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オックスフォード日本研究

ISSUE 5 | 2013

Japanese Studies

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オックスフォード日本学ニュースレター

Japan is back’ – or at least, that’s whatPM Abe claimed while he was in Washingtonearlier this year. Certainly, Abe Shinzo isback as prime minister, and ‘Abenomics’ hassucceeded for the time being in creatinga sense of optimism about the future ofJapan and its political economy.However, the LDP was not as popular amongvoters in December 2012 as its electoralvictory seemed to suggest, and the PM hasso far proceeded with caution. Still, if, asseems likely, the LDP really does well in theforthcoming House of Councillors elections,PM Abe will have a stable majority in bothhouses and not need to face a nationalelection for three years. Will he be ableto provide the leadership he promises?And, in which direction will he take Japan?Japan’s first formal links with the UK wereestablished in the summer of 1613, whenthe captain of the Clove brought letters andpresents from King James I to the court ofthe Shogun. In return, he received a suit ofarmour, paintings, and a shuinjo (‘vermilionseal letter’) from Tokugawa Ieyasu that gavepermission to the British East India Companyto reside and trade in Japan. This shuinjois held in the Bodleian Library, and we willhost a workshop on 2 October to discussthe significance of this exchange as partof the UK Japan 400, which celebratesthe four-century relationship betweenour two countries.Japan never went away from Oxford.Student numbers at undergraduate, masters,and doctoral level remain strong. As is clearfrom the reports you will read in the restof this newsletter, we contemplate bothpast and future with enthusiasm.Ian Neary

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Faculty teaching about Japan and doingresearch on Japan at the University of OxfordInge Daniels (BA Leuven, MA Nara, PhD UCL)University Lecturer in Social AnthropologyLinda Flores (MA Washington, PhD UCLA)University Lecturer in Japanese (Modern Japanese literature)Bjarke Frellesvig (MA, PhD Copenhagen)Professor of Japanese LinguisticsRoger Goodman (BA Durham, DPhil Oxford)Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese StudiesPhilip GroverAssistant Curator, Photograph and Manuscript Collections,Pitt Rivers MuseumJennifer L Guest (BA Yale, MA, MPhil, PhD Columbia)University Lecturer in Japanese (Classical Japanese literature)Junko Hagiwara (MA, Ealing College of Higher Education)Senior Instructor in JapaneseEkaterina Hertog (MA Moscow, MSc, DPhil Oxford)Career Development Fellow in the Sociology of JapanStephen Wright Horn (MA Osaka, PhD Ohio State University)Postdoctoral Researcher in Japanese LinguisticsHiroe Kaji (MA Ulster, MA Brookes University)Instructor in Japanese LanguageTakehiko Kariya (BA MA Tokyo, PhD Northwestern)Professor in the Sociology of JapanSho Konishi (PhD Chicago)University Lecturer in Modern Japanese HistoryJames Lewis (MA, PhD Hawaii)University Lecturer in Korean History (Japanese diplomatic and economichistory of the pre-modern period, Japanese-Korean relations)HiroakiMatsuura (BA Keio,MAChicago,MScNorthwestern, ScDHarvard)University Lecturer in the Economy of JapanIan Neary (BA Sheffield, DPhil Sussex)Professor in the Politics of JapanPaul Newman (MEng Oxford, PhD Sydney)BP Professor of Information EngineeringKaori Nishizawa (BA Tsukuba)Instructor in Japanese LanguageClare Pollard (MA Cambridge, DPhil Oxford)Assistant Keeper at the Ashmolean Museum (Japanese ceramics)Kerri L Russell (MA, PhD Hawaii)Postdoctoral Researcher in Japanese LinguisticsMari Sako (MSc, PhD London)Professor in Management Studies(Saïd Business School; Japanese management and labour)Tuukka Toivonen (MSc, DPhil Oxford)Junior Research Fellow (Management) at Green Templeton CollegeIzumi Tytler (MA London)Bodleian Japanese Librarian (Bodleian Japanese Library)M Antoni J Üçerler (DPhil Oxford)Research Scholar (Campion Hall; Japanese-Western contactsin the 16th and 17th centuries)Pamela Wace (MSc Reading, DPhil Oxford)Research Associate (The Pitt Rivers Museum; Japanese Archaeology)

Welcome to the latest issue of the Oxford University Japanese Studies Newsletter

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Student ResearchAll degrees in Japanese at Oxford,including the BA, entail the writingof a substantial piece of research,from the undergraduate 15,000word dissertation to the doctoraldissertation. Here we present someexamples of the research done byour students.

