Research Activities

Report On June 26, 2025, the Tobunken Seminar "Re-examining Ottoman migrations in light of Hikiagesha researches" was held at the IASA. The seminar featured Professor Fuat Dündar from TOBB University of Economics and Technology, who visited the IASA through the JSPS invitational fellowship program. Ten participants attended in person and nine participated online.In his lecture, Professor Dündar first discussed the comparability of two migrations accompanying the collapse of empires, namely, the influx of immigrants from the Balkans and the Caucasus into the Ottoman Empire and the repatriation of Japanese citizens after World War II. He then compared these two migrations in terms of memory and commemoration. Specifically, he discussed the

Report On August 27, 2025, the Tobuken Seminar "Social and Professional Profiles of Members of the Ottoman Imperial Court: A Prosopographic Study (1600-1789)" was held at the IASA. The seminar featured Professor Betül İpşirli Argıt from Marmara University, who visited the IASA through the JSPS invitational fellowship program. Ten participants attended in person and 15 participated online.Professor İpşirli Argıt first outlined her new research findings regarding the social origins and recruitment and promotion patterns of male palace personnel at the Ottoman imperial court during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, based primarily on data from over 3,000 individuals collected from sharia court records. She then attempted a comparison with officials of

Report On August 25, the Tobuken Seminar "Islamic Modernities: The Ulema Between Revolution and Reaction in the Late Ottoman Empire" was held at the IASA. Dr. Yakoob Ahmed of Istanbul University, who has been a visiting researcher at the IASA since October 2024, presented the lecture. During his lecture, Dr. Ahmed examined the role of the ulema during and after the Young Turk Revolution, discussing how the provincial and central ulema played an active role in the constitutional revival in the time of revolution, and how those who were marginalized after the revolution and demanded justice were labeled "reactionary." Dr. Ahmed also emphasized the presence of the ulema in the constitutional amendment committee.

Report At the conference of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies, held from August 12 to 16 at Tashkent State University of Oriental Studies (Republic of Uzbekistan), nine publications from the Institute’s Research & Information Center for Asian Studies were exhibited and distributed free of charge. Professors Lloyd Ridgeon and Kazuo Morimoto of the Institute are participating in the event.  

Report On July 15, a seminar titled "Thai Perceptions of the International Order since the Pre-Modern Era: Shaping and Shifting Its Relations with China, Japan, and the US into the 21st Century" was held, featuring Professor Kitti Prasirtsuk of Thammasat University as the speaker. The seminar attracted a significant turnout, with approximately 30 participants attending in person and around 70 attending online. The event was organized by the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo, as part of the JSPS-funded research project "The Historical Process of Development of the East Asian International Order: The Connection of Non-Western International Relations Theory and Area Studies," with the Security Studies

The Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at The University of Tokyo is pleased to announce the release of the beta version (public test version) of the new Daiber Collection database, which provides access to approximately 520 Arabic-script manuscripts held by the institute. Nearly two decades have passed since the launch of the original database, and a comprehensive update is now underway to enable more advanced use. This upgrade is being carried out in collaboration with the Uehiro Project for the Asian Research Library (U-PARL) and the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, both within The University of Tokyo. On June 30, 2025, we released the first phase of the

Report Mr. Jason Browning has been affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia as a Visiting Researcher since September 2024. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation, which he plans to submit to the Program of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University. His research investigates the influence of Buddhist philosophy on Islamic thought within the domain of atomism. In this seminar, Mr. Browning discussed the later reception of atomistic theory in the Islamic world, focusing on the towering figure of Ibn al-ʿArabī. The presentation was lucid and ambitious in scope, though its broad scale naturally limited the opportunity to delve into the finer points of textual evidence

Report On Thursday, June 19, 2025, at 2 p.m., Professor Lloyd Ridgeon gave a presentation called, “‘Better a live sparrow than a stuffed Eagle’: Nineteenth-Century British Orientalism and Perceptions of Persian Sufism.” In this presentation, it was argued that nineteenth-century British perceptions of Persian Sufism contribute to the understanding of the contemporary, fraught relations between the two nations. An analysis of the sources (essays, translations, missionary works, travel writings) suggest the British perceptions may be categorised in three ways. The first concerns the quest to discover Sufi origins and includes debates about Aryanism; the second posits the paradigm of Sufis as “dirty and libertarian dervishes”; and the final category presents

