IIAS Masterclasses
Two or three times a year, starting in 1995, the IIAS will organize short (two-day) closed working sessions
for a small selected group of postdocs and advanced PhD students (4-8 persons). These will be focused on
and be under the guidance of a very prominent scholar in a particular discipline.
The participants will be given the opportunity to discuss their work with the 'Master', in the presence of
and in interaction with the other participants.
The choice of the 'Master' will be determined by the research that is being done in the Netherlands by PhD
students and postdocs (in consultation with the Academic Board).
The participants in the 'Masterclasses' will be recruited from the research schools and the relevant faculties
and institutes. The IIAS also welcomes participants from European and non-European centres or institutes
which maintain good relations with the IIAS.
The participants will be selected by the Academic Board, the Director of the IIAS, and the 'Master', based
on a short (20pp) paper on their research projects, in which particular emphasis should be placed on the
subjects that are to be discussed during the Masterclass.
Professor Jurgis Elisonas will be in charge of the IIAS Masterclass, which is scheduled for the end of May
1996.
The First IIAS Masterclass
Professor Elisonas:
Japan in the 16th and 17th Centuries
Jurgis Elisonas, who has also written under the name George Elison, was born in Lithuania, began his
formal education in Germany, and finished it in the United States with a doctorate in History and Far
Eastern Studies at Harvard University. An expanded version of his doctoral dissertation, Deus
Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan, was published by Harvard University
Press, and the topic of the initial European encounter with Japan has remained among his major research
interests. Although a cultural historian by predilection, he has also engaged in studies of the nature of
hegemony in sixteenthþcentury Japan as well as of Japanþs international relations in the Middle Ages and the
beginning of the early modern era. He is also interested in urban history: His most recent publication is
titled 'Notorious Places: The Narrative Topography of Early Edo,' and he is currently engaged in editing a
volume of essays on Kyoto in the seventeenth century.
Dr. Elisonas is Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and of History at Indiana University. He
has been spending the year 1994þ95 as a visitor at the Vakgroep Talen en Culturen van Japan en Korea of
Leiden University under a fellowship from the Isaac Alfred Ailion Foundation. He has held visiting
research and teaching appointments at Harvard University, the University of Hawaii, and Kyoto University;
in 1991þ92 he was a research fellow of Kyoto Universityþs Institute for Research in Humanities. Among
the honours that he has received is a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. Warriors, Artists, &
Commoners, a collection of essays coþedited by him, was selected US Academic Book of the Year
1981.
The topic of the master classes to be offered by Professor Elisonas in late September 1995 at a location in
the Netherlands which is still to be determined is Japan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-
ries. The classes will be held at a Research Centre in the Netherlands in the last week of May 1996.
Invited to apply are doctoral students and recent recipients of the doctorate in fields related to Japanese
cultural and political history or to the history of Japan's foreign and interþcultural relations during that
period. Applications are due by 15 April 1996 and should include a cv and a sample of the applicant's
scholarly writing. Approximately ten candidates will be selected for participation. The successful applicants
are expected to submit papers on their research projects by 10 May. The official language will be English.
It is expected that the papers presented for criticism at this seminar will be published in the form of a
volume of essays.
All travel and accommodation expenses will be covered by the IIAS.
All inquiries should be directed to the IIAS office.
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