The Center for East Asian Studies at Western Washington University is pleased to host the 23rd Annual Association of Japanese Literary Studies (AJLS) Conference from October 10-11, 2014 at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.
The goal of the 2014 AJLS conference is to explore the intersections between the spiritual and artistic domains in a wide range of literary texts against the backdrop of age-specific cultural and epistemological settings. We expect to attract a diverse group of scholars of modern, pre-modern and classical literature interested in the dialectic of literature and religion, the negotiations between creativity and spiritual formation, and the artistic representation of faith, the sacred and the divine.
The conference will examine how religious practices may shape and inform the process of literary signification and how, in turn, the act of writing, in its various forms and manifestations, can address the quintessential question of mankind’s place in the universe and its relationship to the divine and the supernatural. The 2014 conference will also provide a forum for discussions on how spiritual and religious experience have engendered literature across time and how negotiations between the spiritual and literary domains may have led to forms of coherent discourse on the divine, the universe, and the afterlife.
Keynote Speaker
Miyasaka Satoru, Professor
「近代日本文学における宗教及びスピリチュアリティ」
“Religion and Spirituality in
Modern Japanese Literature”
7:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Western Washington University
Bellingham, Washington
A former President of Ferris University (Ferisu jogakuin daigaku) and currently Emeritus Professor at the same institution, Professor Miyasaka is one of the foremost authorities on Akutagawa. He is the founder and President of the International Society for Akutagawa Ryūnosuke Studies. He is also the President of the Nihon kirisutokyō bungakkai. View full biography.
During the Conference Professor Miyasaka will also join Professor Tsuboi Hideto (International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto) in a feature roundtable discussion titled “近代精神における宗教と芸術の関係 (The Relationship between Religion and Art in Modern Intellectual Discourse)”. The roundtable discussion will be moderated by Professor Eiji Sekine of Purdue University.
This conference is made possible thanks to a grant by the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and the Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies. For a list of all sponsors, click here.