Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies (ICJS)

The ICJS coordinates TUJ's intellectual and cultural outreach programs. These programs include The Pacific Rim Lecture Series, which organizes presentations and seminars on issues pertaining to Japan and Asia; The Korea Japan Group, a post-graduate seminar with experts from different fields who discuss contemporary East Asian political and security issues; and The Business Economics Group, which provides a forum for economists and business professionals to address aspects of Japanese and Asian economics. The ICJS has also organized Japanese Cinema Eclectics, a film series showcasing Japanese films curated by noted film authority (and TUJ faculty member) Donald Richie, who introduces exceptional but relatively unknown Japanese underground and avant-garde films.

Participants in these symposia include governmental officials, academics, business executives, journalists, and area-studies specialists. By bringing these various issues to light and providing a forum for their discussion, ICJS contributes to the global understanding of Japanese society and creates new opportunities to link Japan to the global community. For more information, visit: www.tuj.ac.jp/icjs.

The Wakai Project

Although many of the events organized by the ICJS are public forums, the institute also cultivates participation by students through The Wakai Project. The distinctive feature of Wakai is that it provides a forum for students to interact with cultural innovators and have serious discussion about social issues. The network of universities and educational institutions that Wakai draws on provides academic grounding to popular culture issues and allows students to integrate their academic and social experience. It also provides a means for activists and artists to communicate with students and to educate and learn about young people's concerns.

ICJS Lectures and Symposia

“Boom or Bust: Korea in Japanese Pop Culture & Politics”
A panel discussion addressing Japan-Korea relations, with Dr. David Satterwhite, Gavan McCormack, and Yasuyo Sakata.

“Historic Preservation & Urban Community: Lessons from New York & Tokyo”
A panel discussion jointly organized with the U.S. embassy. Panelists included Dr. Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, Alex Kerr and Yoshihiro Takishita. Moderated by Dr. Geeta Mehta.

“Japanese Manga and American Comics — The Pop Culture Mind-meld”
Frederik L. Schodt.

“Japan’s Peace Constitution: The Future of Japan?”
A multi-media event that addressed recent debates on Japan’s resurgent nationalism and proposals to revise Article IX of the Japanese Constitution. This event featured workshops on peace issues organized by TUJ’s Wakai Project and included a special screening of the documentary Japan’s Peace Constitution, which was followed by a talk by the film’s director, John Junkerman, with Torihada Minoru.

"Youth and Imaginative Labor: East Asia and Beyond"
A conference focusing on the issue of youth today in the neoliberal economy of immaterial/affective labor, the social and political challenges young people face, and their imaginative responses that creatively and critically transform their situations. The conference included leading scholars from the US, Japan, Korea, China and Hong Kong in academic panel sessions featuring multi-media presentations by graduate students, performers, and youth NPO advocates. At a conjoined session, NGO activists, designers, and academics studying youth culture gave short multi-media presentations, and Donald Richie introduced a screening of the anime film Avalon. Other events, including a live painting performance by Rinpa Eshidan and a spoken word performance by Marcellus Nealy, followed the screening.

Annual academic conference of Anthropology of Japan in Japan (AJJ)
Representing work by anthropologists that offer critical discussions of the intersections of power in the ongoing construction of identities and negotiation of relationships in contemporary Japanese society. The keynote speaker, Roger Goodman, University of Oxford, gave a special presentation called “The Changing Nature of Power, Self-Identities and Relationships in Japanese Higher Education.”