This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Leiden University Medical Center with Nagasaki University.

Ideology and Christianity in Japan shows the major role played by Christian-related discourse in the formation of early-modern and modern Japanese political ideology.

One of the ways of understanding another culture better is to examine what people experience when they read a text, or look at an image. Leiden experts have a lot of knowledge in this field, for example on culture in ancient Japan.

Investigation of 1.) The whereabouts of the epistemological dissonances in art criticisms on Post-war contemporary art from Japan between two different language realms, in this case in English and Japanese; and 2.) What the dissonances disclose, disturb, and contribute in the process of the establishment…

Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War draws upon written and oral Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch and English-language sources to narrate the Japanese occupation of Java as a transnational intersection between two complex Asian societies, placing this narrative in a larger wartime context of…

Ruobin Han defended her thesis on 21 March 2017

Loneliness and social isolation have become a significant problem in contemporary Japan. The financial burden associated with an ageing population has severely constrained the ability of local authorities to address the problem. As a result, policymakers have sought cost‐effective methods of tackling…

Andrew Littlejohn published the article 'Ruins for the future: Critical allegory and disaster governance in post-tsunami Japan' in American Ethnologist about the ruins left by Japan's 2011 tsunami.

This study aims to examine how South Korea (hereafter, Korea) and Japan, two neighboring countries in Northeast Asia, have been responding to and mitigating the spread of COVID-19.

This book project explores the changing dynamics of marriage and family life in postwar Japan based on an examination of the life histories of single mothers.

Rebecca Tompkins defended her thesis on 21 March 2019

Attitudes towards cultural heritage have long been characterised by an ‘endangerment sensibility’ concerned with preventing losses. Recently, however, critical heritage scholars have argued that loss can be generative, facilitating the formation of new values and attachments. Their arguments have focused…

Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War draws upon written and oral Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch and English-language sources to narrate the Japanese occupation of Java as a transnational intersection between two complex Asian societies, placing this narrative in a larger wartime context of…

This project investigates the effects of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953) on the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food in transwar Japan and Korea.

This project aims to uncover a series of sites of difference and innovation. In particular, it locates itself in two kinds of distancing: geo-cultural (ie. in the non-European space of Japan) and medial (ie. in innovative expressive media).

Leiden University Library and related museum holdings in Leiden contain a body of materials showing the unique role of Dutch-Japanese trade relations as a node in the history of global flows of knowledge, materials and culture during the early modern period.

This project examines changes in late eighteenth and nineteenth-century representations of the legendary twelfth-century general Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159-1189) and how they reflect not only developments in themes of representation, but also changes in the focus of early modern and modern Japan’s…

A delegation from Leiden University will be visiting several Japanese universities and research institutions from 18 to 26 November to discuss research and teaching collaborations.

Bas Verberk defended his thesis on 6 September 2016

Kohei Suzuki, Assistant Professor at Institute of Public Administration, was interviewed by Infobae about loneliness in Japan and the role of government and society.

A delegation from Leiden University visited Japan from 18 to 26 November to facilitate cooperation in research and teaching. The delegation also attended the signing of a twinning agreement between the cities of Leiden and Nagasaki and the opening of a bridge to Dejima, once literally the bridge between…

Since the disaster in Japan, professors, staff and students of the department of Japanese Language and Culture at Leiden University have regularly been contacted by the media asking for their opinion about the events taking place there. Ivo Smits and Kasia Cwiertka, Professors of Japanese, give their…

Of the 29 students who are still in Japan, the remaining four students in Tokyo have been advised to leave the area affected by the disaster.

In this podcast episode of Beyond Japan, Oliver Moxham and Andrew Littlejohn explore how disaster heritage fosters debate around the relationship between humans and their environments.

President Akio Yuki and his delegation were welcomed to Leiden by Vice-Rector Prof. Rietje van Dam-Mieras, Prof. Ivo Smits, Prof. Kasia Cwiertka and Dr Rogier Busser on Friday 13 May 2011.

Dividing Worlds: Tsunamis, Seawalls, and Ontological Politics in Northeast Japan

Nichiran kankei-shi o yomitoku [Revisiting the History of Dutch-Japanese Relations] is a new, two-volume Japanese publication with a chapter written by Wulan Remmelink. Both volumes offer a new look on the historical relations between Japan and The Netherlands during the Edo period by examining various…

Jemima Sint Nicolaas (22) is an East Asian Studies master's student. In addition to her studies, she is an intern at LeidenGlobal, a student assistant and has a job as a barista.

On October 23rd, dr. Bart Custers, associate professor and head of research of eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden Universitty, delivers a keynote address on the big data and law at the International Conference on Big Data Research (ICBDR 2017) in Osaka, Japan

Leonard Blussé, Professor Emeritus of History of European-Asian Relations, was awarded the 13th Fukuoka Prize in Japan on 10 September.

Leiden Asia Centre researcher Anoma van der Veere argues that the Japanese government has failed to respond properly to Covid-19. There were difficulties with implementing government measures aimed at limiting the spread of the virus – in some cases those measures were not even taken seriously. How…

The correspondence of the Dutch factory in Hirado, Japan, 1609-1633

This study examines recovery planning committees across Japan's Tohoku region.

In 1968 Japan was shocked by student protests and even today, exactly fifty years later, their effects can still be felt. An interdisciplinary group of researchers recently met to discuss them at Leiden University.

‘There is no such thing as a timeless Japanese soul,’ says newly appointed Professor in Modern Japan Studies Katarzyna Cwiertka. The first month of her professorship turned out to be a crucial test: Japan was hit by a destructive earthquake and tsunami, and Cwiertka had to keep her head in the midst…

From 28 October to 2 November, Armin Cuyvers was invited by the University of Nagasaki to lecture on EU integration and Brexit.

The walls of Paul van der Velde’s study at the International Institute for Asian Studies are full of neat rows of post-it notes. As organiser in chief, he is right in the middle of the upcoming ICAS 11, the 11th International Convention of Asia Scholars, which is returning to where it was first held…

On or around 26 November every year, Cleveringa meetings are organised for Leiden alumni throughout the world. Including in Tokyo, where Professor of Japan Studies Ivo Smits delivered his Clevering lecture to a packed hall.

Conference

Conference

The 2011 disasters precipitated widespread concern among heritage scholars about the fate of Tohoku’s cultural properties, tangible and intangible. Damage to not only buildings and landscapes but also ‘formless’ heritage, some worried, could weaken social infrastructure and thus slow or undermine re…

The goal of this research is to examine the emergence of new types of female representation in nineteenth-century ukiyo-e (woodblock prints from early modern Japan) as these images relate to the ideals of femininity of the time.