Mikael E J Bourqui(DPhil in Sociology, St Antony’s College)Mikael is doing research on social change incontemporary Tokyo, with a special focus on thechanging social makeup of different areas withinthe larger Tokyo region. His thesis engages withthe many hypotheses that are being put forwardabout the impact of financial globalisation,technological change, and other economicfactors on the social composition of major cities,without neglecting to consider the ways inwhich Tokyo’s future is constrained or influencedby its past and by institutional structuresspecific to Japan, to the extent that suchspecificity survives today. The project involvestesting broad hypotheses using innovativestatistical methods and verifying those resultson the ground through fieldwork. In thatconnection, Mikael is spending the 2013-14academic year at the Institute of Social Science,University of Tokyo, on a fellowship from theJapan Foundation.

James Kane(BA in Oriental Studies (Japanese),The Queen's College)James's dissertation investigates the role ofthe House of Peers, the upper chamber of theprewar Japanese legislature, during Japan'speriod of 'party government' in the 1920s.Concentrating on an attempted reform to theHouse in 1924-25, he seeks to synthesisecontemporary sources, later Japanese studies,and a modern analytical framework tounderstand the reform and its failure asthe product of an extremely strong formof bicameralism and in the context of thegrowing influence of lower house politicalparties in the second chamber.

Anna Schrade(DPhil in Modern History, Pembroke College)Anna’s research is on something few peopleknow actually existed: Japanese anti-pollutionmovements (‘kogai undo’ ) between 1945and 1970. Anna tries to show that Japan’senvironmental movements had already startedin the late 1940s, and that local networks, inan effort to help themselves, often took onfunctions usually ascribed to the state. Themain focus of Anna’s research is on what sheterms the ‘conservative revolt’ in Kitakyushu,where local women’s organisations conductedlarge-scale pollution research and successfullypetitioned local government and industrybetween 1949 and 1967. In a broadersense, Anna’s dissertation focuses on Japanesesocial movements, civil society, democraticparticipation, environmental consciousness,and local politics between 1945 and 1970.(Anna will finish her research at KobeUniversity, where she was offered a positionas Lecturer starting in October 2013)

Reece Scott(MSc in Modern Japanese Studies,St Antony’s College)Reece’s dissertation seeks to contribute tostudies of current Japanese foreign policyby examining the role of universal values inthe foreign policy rhetoric of the first andsecond premierships of Shinzo Abe. It willplace particular emphasis on how Japanesecooperation with ‘like-minded democracies’such as Australia and India, as well as withorganisations such as ASEAN and NATO,stems from a diplomatic philosophy thathas come to be known as ‘values diplomacy’.

Sakumi Shimizu(MSc in Modern Japanese Studies,St Antony’s College)Sakumi’s dissertation explores Japaneseemployees’ attitudes towards cause-relatedmarketing. In examining cause-relatedmarketing as part of the CSR project, which isviewed as a potent marketing tool to increaserevenues and strengthen communicationbetween companies, non-profit organisations,and customers, she examines how Japaneseemployees’ involvement in the cause-relatedmarketing project have increasedcommunication within organisations.

As part of her research, Sakumi conductedsurveys and interviews with employees ofone of the leading socially responsible firms inJapan, and its overseas branches. She foundthat not only do employee perceptions ofethical projects differ in response to differentmarket environments; they also changedepending on an employee’s position withinthe organisation. She is now analysing howdifferent attitudes towards cause-relatedmarketing influence the effectiveness ofthe practice in enhancing communicationbetween employees.

