-6: JRC PARTY An Epidemiological Study 10 November Sir Hugh Cortazzi (former British Ambassador to Japan) Britain and Japan: Did the Diplomats Make any Difference? 3 JRC Newsletter • October 2004 Inaugural Annual JRC Lecture Chelsea were on hand to offer commentary, and the 18 February 2003 proceedings were overseen by John Breen and Nicola Liscutin. The event was a great success; it generated a lively exchange of ideas, and enabled PhD students from different institutions working on different, and sometimes not so different, themes, to establish what hopefully will be enduring contacts with each other and with SOAS. It is intended to make this an annual event. The event was sponsored by the Japan Foundation, the JRC and Birkbeck. John Breen Department of the Languages and Cultures of Japan and Korea Meiji Jingu and the JRC Back row left to right: Professor Rikki Kersten of Leiden University Dr Tim Screech, Prof Drew inaugurated the JRC’s new annual lecture series with Gerstle, Dr John Breen, a fascinating talk on ‘Revisionism and historical Rev Majima Youshihide consciousness in post-war Japan’. The audience in Front row left to right: the Brunei gallery, which numbered some 80, Ms Imaizumi Youshiko, comprised representatives of the major Japan study Dr Lucia Dolce, centres in the UK. Professor Kersten explored Mrs Toyama Mariko, revisionism in post war Japan through a fascinating Rev Nakajima Seitaso is analysis of the thought of the post-war Marxist behind the camera thinker, Umemoto Katsumi. She made enlightening On 17th July the Japan Research Centre played host comparisons with the 19th century German Marxist to a delegation from the Meiji jingu in Tokyo. The Eduard Bernstein to argue that revisionism is a trans- delegation comprised the Deputy Chief Priest, Rev national concept, a response to the crisis of Nakajima Seitaro, the Chair of the Meiji jingu research modernity that seeks to return the subject to centre, Rev. Majima Yoshihide, and Toyama Mariko, theoretical renderings of history and so restore wife of Chief Priest of the shrine, Rev. Toyama meaning to history. The 2005 Annual JCR Lecturre wil Katsushi. On behalf of the Chief Priest, Rev Nakajima be delivered by Professor James Ketelaar of the presented to the SOAS library a magnificent collection University of Chicago, in Term Two. of books, which included the 20-volume Meiji jingu sôsho and 10 volumes of catalogues from recent Research Student Forum: exhibitions at the shrine. Japanese Humanities The visit was organised by Imaizumi Yoshiko, a researcher at Meiji jingu currently in the 2nd year of 20 – 21 May 2004 her PhD at SOAS, and reciprocated a visit to the The JRC co-hosted a two-day research student forum shrine earlier in the year by John Breen. Members of with the Japanese Cultural Studies Programme of the JRC and the delegation discussed the possibility Birkbeck College in May. Nine students from of future collaboration including the involvement of Cambridge, Oxford Brookes, Leeds, Chelsea College JRC members in Meiji jingu research projects, and of Art and Design and SOAS spoke at the event. The financial support from the shrine for JRC members’ topics they covered were wide-ranging in the extreme: research activities. literature of the 17th, 18th and 20th centuries; John Breen history from the 16th and 20th centuries, 19th Department of the Languages century art, 21st century society and music and and Cultures of Japan and Korea modernism. Academics from SOAS, Birkbeck and 4 JRC News• October 2004 Visit by Professor Carol Gluck The keynote speech ‘The Tokugawa Shoguns and Onmyôdô’ was delivered by Hayashi Makoto, from the SOAS was fortunate to have a visit from Professor Aichi Gakuin University, who is one of the few Carol Gluck of Columbia University, who gave a public Japanese scholars specializing in the study of lecture on ‘Past Obsessions: War and Memory in the Onmyôdô in the Edo period. He pointed out the Twentieth Century’ on 12 March 2004 to an importance of astronomy in calendar making, and enthusiastic crowd at the Brunei Lecture Theatre. The lecture was from her forthcoming book of the same gave an informative overview of the way the Bakufu title. Professor Gluck’s topic was comparative and government employed onmyôji (Yin-yang practitioners) argued that there were various paradigms common in to deal with natural phenomena such as solar and the experiences of Japan, Germany and other nations lunar eclipse, and unusual movement of stars. He in how they deal with and remember war both at a observed a shift in scholarship from the past studies popular and at an official level. in Onmyodo within the aristocratic society of the Heian period to the more recent studies focused on Professor Gluck also attended and gave a the political dimension of the relationship between presentation at the AHRB Centre for Asian and the government and Onmyôdô in the Kamakura, African Literatures Muromachi, and Edo periods. PhD Student Colloquium on 13 The rest of the symposium was divided into three March. Her talk was sessions: The first session in the afternoon of the on ‘After the 16th was Worship of Stars Through History, with Mark Shipwreck: New Teeuwen from Oslo University presenting an intriguing Horizons for History- paper entitled ‘Classical and Early Medieval Ise: A writing’, and Star Cult?’ and John Breen (SOAS) examining the challenged the PhD place of calendar-determined stellar-oriented religious students to be bold in practice in Tokugawa Japan in his presentation ‘Inside their attempts to find Tokugawa Religion: Stars, Planets and the Calendar new ways of approaching their subjects. Professor as Method’. The second session in the morning of Gluck then, commented on all the student papers the 17th, Personification of Stars focused on the during a full-day of presentations. Her engagement development of iconography. Lilla Russell-Smith’s with each of the student papers was inspiring for all paper ‘Stars and Planets in Chinese and Central who attended. The JRC and the AHRB Centre for Asian Buddhist Art in the Ninth to Fifteenth Centuries’ Asian and African Literatures wish to thank her for traced the sources of images, while Tsuda Tetsuei her inspiration and enthusiasm. (National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo) presented a beautifully illustrated, detailed The CSJR Symposium 16 -17 September 2004 The Worship of Stars in Japanese Religious Practice The CSJR (Centre for the Study of Japanese Religions) Symposium in 2004 The Worship of Stars in Japanese Religious Practice took place at SOAS on 16 and 17 September.
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