Research Activities

A summer school “Asian Art, Religion and Historical Studies”, organized by National Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Fudan University and supported by the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo and the Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University, started on 24 June at Fudan University in Shanghai. Attend it 14 graduate students from North American and European universities and the same number of graduate students from Fudan and other universities in Shanghai. Two distinguished professors from three institutions will give a lecture of three hours each and two hours of discussion are scheduled at the end of a day. From our institute, Director Oki and Professor

January 11 (Tuesday), 2011 Venue: 1st Conference room, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo   Date: 15:00-17:00, January 11 (Tuesday), 2011   Speaker : Dr. Stefan Baums（UC, Berkeley）   Title : Gāndhārī Buddhist Commentaries: Their Exegetical Technique and Relationship to Pali and Sanskrit Buddhist Literature   ★Chair Associate Prof. BABA Norihisa(Department of south asian studies, University of Tokyo)          

【Report】 A Tobunken seminar “THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE and THE CAUCASUS in WWI” by ARSLAN Ozan, Lecturer, Department of International Relations and the European Union, Izmir University of Economics was held on Wednesday 21 June.　Here is the brief resume of the conference. Department of International Relations and the European Union, Izmir University of Economics The Great War in the Caucasus covers the period of November 1914 to November 1918. It does not include only the Russian and Ottoman naval and military operations in the Black Sea, the Transcaucasus, Eastern Anatolia and the Northwest Persia between 1914 and 1917 but also a short Ottomano-Transcaucasian war as well as Turkish, British and German

On December 5 (Mon) Professor Kazuo Morimoto gave a lecture at the Universita degli Studi di Napoli, l’Orientali (UNIOR), Tobunken’s new partner in Italy on account of the exchange agreement the two institutions signed in the current academic year. In the first part of the lecture, entitled “How to Behave toward Sayyids and Sharifs: A Trans-sectarian Tradition of Dream Accounts,” Morimoto presented the contour and aims of “sayyido-sharifology” he advocates. He then proceeded to discuss the findings of the most recent study he has conducted in the mentioned subject. During his five-day stay at Napoli from December 3 to 7, Morimoto discussed different possibilities of future cooperation between the two

A Chinese daily newspaper, Dongfang Zaobao, based at Shanghai, published an interview of Professor Haneda Masashi on the front page of its weekly magazine, Shanghai Review of Books. Professor Haneda explains in detail his concept of new world history there. The interviewer heard Professor Haneda’s lecture on the idea of new world history given at the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies of Fudan University on the 1 June and requested to interview him later. Professor Haneda is conducting a joint research project on new world history with more than fifty colleagues funded by the JSPS grant-in-aid. The interview published in Chinese could encourage further his collaboration with international researchers. Interview（PDF,864KB)

Todai Forum 2011 in France was held in the middle of October at Paris and Lyon. It is a kind of academic festival organized by the University of Tokyo in collaboration with numerous French institutions. On 20 and 21 October, IASA held a conference entitled “Local History in the Context of Global History” at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon with the full-scale cooperation of the Institut d’Asie Orientale. From IASA, Director Haneda Masashi, Professors Kuroda Akinobu and Yasutomi Ayumu and Assistant Professor Tsuji Asuka took part in the conference. As a token of close and friendly relationship with our institute, two Chinese scholars coming from the Institute of Advanced

On 1st June, Professor Haneda Masashi, invited by the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Fudan University, gave a lecture entitled ” Designing a New World History”. He criticized the current Japanese interpretation of euro-centric world history and explained three ways of describing a new world history, which will underline the commonality of various people on the globe. The discussion after the lecture was very alived by a number of questions asked by young students. This Lecture is introduced by Fudan University: http://www.iahs.fudan.edu.cn/cn/news.asp?action=page&id=386

Following the academic agreement concluded last year by our institute, Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Fudan University and East Asian Program at Princeton University, the East Asian Studies Department of Princeton University generously sent us more than forty books published recently by the staffs of the department. Three huge volumes on the history of Science in China by Professor Benjamin Elman, chair of the department, are among them. We will conserve these precious books in our library and put them to public use as soon as possible.  