Agnieszka Zbieranska(BA in Oriental Studies (Japanese),Hertford College)Agnieszka’s dissertation examines the workof three contemporary Japanese writers –Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, andMurakami Ryu – from a new perspective. Byengaging both English and Japanese discourseson trauma and healing, she explores thesources of trauma, methods of healing, andaccompanying psychological states that appearin works by these authors from the 1980sonwards. Living in the shadow of war, death,and abandonment, the protagonists of theseworks are subjected to the contingenciesof loneliness, exile, and displacement; theirexperiences are described in terms whichclosely replicate Freud’s theories of trauma. Inher dissertation, Agnieszka also demonstratesthat analysing Murakami Haruki’s, YoshimotoBanana’s, and Murakami Ryu’s novels, essays,and interviews in consideration of what thepsychiatrist Saito Tamaki called the ‘traumaand healing boom’ reveals a continuous andconscious dialogue taking place between theseauthors and their readership; a dialogue whichenables both the authors and their readersto work with, work through, and overcometheir traumas.

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New BooksMari Sako(with Masahiro Kotosaka)“Continuity and Changein the Japanese Economy:Evidence of InstitutionalInteractions in Financial and

Labour Markets”. In Walter, Andrew andXiaoke Zhang, eds. East Asian Capitalism:Diversity, Continuity and Change.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

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events

While this question has been a recurrent themefor those in the field, and even been emphasisedspecifically aligned with China’s rising powerand the crises following the 3-11 disasters,we discussed why and how it has beenanswered over time, who gets to definewhy Japan matters, and how we can situateand understand the present situation ofJapanese Studies in the context of largerpatterns of discourse.

A second aim of this conference was to promoteintergenerational dialogue between scholarsacross different institutions and from differentcountries. We invited junior researchers fromBritish universities whose posts have beenfunded by the Great Britain SasakawaFoundation, as well as representatives of theyounger generation of scholars based in Japanto meet and discuss these issues with eminentsenior scholars from different countries.Amongst those senior scholars, we invitedProfessors Yoshio Sugimoto and ChihiroKinoshita-Thomson from Australia, PatriciaSteinhoff from the US, Takeo Funabikifrom Japan and Eyal Ben-Ari from Israel.

The themes of our discussions included: thechanging institutions of Japanese Studies; theshifting boundaries and identities of JapaneseStudies; looking beyond Nihonjinron; JapaneseLanguage Teaching and Japanese Studies;images and realities of Japan and JapaneseStudies; and changing models of JapaneseStudies. Nearly sixty people attended and joinedthe conversations. From the presentations and

Conference onEngaging with Japanese Studies: revisiting the questionof ‘why Japan matters’Convenors: Professor Takehiko Kariya and Professor Roger Goodman, Dr Yuki Imoto,Keio University and Mrs Suzuko Anai, Oxford Brookes University

Nissan Institute seminarsThe Nissan Institute Seminar in JapaneseStudies (Nissan Seminar) series of lectureshas been instrumental as a forum foracademics in a variety of different disciplines,including the social sciences, humanities,and natural sciences, to discuss ideas relatedto Japan.

The Seminar series for Michaelmas termbegan with a lecture by Dr Mark Pendleton(University of Sheffield) on the aftermathof the Tokyo Subway Gassing of 1995.Dr Pendleton drew upon examples from thevictims of the attack in order to explore issuesof memory, storytelling, and forgetfulness.(A recording of this lecture in available viaiTunes U, Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies,University of Oxford). In Hilary term, most ofour speakers were from among Oxford faculty;but in early March, Professor Ito Peng(University of Toronto) came to speak onissues of demography in Japan. As numeroussocieties, Japan included, now face acombination of aging populations and fallingbirthrates, family responsibility for child- andeldercare, the supply of and demand for publicservices, and demand for foreign care workersare just a few of the important factors thatpolicymakers must take into account. ProfessorPeng’s talk, supported by her own qualitativeresearch in Japan, provided interesting insightson these issues.

Overall, the Institute hosted 22 seminars thisyear and 24 speakers in all as part of this series– too many to mention in this small space.However, we regard the Nissan Seminar as oneof our most important of public activities, as allof the papers presented have had an impact onthinking about Japan both within and outsideOxford. The seminar series is open to public,and we are always happy to see new facesin attendance.

