The Activities of the Japan Foundation

Dialogue: Japanese Studies and Intellectual Exchange
Japanese Studies Overseas and Intellectual Exchange

The Japan Foundation is supporting Japanese Studies in various countries to deepen understanding of Japan overseas. Moreover, we are conducting intellectual exchange projects for networking and to provide opportunities for dialogue and collaboration between persons in Japan and overseas, which we hope will contribute to resolving global issues.

The spread of COVID-19 has had a major impact also on Japanese Studies and Intellectual Exchanges. Most of the Japanese Studies Fellows have not been able to visit Japan. In institutions and networking support programs, projects that require travel have also had to be postponed or cancelled. At the same time, we have considered this step-in-time as a chance to rebuild networks among researchers and intellectuals who are usually too busy to gather in one place, by maximizing our use of online tools.

Alone Together — Reimagining International Exchange in Post-COVID Japan

We have published a video series in which Japanese Studies Fellows who were invited from overseas discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected and transformed Japanese society, based on their experiences living amid the pandemic in Japan as well as through their respective academic expertise. The series features a variety of topics in which these Japan specialists are engaged in, such as the diversity of Shinjuku, the circulation of used books in Jimbocho, the use of social media by Japanese youth or the Olympics and city planning.

Japanese Studies Fellows who took part in the video series. Starting from the first episode (top left), Dr. Nathaniel Smith, Ms. Susan Taylor, Ms. Kimberly Hassel, Dr. Marvin Sterling, Ms. Chiara Pavone, Ms. Louise Claire Wagner and the navigator Sahel Rosa

The Collaborative Research Workshop for Aspiring Scholars in Japanese Studies: Online Follow-Up

Since FY2018, we have been organizing intensive workshops for graduate students of principal Japanese Studies institutions in Asia. We held a two-day follow-up workshop online in FY2020, with 20 past participants gathering together. Mediated by talks by lecturers from Japan, Hong Kong and Australia, the workshop provided an opportunity for a lively discussion on diverse collaborative research regardless of location or discipline, culminating in a final task of presenting topics for collaborative research.

Roundtable/interactive Q&A session between the lecturers and students

The 30th Anniversary Meeting of the Center for Contemporary Japanese Studies, Peking University

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Center for Contemporary Japanese Studies at Peking University, we co-hosted an online anniversary meeting with Peking University in December 2020. Commemorative speeches were given by INOKI Takenori (Professor Emeritus, Osaka University) and LIU Deyou (former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Culture of China). A total of 141 people attended the meeting, including graduates of the Center who are currently active in various fields in China as well as former professors from both Japan and China. We received many congratulations and gratitude for the 30th anniversary, and it was an important follow-up opportunity.

Former professors and graduates attending the online meeting

Japan-Germany Symposium "Crisis Communication: Japanese and German Perspectives—Commemorating Ten Years after the Great East-Japan Earthquake"

In the spring of 2021, a decade after the Great East Japan Earthquake and amid the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, Japanese and German specialists discussed how scientists, the government and the media should communicate in times of crisis. With the panelists sharing the two countries' experiences and different cultural backgrounds, the event presented a timely and lively discussion, rich with suggestions for the future, touching on comparisons of disaster and pandemic responses, fake news countermeasures and the importance of media literacy.

Keynote speech by NISHIURA Hiroshi (Professor, Kyoto University)

Discussion between Japanese and German specialists