The International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Kyoto, Japan) is pleased to announce an opening for a foreign scholar to reside at the Center and participate during the Japanese academic year 2007-2008 in the following team research project:
Culture spread beyond time and space. It is revitalized and is transformed through the encounter with other culture. Culture is being conscious when other culture emerges. At the same time, it raises sense of property which excludes others, to protect the culture or to gain profit out of it.
Thus, culture have two opposite aspects: owning and spreading. The most radical problem occurred by the two opposite aspects emerges in intellectual properties right, especially copyright. Responding the requests from big companies of cultural industry of inside and outside Japan, Government of Japan (GOJ) is putting pro-copyright policies forward, imitating USA.
Many categories of subculture like manga and anime are recognized as the typical intellectual properties of Japan; GOJ made policies to utilize their soft-power in the world market. The manga and anime market in the world, however, is not produced by the efforts of GOJ and cultural industry of Japan after the mid 90s. We cannot deny the facts that the world diffusion of manga and anime is achieved by illegal activities like pirated copies and individual enthusiasm of overseas supporters.
Nowadays, Japanese-style manga and anime affect the world visual culture. It can be said that the soft-power enhancement policies of GOJ proclaim a new property of Japan whereas they were spread by people’s effort and transformed adapting local culture. We should do further discussion whether such policies really enhance the internationality of Japanese culture.
Surveying “traditional culture,” which is regarded as important Japanese soft-power, most of them existed before the establishment of copyright. That means, pro-copyright is clearly not the only way for producing culture which could be handed down to posterity.
Renga, highly popular poetry during the Middle Ages, for example, is a cooperative creation unique to Japan. It is a kind of poetry style that blends plural poets’ creativity together to make a series of Renga. The poets neither insist nor abandon their personality; at the same time, the work remains taste beyond the aggregation of each poets’ abilities. Renga is based on a principle of making creative culture; it is opposite to copyright, which prizes the subject of the creation. Nô-gaku and chano-yu, representative Japanese “traditional culture,” have the same tradition as Renga’s cooperative creation.
What kind of stance is required about “Owning and Spreading Culture” to realize a society which produce rich culture? We are aiming to grope to find a way opposite to pro-copyright.
This team research project will not side with neither incentive nor human rights copyright theory and will not place a special emphasis on information control model and operation of law. Instead of them, we quest the principle of producing rich culture, studying cultural transformation and creation through open exchange of information among people, and looking the dynamism at the field where “Owning and Spreading Culture” causes conflicts.
At the end of this project, we aim to reshape “academic knowledge” into “enlightenment knowledge” concerning this topic.
For this fellowship, we especially welcome applications from younger scholars. The position is open with regard to discipline, and applicants need not be specialists of Japan; indeed, those able to offer comparative perspectives are especially welcome. However, discussions and presentations will be in Japanese, so knowledge of the language would be distinctly preferable. Most importantly, applicants should:
The fellow is expected to arrive in Kyoto someday between April 1 and October 3l, 2007; the fellowship runs from your arrival until March 31, 2008. The fellow will be given roundtrip economy airfare, paid a monthly stipend each month roughly equivalent to that of Center faculty of similar age and experience, and enjoy the library, research, and other privileges of faculty at the Center.
Application forms may be obtained by writing to:
Research Support Section
Research Cooperation Division
International Research Center for Japanese Studies
3-2 Oeyama-cho, Goryo
Nishikyo-ku
Kyoto 610-1192, JAPANTel : +81-75-335-2044
Fax : +81-75-335-2092
e-mail:
Alternatively, the application form may be downloaded as a PDF file (140KB).
Questions regarding the details of the research project may be sent to Associate Professor Shoji YAMADA at the Center address, by e-mail at
The deadline for applications is June 30, 2006