Details of seminars in the coming terms willbe publicised on our website as soon as theyhave been determined.

Professor Ian Neary

discussions, we learned that situation ofJapanese Studies and Japanese languageteaching and their recent trends differedbetween the US, Australia, Japan, and Britainand that despite a short-sighted impressionof rising Chinese Studies vis-a-vis decliningJapanese Studies, Japanese Studies has eventended to expand in the US. Japan basedscholars, on the other hand, reported that underthe pressure of ‘globalisation’, programmes ofJapanese Studies taught in English had beendeveloped in Japanese higher education;yet faculties committed to the programmeshad faced difficulties with the least‘internationalised’ parts of Japaneseuniversities – the bureaucracies

We also discussed how we could articulatethe importance and significance of JapaneseStudies in the wider context of ‘Westerndominating’ social sciences, in which JapaneseStudies is often located as ‘peripheral’. Itbecame clear that it was important not only tounderstand the current situation of JapaneseStudies but also to specify the purposes ofresearch and teaching of this discipline morestrategically in wider, often intractable,academic settings.

Last but not least, this conference wasfinancially supported by the Nippon Foundation,the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, theJapan Foundation Endowment Committee, theOxford Sasakawa Fund, and the Nissan Instituteof Japanese Studies. We appreciate theirgenerous support.

Dr Tomoko L Kitagawa and Dr Hiroaki Matsuura

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This two-day conference was held on the 14 and 15March 2013, with the aim of engagingscholars and public figures working on ‘Japan’ as a field of study in a reflexive discussion on thestate and future of Japanese Studies: specifically to reconsider ‘why Japan matters’.

Professor Eyal Ben-Ari and Professor Takeo Funabiki

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East Asian linguistics seminarThe East Asian Linguistics Seminar (EALS)is a seminar series that takes place every yearin Hilary term.

In 2012 there were three talks on Japaneselinguistics in the series. In his talk entitled‘On Modern Standard Japanese within

the history of the Japaneselanguage’, Bjarke Frellesvig (Oxford)first provided a general overview ofthe history of the Japanese language

and the major changes it has undergone, andthen discussed the place of ‘Modern Standard

Japanese’ within this overallhistorical context. Sven Osterkamp(Ruhr University Bochum) nextpresented his paper ‘Prenasalization

in Japonic languages as seen in pre-modernforeign transcriptions: A look at the sources andtheir interpretation’ detailing prenasalisationin early Japanese and Ryukyuan on the basis

of evidence from foreign texts.Finally, Elisabeth de Boer (LeidenUniversity) spoke on ‘The modernJapanese tone and accent systems’,

discussing the ways in which the modernJapanese dialect accent systems are derivedfrom a far richer set of tonal distinctions foundin Middle Japanese.

More information about Japanese languageand linguistics research at Oxford, includingcurrent and past schedules for the EALSand downloadable files of many of thepresentations, can be found on theResearch Centre for Japanese Languageand Linguistics website:www.orinst.ox.ac.uk/research/jap-ling

Threads of Silk and Gold: Ornamental Textilesfrom Meiji JapanFrom 9 November 2012 to 27 January 2013, the exhibition ‘Threads of Silk and Gold: OrnamentalTextiles ofMeiji Japan’ was held at the AshmoleanMuseum.While the Japanese kimono has longbeen appreciated worldwide, this exhibition introduced the lesser-known but equally spectacularornamental textiles that were made for theWestern market during theMeiji era (1868-1912).Included in the show were some 40 examples of the highest-quality Meiji textiles, drawnlargely from the newly acquired collection of the Kiyomizu Sannenzaka Museum in Kyotoand also from the Ashmolean’s own holdings.

Above: RCJLL at NINJAL

Joint Oxford – NINJAL Symposium: Corpus Based Studies of Japanese Language HistoryOn 31 July 2012, Oxford’s Research Centre for Japanese Language and Linguistics helda joint symposium with the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL)in Tachikawa, Tokyo.

