22-26 August 1994
Copenhagen, Denmark

THE 7TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION
FOR JAPANESE STUDIES.

The European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS), founded
in 1973, is probably the largest organization for Asian
studies in Europe. Its principal, and certainly its most
successful activity has been the organization of triennial
meetings, arranged by the host university. The seventh of
these triennial conferences was held in Copenhagen, in August
1994. Earlier conferences were held in Durham (1988) and
Berlin (1991). 

By Ivo Smits

The number of participants has steadily increased throughout
the years and some 400 participants from Europe, Japan, and
the United States were be registered for the Copenhagen
conference. For the past six years or so, a growing number of
scholars from central and eastern European countries has
joined the EAJS, and their contribution to the conferences has
increased accordingly. This may turn out to be one of the
EAJS's greater achievements: the dialogue between scholars who
used to be cut off from one another by the `iron curtain' is
proving to be very stimulating. The Literature Section, for
example, was stunned by a contribution from a young Estonian
scholar who mastered Foucault's discourse in a very short
time.
The conference is divided into sections, which in turn are
subdivided into panels. This year the eight sections were:
Urban and Environmental Studies; Linguistics and Language
Teaching; History; History, Politics, and International
Relations; and Religion and History of Ideas. The division
into sections reflects the tendency, shared with other area
studies, towards a growing specialization and awareness that
the different fields require their own methodologies. The need
to subject the many panels to a clear and strictly imposed
theme has been a bone of contention throughout the history of
the existence of the EAJS: many feel that the obvious
advantage of structured sessions is outweighed by exclusion of
scholars whose work does not fit into the theme of the panel.
This discussion will, of course, never end, and it is left to
the conveners of the separate sections to decide on the
format. Most of this year's sections had at least one
"General" panel, and another new feature was the "Young
Scholars' Forum" in the Economics section, meant to provide
researchers who have (nearly) finished their PhD research with
a platform for the results of their work.
The overall emphasis in the sections lay on modern and
contemporary Japan. The "Politics" section especially
generated quite some speculation about things to come in the
Japan of the future. Pre-modern Japanese studies, however, are
also thriving. Scholars working on pre-modern subjects find
that they have more in common with scholars also studying
pre-modern Japan but in another field, than with several
scholars in their own discipline; they feel a growing need to
overstep the boundaries of discipline and organise themselves
loosely into some period-bound format. 
The main problem facing the EAJS is that it reaches too few
people who are not a member of the association. The 1997
conference is to be held in Budapest.
Since the summer of 1994 the EAJS has a permanent office in
Leiden:

EAJS
Doelensteeg 2, 
2311 VL Leiden
the Netherlands.
Tel: +31-71-277267
Fax: +31-71-124244