The conference titled “Iran, Art and Society” was held with Dr. David Galloway, the former chief curator of Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977, on the 5th of November, 2011. Art in Iran is often categorized as “Middle Eastern” or “Islamic”. However, by considering art in Iran in relation to the worldwide art scene by focusing on the role of museum, the conference aimed at deepening the discussion of how to write the world history more effectively. Firstly, Dr. Galloway introduced the cultural background. Secondly, Terada Yuki interviewed Dr. Galloway and asked about the relation between the art in Iran and the worldwide art scene.      

date: December 17, 2010 Venue: University of Tokyo title：roduksi Padi dan Impor Beras Indonesia Selama 40 Tahun: Sebuah Catatan

Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia concluded an Agreement on Academic exchange with Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale. Ever since its establishment in 18th century, Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale has played a major role as a hub for Asian Studies not alone in Italy but in Europe. Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale is actively developing its education and research activities of Asian regions in the fields of humanities and social sciences. We would like to promote this academic exchange with Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale through the human exchange of researchers by mutual visits, joint symposia, and exchange of academic information and materials. Neapolitan ville,

The Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia was founded in 1941 as a research institute attached to The University of Tokyo (Tokyo Imperial University at that time) with the objective of carrying out “comprehensive studies regarding Oriental culture.” Last year, in 2011, it commemorated the 70th anniversary of its founding. The main areas that are the subject of studies at our institute range from Egypt to the Korean Peninsula (Japan is included indeed). In each region within this vast scope, we are conducting diligent studies in fields as different as politics, economy, religion, history, archaeology, literature, art and so on. Both archival research (both written and non-written materials) and on-site

Date ： Thursday, 1 March 2012, 16:00-18:00 Venue ： Large Meeting Room (Dai-kaigisitu), Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, The University of Tokyo Speaker ： Michael Feener (National University of Singapore) Title ： “Changing Configurations of Alid Piety in Indonesian Islam” The presentation will be based on some new work that will be published later this year in a forthcoming book that I have edited with Chiara Formichi entitled, Shi`ism and Beyond: `Alid Piety in Muslim Southeast Asia (London Institute of Ismaili Studies Series/ I.B. Tauris). Moderator　： Haneda Masashi (Director & Professor, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia) This seminar is open for public. 【Report】 A Tobunken seminar “Changing Configuration

Title：Mongols in 14th Century Italian Painting: New Evidences Speaker：Michele Bernardini (Istituto Universitario Orientale, Napoli) Date：Wednesday, 22 February 2012, 16:00-18:00 Venue：Large Meeting Room (Dai-kaigisitu), Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, The University of Tokyo Report： The institute invited Professor Michele Bernardini of University of Naples, Orientale, famous scholars in the field of Iranian studies, in the framework of the academic exchange programme recently concluded by the two institutions. At the seminar on 22 February 2012, Professor Bernardini introduced a number of Mongol-like figures appeared on various paintings in medieval Italy and discussed their artistic features. He also explained reasons of the birth of this particular genre of paintings. It was a

Dates: 15 and 16 February 2012. Venue: Main Meeting Room, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo abstracts: PDF(416KB) schedule >>  Day One: Money as Social Circuit: anonymous currency and named credit (Toyota Foundation Research Project, D10-R-0091) 930-1010 Kuroda Akinobu , U Tokyo, Unfixed Money: Revisiting Global Monetary History from Mezzoscopic Viewpoint Comments by Farley Grubb, U Delaware Chaired by Cha Myung Soo, Yeungnam 1020-1140 Laurence Fontaine , CNRS, CMH-ENS-EHESS, Money as Social Circuit: The Circulation of Objects and Credit in Early Modern Europe Leigh Gardner , London School of Economics, Money and Credit in Medieval Europe and Colonial Africa: A Comparative Study Comments by Bruno Théret, CNRS,

Rethinking of the Role of China and Japan in the Early Modern World: The Great Reversal Following the academic agreement concluded last year by our institute, Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Fudan University and East AsianProgram at Princeton University, Professor Benjamin Elman, Chair of Department of East Asian Studies at Princeton University gave a special lecture at our institute. Date: June 6, 2011 (Mon) Time: 15:30 – 17:30 Title: Rethinking of the Role of China and Japan in the Early Modern World: The Great Reversal Lecturer: Professor Benjamin Elman, Chair of Department of East Asian Studies at Princeton University Moderator: Professor HANEDA Masashi, Director of Institute for Advanced Studies

Seminar on “How to Use AsiaBarometer,” which is one of the activities of “Frontier of Comparative Studies of Asian Societies” financially supported by the JSPS Asia-Africa Scientific Platform Program, was hel on 11th and 12th of July, 2011. This is the second round of the seminar, following the patterns of last year’s. All the participants, 2 from South Korea, 4 from China, 3 from Taiwan, attended whole the seminar. They listened to Prof. Sonoda’s lecture on the brief history of AsiaBarometer and its contents of the research as well as Prof. Zong-rong Lee’s speech on his experience of using AsiaBarometer dataset in the last round. After that, they presented their