The symposium, entitled ‘Corpus Based Studiesof Japanese Language History’, presented thetwo major linguistic corpora of pre-modernJapanese (the Oxford Corpus of Old Japaneseand NINJAL’s Diachronic Corpus Project), aswell as research on the history of the Japaneselanguage based on these two corpora.From Oxford, Bjarke Frellesvig, Stephen Horn,Kerri Russell, our DPhil student Dan Trott,and Peter Sells from York gave presentations

(see www.orinst.ox.ac.uk/research/jap-ling/news12.html#noj for further details).The symposium, which was open to the publicand generated a great deal of general interest,with close to 200 people attending, was a goodopportunity to showcase to a wider audiencethe work on Old Japanese texts and languagecarried out at Oxford.

The textile industry played a central role in Japan’semergence onto the international stage as amodern economic and industrial power in themid-19th century. Textile production methodswere rapidly modernised, and a new genre ofornamental silk textiles emerged that cateredspecifically to the new overseas market. Theseexquisite embroideries, yuzen resist-dyed silksand cut-velvets, grand tapestries and appliquéwork, made mostly in Kyoto, entranced Westernaudiences with their sophisticated designs andbrilliant craftsmanship and became some ofJapan’s best-known export items. Displayed togreat acclaim at international exhibitions and soldthrough top textile merchants, they were oftenused as diplomatic gifts by the Japanesegovernment and imperial household.

Taught graduatecourses in JapaneseStudies at OxfordMSc/MPhil in Modern Japanese StudiesSchool of Interdisciplinary Area Studieswww.nissan.ox.ac.uk/prospective-students

MSt in Japanese StudiesFaculty of Oriental Studieswww.orinst.ox.ac.uk/html/ea/japanese/japanese_mst.html

MPhil in Traditional East AsiaFaculty of Oriental Studieswww.orinst.ox.ac.uk/ea/mphil_tradea.html

Above: Embroidered silk hanging of cranes,wisteria and cycads at Ashmolean Museum

During the craze for things Japanese thatswept the West in the late 19th century, nofashionable home was without its Japanesetextiles. However, unlike the Japanesewoodblock prints, ceramics and metalworkof the time, these textiles have been largelyoverlooked – not least because of theirextreme fragility, which means that relativelyfew examples survive in reasonable conditiontoday. It is hoped that ‘Threads of Silk andGold’ and the accompanying catalogue byHiroko T McDermott and Clare Pollard willcontribute to the revival of interest in thisstill little-explored field of Japanese art.

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newsevents‘Tales in the Round’:Japanese woodblock prints andmanjū netsukeThe Eastern Art Paintings Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is now filled with an arrayof warriors, monsters, poets, dancers and many more dynamic images carved onto the surfacesof over forty manju netsuke. Beside these are displayed eighteen Japanese woodblock printsto show similar images. All the manju are from the collection of the late Dr Monica Barnett,a collector for over thirty years.

Above: Manju netsuke depicting Benkei leaping over thewarrior Minamoto Yoshitsune

Oxford Japan �00 eventThe Bodleian Librarywas refounded by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1602, and thanks to its long history,has inherited numerous unique treasures since its early days, including some Japanesematerial suchas Tokugawa Ieyasu’s shuinjo issued to the British East India Company (MS Jap.b.2) (Japanese StudiesatOxford, Issue 2, 2010).

The exhibition is divided into six themes.Characters from Chinese history and folklore,whose lives and exploits have been depictedby Japanese artists. The Japanese New Yearfestival and the Seven Gods of Good Fortunefeature beside prints of their treasure ship.Two contrasting subjects, a statelyperformance of the No play Okina and adepiction of Saigyo Hoshi sitting in a ferryflanked by two entertainers are included in thetheatre, dance and poetry section. The displayof warriors, folktales and monsters shows somevery dynamic scenes; the fight on the GojoBridge between Minamoto no Yoshsitsune andthe warrior-monk Benkei, the splendid palace

of the Shuten doji, who is seen in a drunkenstupor, about to be slain by Minamoto noYorimitsu’s band of brave warriors, and thewitch of Adachigahara wielding a large knifeover a young girl whose blood she needs asmedicine, to save her master. These storieswere also a source of inspiration for artiststo design woodblock prints, several of whichare hung beside the manju.

