2025: 2nd Swiss Asia Society Japan Conference: Centers and Peripheries in Japan (June 2-3)

Conference Abstract

Today, Japan is a highly centralized nation state, and it has projected this character onto its past. Its official history is fundamentally determined by its political centers; their names became the terms for historical periods, providing the chronological grid that organizes our knowledge of the country’s history. During the process of modernization and nation building, this retrospective vision allowed the implicit construction of a so-called “homogenous” territory that was structured according to the hierarchy between a center and peripheries. After 1945, with the loss of the colonies—characteristically referred to as the “outer territories” (gaichi) of the Japanese empire—this cultural homogenization and political hierarchization into center and periphery was further reinforced.

In principle, this simplistic view has long been challenged and is no longer considered valid in academic research. However, its legacy continues, not least because of the body of narratives, literature and canonical sources that was created in accordance with it. There is therefore still much work to be done to create a more multicentered view of Japan. We can start from reflecting on the mere definition of what is or was a center, and what is or was a periphery, whether in Japan today or in any previous period in history. Further questions involve the re-thinking of canons and corpora in all areas of research. Reflecting on the boundaries and dimensions that shaped the mono-centric, homogeneous view, multi-scalar and transdisciplinary analysis can help to foreground the fluidity of the concepts in question as well as the conflicts, tensions and negotiations between Japan’s multiple centers and their peripheries. Additionally, exploring how political, social, or literary groups aim/ed to maintain their central position while peripheral groups endeavor/ed to gain access to the center, perhaps through subversive methods as described by Bourdieu, can contribute to our understanding of the power dynamics within Japan’s different spheres of influence.

The aim of this conference is to create a dialogue between different approaches to this topic from numerous fields (linguistics, literature, history, geography, political sciences, sociology, ethnology, etc.), and multifarious angles (normativity, censure, constraint, freedom, symbolic hierarchy, identity-related negotiation, etc.). Papers presented are eligible (upon peer-review) for publication in a theme issue of the open access journal Asiatische Studien / Études asiatiques, published by the Swiss Asia Society with De Gruyter.

Organization committee

• Prof. Dr. Claire-Akiko Brisset (University of Geneva)

• Prof. Dr. David Chiavacci (University of Zurich)

• Prof. Dr. Ewa Machotka (University of Zurich)

• Prof. Dr. Simone Müller (University of Zurich)

• Prof. Dr. Raji Steineck (University of Zurich)

Monday, June 2

9:00-9:30 Welcome and Opening

• Prof. Dr. Raji Steineck (Vice Dean Research of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Zurich, Switzerland)

• Prof. Dr. Nicolas Martin (Director of the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland)

• Prof. Dr. Simone Müller (President, Swiss Asia Society, Switzerland)

10:00-12:00 (Re)Constructing and Inventing Identities

• Prof. Dr. Mária Ildikó Farkas (Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church, Hungary): “Japanese Folk Culture: From Peripheries to the Centre of Cultural Identity”

• Prof. Dr. Fynn Holm (University of Tübingen, Germany): “Change and Continuity in the Periphery: Suzuki Bokushi and the Transmission of History in the Akiyama Mountain Community

• Dr. Chiara Rita Napolitano (Postdoc, Kyoto University, Japan): “Periphery or Cultural Heart? Kyoto’s Role in Shaping the ‘Authentically Japanese’ Experience”

12:00-13:30 Lunch break

13:30-15:30 Rethinking Historical Orders

• Dr. Tsui Shuen Lau (Postdoc, University of Tübingen, Germany): “The Fluidity of Prestige: Nikkō and the Negotiation of Center and Periphery, 1870s-1940s”

• Melanie Müller (PhD candidate, University of Zurich, Switzerland): “Challenging the Center: Peripheral Power in the Sengoku Period”

• Anna Nielsen (PhD candidate, University of California Berkeley, USA): “Horses, Tack and Technological Innovation: Northern Kyushu as a Peripheral Core in Japan’s Kofun Period”

15:30-16:00 Coffee break

16:00-18:00 Young Research Workshop (Panel Discussion): “Academic Career Paths in Asian Studies: Commonalities and Differences in Asia, Europe, and North America”

18:00-20:30 Apéro

Tuesday, June 3

10:00-12:00 Colonial and Transnational Connections and Tensions

• Prof. Dr. Caitlin Karyadi (University of Hong Kong, China): “Intimate Circuits: Shen Nanpin, Chinese Painting, and Japanese Art History”

• Patricia Lenz (PhD candidate, University of Zurich, Switzerland): “Addressing Quasi-Colonial Exploitation of Peripheral Regions in the Art of Shiga Lieko and Yamashiro Chikako”

• Scott Ma (PhD candidate, University of Zurich, Switzerland): “Science and Authority through the Eyes of a Mid-Ranking Bureaucrat in Japanese Taiwan”

12:00-13:00 Lunch break

13:00-15:00 Negotiation Processes in Cultural History

• Ryan Hintzman (PhD candidate, Yale University, USA): “Scribbles, Sighs, and Supplication: Notes on Poetic Countertraditions in Japan, 900-1477”

• Berfu Sengun (PhD candidate, University of Zurich): “Narrative Centers and Peripheries: Reimagining Space and Identity in The Tale of Genji”

• Maria Slautina (PhD candidate, Princeton University, USA): “Remapping Tea: Centers and Peripheries in the Early Edo Chanoyu”

15:00-15:30 Coffee break

15:30-17:30 Tensions between Center and Periphery in Literature

• Laura Agnel (PhD candidate, French School of the Far East, France): “Du centre aux provinces reculées du nord du Japon: le cas de Sugae Masumi, un voyageur lettré du 19ème siècle”

• Maria Carbune (PhD candidate, Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg, Germany): “From the Periphery to the Centre: The Socio-cultural Role of the Akutagawa Prize and the Instrumentalization of Modern Japanese Literature”

• Prof. Dr. Veronica De Pieri (University of Bologna, Italy): “Transgenerational Trauma in Yū Miri’s The End of August (2023): A Cross-Culture Psychological Perspective”

17:30-18:00 Concluding remarks and discussion of publication

19:00-21:00 Conference dinner

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