Dans le cadre de son 50e anniversaire, le Centre de recherches sur le Japon a le plaisir de vous inviter à la conférence exceptionnelle de

Kaori KATADA 堅田香緒里, Associate Professor à l’Université Hōsei
Neoliberal reforms of Anti-Poverty Policy in Japan:
implications of ‘independence support’
26 janvier 2023, 13:00-15:00
Salle 385-387, Bâtiment de l’EHESS, Campus Condorcet
2 cours des Humanités, 93300 Aubervilliers

« There have been many neo-liberal reforms of modern welfare states since the 1980s. Although deregulation and decentralization have led to the privatization of various public welfare services, since the logic of welfare is generally incompatible with markets, it is difficult to fully supply welfare services through a market economy alone. Because of this, “quasi-markets” have gradually formed as places for the provision of welfare services, through the “citizen welfare” of NGOs, NPOs and other organizations. In recent years, “citizen welfare” is even tied to new policy trends such as the emphasis on regional roles and the “participation” of citizens. » – Kaori Katada

Contact : crj@ehess.fr

Dans le cadre du séminaire « Histoire du Japon moderne : périodisation en chantier » animé par Aleksandra Kobiljski (CRJ-CCJ) et Noémi Godefroy (INALCO), conférence de Bettina Gramlich-Oka (Université Sophia), intitulée :

« Family Networks and Rituals »
Mercredi 25 janvier 2023, de 11h à 13h
Salle A302, EHESS, Campus Condorcet
2 cours des humanités 93300 Aubervilliers

« I address in this presentation the family records of Rai Shunsui (1746–1816), Confucian scholar of the Hiroshima domain. The records are extensive and offer ample material for investigation, in particular for network analyses. To observe one of the family networks, I make use of records related to the Confucian Family Rites which were performed throughout the year.

The records that display the practice of the Confucian Rites do not easily mix with our images of Tokugawa society but present the Rai family rather as a peculiar household. However, when scrutinizing the form, content, and participants in their performances of the rites—we discover various explanations for the central position these rituals took within and outside the Rai household. When visualizing these events in the Japan Biographical Database (jbdb.jp)—an open access relational database—we find even many more indications.

By linking the data to the database I hope to demonstrate the advantages of combining a more traditional historical analysis and a network analysis with help of digital tools. » – Bettina Gramlich-Oka

Contact : crj@ehess.fr

In the frame of Kyoto Lectures 2023 organised by École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) and Scuola Italiana di Studi sull’Asia Orientale (ISEAS) and co-hosted by Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, Stephen DODD will give a lecture on:

Tuesday, January 24th, at 18:00 JST
« The Politics of Flying Saucers in Yukio Mishima’s Beautiful Star »
On site and online via Zoom

Given Mishima Yukio’s (1925-1970) fascination with radical right-wing ideas that contributed to his dramatic suicide at the Ichigaya headquarters of the Japan Self-Defence Forces, it is not surprising that his literature is often read through the lens of his political views. This lecture also pursues such links, by examining the political significance of the flying saucers that appear in his science-fiction novel, Beautiful Star(Utsukushii hoshi, 1962). However, the lecture aims to broaden our insight into the nature of Mishima’s literary engagement with political consciousness. The novel was serialized between January and November 1962, following the superpower confrontation of the 1961 Berlin Crisis, and it was completed just as the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was coming to a head. The contemporaneous emergence of multiple UFO sightings has been linked to anxiety about impending nuclear war, so in that sense Mishima’s novel was obviously political. However, the work also articulates a broader cultural political perspective, touching on Japanese post-war anxiety about a loss of cultural autonomy and racial ‘purity.’  Moreover, the exquisitely beautiful flying saucers evoke a deeply eroticised aestheticism, which points to an alternative political imagination with the potential to break through the stultifying oppression of consumerist Japan.

Stephen DODD

Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at SOAS, University of London.  He has written on a wide range of modern Japanese authors. He is author of Writing Home: Representations of the Native Place in Modern Japanese Literature (Harvard University Asia Center, 2004), and The Youth of Things: Life and Death in the Age of Kajii Motojirō (Hawai’i University Press, 2014.). He has also translated two Mishima Yukio novels in the Penguin Classic series: Life for Sale (Inochi urimasu, 1968) in 2019, and Beautiful Star(Utsukushii hoshi, 1962), in 2022.  He continues to research and translate Mishima’s writings.

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This hybrid lecture will be held on site (email required in advance at efeo.kyoto@gmail.com) and online via Zoom (meeting ID: 869 6763 0628, no password).

École française d’Extrême-Orient
Kitashirakawa bettō-chō 29, Sakyō-ku
606-8276 Kyōto
Japon

Site Internet : https://www.efeo.fr/blogs_post.php?bid=10&nid=4238