These and many more lively depictions fromJapanese history and literature can be vieweduntil 22 September 2013.

Announcement ofRetirement andNew AppointmentWe are sad to announce that during thesummer of 2012, Dr Mark Rebick decidedto take early retirement from his post asUniversity Lecturer in the Economy of Japan.We hope that in joining Dr Ann Waswo andProfessor Arthur Stockwin as an EmeritusFellow of the Institute, he will continue totake an active role in its development.

Dr Jenny Corbett, Nissan Reader in theEconomy of Japan, has taken up the positionof Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research and ResearchTraining) at the Australian National Universityfor a five year period. She will be on leave fromOxford for that time but will continue to visitthe Institute each year for a part of TrinityTerm. In January 2013, Dr Hiroaki Matsuurawas appointed as Departmental Lecturer in theEconomy of Japan. He will continue to teachJapanese economy at the Nissan Institute andthe Oriental Institute.

Jennifer Guest will beappointed as UniversityLecturer in Japanese (ClassicalJapanese Literature). Beforeshe joined us, she was a Ph.D.candidate in premodernJapanese literature in

Columbia University, with interests centredchronologically on the Heian period andincluding kanbun literature, the reception ofChinese texts and systems of knowledge, andthe creative or playful literary juxtaposition ofwabun and kanbun styles.

Ian Rapley will be Visiting Lecturer in ModernJapanese History for the academic year 2013-2014. He previously took the MPhil in Studiesand a DPhil in History, on the topic of theJapanese Esperanto movement, 1906-1944.His research focuses upon twentieth centurycultural and intellectual Japanese history,with an interest in transnational eventsand movements.

New Nissan Institute of Japanese Studiespodcast websiteIn spring 2012, the Nissan Institute of JapaneseStudies started a podcast website. Recordingsof many Nissan seminars and special eventscan now be downloaded fromhttp:podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/nissan-institute-japanese-studies

This year, the Library will celebrate its 400thanniversary; to mark this special occasion,the University plans to organise an eventon 2 October in the Old (Bodleian) Library.

There will also be a special display of theshuinjo and a number of accompanyinglectures, which will serve as our contributionto this year’s nation-wide ‘Japan 400’ event,aimed at enriching dialogue and understandingbetween Japan and Britain, and creating a

positive legacy for our future relationship basedon the openness and mutuality that began fourcenturies ago.

(A special loan of the shuinjo to Japan laterin October has been proposed by the OxfordUniversity Japan Office, and discussionscontinue. Hirado and Shizuoka cities haverequested for a scanned image of the shuinjo inorder to create a replica for a special display attheir own event venue respectively this year.)

New BooksSho KonishiAnarchist Modernity:Cooperatism and Japanese-Russian Intellectual Relationsin Modern Japan. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 2013.Roger Goodman (editor withYuki Imoto and Tuukka Toivonen)Wakamonomondai no Shakaigaku– Shisen to Shatei. London: Tokyo:Akashi Shoten, 2013.

Roger Goodman and TakehikoKariya (editor with John Taylor)Higher Education and the State:Changing Relationships in Europeand East Asia. Symposium Books,

Oxford (Oxford Studies in ComparativeEducation Series), 2012.

Takehiko KariyaEducation Reform and SocialClass in Japan: The emergingincentive divide. London:Routledge/University of TokyoSeries, 2012

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Ishinpō: donation of Japanese medicine literatureThe Bodleian Japanese Library was delighted to receive a collection of precious books on Japanesemedicine from Tsumura and Company, a leading pharmaceutical firm in Japan. A presentationceremony took place at the Library on 19 February. Attendees includedMr N Tanaka, SeniorManaging Director of Tsumura, and several of his colleagues, Professor Denis Noble of theDepartment of Physiology, Ms SMaki, the translator of the modern version of Ishinpo,Dr Sarah Thomas, Bodley’s Librarian, Izumi Tytler, the Bodleian Japanese Librarian, and a numberof eminent scholars in the field from Japan.