Report The Tobunken Seminar featuring Professor Fabrizio Speziale, titled “Noah’s Grandsons and the Elephant: Functions of Persian Pseudonymous Texts in South Asia”, was held on the evening of 2 June 2025, with 16 participants attending in person and 10 joining online. Drawing on his deep erudition, Professor Speziale extended the discussion well beyond the main topic, engaging with the complexities underlying each component of the lecture’s title. His talk stimulated lively questions and comments from the audience, reflecting a range of perspectives.       Event Details Lecture Title:Noah’s Grandsons and the Elephant: Functions of Persian Pseudonymous Texts in South Asia (Abstract below) Speaker: Professor Fabrizio Speziale (École des hautes études

Report Yonsei University Institute of Korean Studies (IKS Director Professor Hyun Joo Kim) hosted editors of the International Journal of Asian Studies (IJAS) for a workshop on 9th May 2025, creating an extended exchange between editors, scholars and graduate students. After an introduction by organiser and Deputy Director of the Yonsei Institute of Korean Studies Professor Wonhee Cho, the workshop began with a keynote lecture by Professor Helen J.S. Lee entitled “Seoul ŭi changa: Kungmin Kayo (国民歌謡), Affect, and History”. Addressing the practicalities and challenges of publishing, IJAS Executive Editor Professor Sebastian Veg provided an expanded discussion of the editorial processes at IJAS. In the afternoon, 7 junior scholars and

Report On March 18, 2025, Tobunken Seminar “International Workshop on Long-Term Social Transformations in Nepal” was held jointly by the Center for Indian Ocean World Studies at Kyoto University (KINDOWS), the IASA research project "Reconsidering Anthropological Studies in the Northern South Asia", and Center for South Asian Studies, the University of Tokyo. In Part 1, Sara Shneiderman (University of British Columbia), and Dipesh Kharel (University of Tokyo) presented on the long-term transformation of two Thangmi villages in Dolakha District, which each has studied for many years. The contrasts and commonalities between the village  closer to the District Headquarter which chose to become a part of the Municipality when the local

Post-Seminar Summary: Dr. Karl Ian Cheng Chua's Lecture on Southeast Asian Scholarship in Global Academia On January 9, 2025, the Japan Foundation-Global Japan Studies (JF-GJS) Initiative and the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo, hosted the fourth installment of the JF-GJS Talk Series. Dr. Karl Ian Cheng Chua, Assistant Professor at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines, delivered a lecture titled “Southeast Asians Can Think Outside of Southeast Asia”, exploring the challenges and opportunities for Southeast Asian scholars in global academia, particularly within Japanese Studies. Dr. Cheng Chua discussed how academic knowledge production remains dominated by Anglo-American and Japanese institutions, with English as the global academic

Report On Thursday, January 16, 2025, from 14:00, the Tōbunken Seminar titled "A new discovery of the 'Huihui Household Registers' in genealogical literature: On nine Muslim families in Jiangning County during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644)" was held, presented by Dr. Zheng Dechang (Fudan University). This seminar was held based on an exchange agreement with Fudan University. In this presentation, a detailed analysis of Huihui Xiaoce, a newly discovered material related to a genealogy compiled by the Ma family during the Qing dynasty was provided, describing the history of nine Muslim families who settled in Jiangning County during the Yuan and Ming dynasties, religious policies of the Yuan and Ming periods,

Report On October 18, 25, and November 1, 2024, the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia hosted a seminar series entitled, "Migration and Identity in the Late Ottoman Empire." The lectures were delivered by Dr. Fuat Dündar (Tobb University of Economics and Technology, Turkey), who has been in Japan as a JSPS invitational fellow and a visiting fellow of IASA since September 2024. There were 6–10 participants at the venue and 8–12 participants online. In the first lecture, Dr. Dündar demonstrated that the immigration policy of the Ottoman Empire from 1850 to 1908 was characterized by the deliberate invitation of Muslim immigrants, guided by the principle of "state and religion."