Donation of Ishinpo: Lunch for the Delegates at Balliol College

The University ofOxford Japan OfficeThe University of Oxford has one of its threeoverseas offices in Tokyo, where it is locatedin Sanbancho (Chiyoda-ku) and managed byAlison Beale and Mayumi Azuma.

While the role of the office is quite broad, itsmain objective is to create partnerships andmake connections for the University in Japan.We therefore work extensively with businesses,foundations, universities, alumni, and individualsto connect them with Oxford, and explorehow we can develop mutually beneficial andlong-lasting relations for Oxford in Japan.

In the six months since I started in the post ofDirector, we have been pleased to see a steadystream of visitors from Oxford, including theHeads of Linacre, Exeter, Jesus, Wolfson andHertford Colleges, the MD of Isis Innovation,and several visitors from the Saïd BusinessSchool. We have also welcomed two of thePro-Vice-Chancellors, including PVC ProfessorWilliam James, who during his visit met theVice Presidents from RU11 – the associationof top research universities in Japan – todiscuss how to encourage greater researchcollaboration between Oxford and therepresented universities. PVC Professor NickRawlins also visited Tokyo to meet some ofour major Japanese donors including Nissan– which of course funds the Nissan Instituteof Japanese Studies – the Uehiro Foundation,which funds Oxford’s Uehiro Centre forPractical Ethics, and Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai,which funds our Numata Chair in BuddhismStudies. Professor Rawlins also gave thesecond in our ‘Oxford Academics in Japan’lecture series on the theme of how the brainexperiences and anticipates pain to a groupof alumni and friends.

In the coming months, we are looking forwardto the visits of the Directors of both the NissanInstitute and the Oriental Institute, which willgive us the opportunity to explore how the officecan better support Japanese Studies in Oxford.

If you have ideas on new connections to be made,or to find out more about our activities in Japanplease contact us on info@oxfordujapan.org

The books presented include two sets ofIshinpo, a compendium of the oldest survivingJapanese medical texts written by YasuyoriTamba in 984 (the 1993 version of the work,and a facsimile of the Ansei (1860) version),and other titles on Japanese medical history.

Ishinpo, a national treasure in Japan, has providedinvaluable source material for an interdisciplinaryproject, the University of Oxford MultipleActions via Systems Biology Project led byProfessor Noble. The Library is extremelygrateful to Tsumura and Company for their

generous support, and also to Professor Nobleand Ms Tasaki, who have been instrumentalin arranging this splendid donation.

On this occasion, historians from both Japanand Oxford, including Professor Shizu Sakai(Juntendo University), Professor Hiroshi Kosode(Kitasato University), and Dr Sho Konishi(Oxford) also joined the celebration with a visionfor future intellectual exchange between Japanand Oxford on medical history and other relatedareas of shared interest.

Academic visitorsOver the past year, Oxford has been host to a number of academic visitors working on Japan.The Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies has hosted Dr Adam Komisarof (Reitaku University),Dr Stephen Day (Oita University), Dr Junko Sakai, Dr Kunio Nishikawa (University of Tokyo),DrMakoto Kobari (DoshishaWomen’s College of Liberal Arts), Professor Keizo Yamawaki(Meiji University), and DrMasaru Yoshimura (KyotoWomen’s University).

Professor John C Maher (InternationalChristian University), Professor Wilhelm Vosse(International Christian University), andProfessor Hirofumi Nakano (KitakyushuUniversity) as academic visitors.

Roger Goodman has recently startedon his second term as Head of the SocialSciences Division within the UniversityIn the last year, Professor Goodman has beeninvited to speak about his research on Japaneseeducation and social welfare at numerousvenues including the Annual Conference ofthe Association of Asian Studies, San Diego;Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice; the DaiwaAnglo-Japanese Foundation, London; theSpanishMinistry of Science and InnovationSeminar Series, Barcelona; Tohoku University(Japanese PrimeMinister’s Office InternationalInvitee Programme); IE University, Madrid.

In April 2012, he was invited as a guest ofthe Japanese Prime Minister’s Office (Kantei)to review the reconstruction work beingundertaken by the Japanese governmenton educational and welfare institutions inFukushima, Sendai and Miyagi.

As our visitors, they contributed by participatingin the Nissan Seminars, Graduate Seminars,and other events such as the special seminarsfor the Level 4 Japanese language class, aimedat providing students with the opportunityto experience academic lectures in Japanese.The Faculty of Oriental Studies has hostedProfessor Reiko Yamanaka (Hosei University)and Dr Park Jong Seung (Gangeung-WonjuNational University).

Finally, the Mobile Robotic Group (MRG) of theDepartment of Engineering Science, lead byProfessor Paul Newman, has hosted Dr YosukeMatsuno (Nissan Motor Company). FromSeptember 2013, the Nissan Institute expectsProfessor Ikuya Sato (Hitotsubashi University),

Professor Ikuya Sato

New BooksAdam Komisarof – At HomeAbroad: The ContemporaryWestern Experience in Japan.

Chiba: Reitaku University Press, 2012.

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The Faculty of Oriental StudiesPusey LaneOxford, OX1 2LE, United KingdomTel: +44 (0)1865 278200Fax: +44 (0)1865 278190Email: orient@orinst.ox.ac.ukwww.orinst.ox.ac.uk/eajapanese/index.html

The Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies27 Winchester RoadOxford, OX2 6NA, United KingdomTel: +44 (0)1865 274570Fax: +44 (0)1865 274574Email: secretary@nissan.ox.ac.ukwww.nissan.ox.ac.uk

The Bodleian Japanese Library27 Winchester RoadOxford, OX2 6NA, United KingdomTel: +44 (0)1865 284506Fax: +44 (0)1865 284500Email: japanese@bodley.ox.ac.ukwww.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/bjlLibrarian: Mrs Izumi Tytler

オックスフォード日本研究

The Kongyûkai 紺牛会Former students can keep in touch witheach other and their teachers throughKongyûkai (dark-blue ox society) whichis the name of two internet groups opento all those who have studied or taughtfor Japanese studies at Oxford Universityat any time over the past 45 years.

New members can join athttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/kongyukaior through Facebook (Groups: Kongyukai).

For further information, contact:Brian Powell, b_w_f_powell@hotmail.com

The Research Centre for JapaneseLanguage and Linguistics41 Wellington SquareOxford, OX1 2JF, United KingdomTel: +44 (0)1865 280383Email: vsarpj@orinst.ox.ac.ukwww.orinst.ox.ac.uk/research/jap-ling

Oxford University Japan OfficeUniversity of Oxford Japan OfficeSanbancho UF Building 1st Floor6-3 Sanbancho, Chiyoda-kuTokyo 102-0075, JapanTel: +81 3 3264 0235Fax: +81 3 3264 0237Email: oxford@abox4.so-net.ne.jp

Japanese Friends of the BodleianTokyo contactTreasurer/Membership SecretaryJun’ichi SomaEmail: tribnia@gmail.comOxford ContactBodleian Japanese LibrarianIzumi TytlerEmail: izumi.tytler@bodley.ox.ac.ukwww.jfob.org

Editors: Hiroaki Matsuura, Asako Kariya and Tamar GrovemanPhoto credits: Cover photo by Kei NikaidoDesign and artwork: Ruth Balnave, ruthbalnave@gmail.com

Japanese Studies

In May 2008, the Universityof Oxford launched the largestfundraising campaign in Europeanhistory, aiming to raise a minimumof £3 billion.

Oxford has to build its future in a world ofunprecedented change. The challenge is great.Never before has the University’s future beenso dependent on the success of a campaign.We need help to secure investment in thenext generation, and all those to come.No institution exists and prospers for morethan 800 years unless it is skilled at adapting.

The University of Oxford invites you to bepart of this ambitious and deeply rewardingendeavour which promises so much for Oxford,for scholarship, and for the common good.

For more information, or to find out how youcan support the campaign, please visit thewebsite www.campaign.ox.ac.uk

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