From day selection to weather forecasting, divination was widely used in Edo-period society, as evidenced by the variety of printed books and manuscripts produced on the subject. Many of these works include diagrams as well as images depicting the possible fates awaiting clients and readers. This lecture will sketch the history of such images, explore their distinctive features, and consider the role they may have played in shaping and disseminating social norms.

Matthias Hayek is Professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études–PSL. His research focuses on the reception, adaptation, and uses of Chinese correlative cosmology in Japan. He is the author of Les Mutations du Yin et du Yang : divination, société et représentations au Japon, du vie au xixe siècle (Collège de France, 2021).

This hybrid lecture will be held on site (registration required in advance from here) and via Zoom.

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84157148024

Meeting ID: 841 5714 8024

9 luglio 2025    16:30-19:00 JST  (9.30-12.00 CEST)

Concept

Nel centenario della nascita di Italo Calvino, l’ISEAS intende offrire un contributo alla conoscenza del fecondo rapporto intrattenuto dallo scrittore con la cultura del Giappone. La scelta della sede ISEAS, situata a Kyoto, città dove Calvino ha soggiornato e che gli ha ispirato alcuni scritti memorabili, riveste un significato simbolico particolare.

Il workshop si terrà in italiano e in modalità ibrida (in presenza e online).

This workshop will be conducted in Italian.

Zoom Meeting ID: 827 2865 6382

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82728656382

Luogo: 29 Kitashirakawa Bettō-chō, Sakyō-ku, Kyoto 606-8276

Japan’s modern legal system originated with the transplant of Western law in the Meiji period. Within three decades Japan was transformed into a centralised country with a constitution, codes, and a structured system of courts staffed by professional jurists.

This lecture traces the birth and development of Japanese comparative law studies and institutions, showing how comparative law not only paved the way for the reception of Western law, but was also instrumental in the emergence of an original Japanese jurisprudence.

Andrea Ortolani is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Tsukuba. His research focuses on legal transplants, legal evolution, and on Japanese law and its interactions with foreign jurisprudence.

This hybrid lecture will be held on site (registration required in advance from here) and via Zoom.

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84487130281

Meeting ID: 844 8713 0281

Mizoguchi Kenji (1898-1956) always had problems with censors. This presentation analyzes The Naimushō (Ministry of Internal Affairs)’s censorship, 1925-1945, taking Mizoguchi’s Gion no kyodai (Sisters of the Gion, 1936), one of the most critically acclaimed films of the 1930s Japanese cinema, as a case study. Censorship is recast as a process involving criticism, reception, and negotiation. The analysis reconstructs the censors’ logic, goal, and professional consciousness based on their published memos, interviews, the censored script, and the surviving film text.

Chika Kinoshita is a professor of Film Studies at the Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies at Kyoto University. She has published the award-winning book Mizoguchi Kenji: Aesthetics and Politics of the Film Medium (Hosei University Press, 2016), and essays and chapters on cinema, gender, and sexuality in English and Japanese.

This hybrid lecture will be held on site (registration required in advance from here) and via Zoom.

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81327602950

Meeting ID: 813 2760 2950

Although qigong is widely regarded as a traditional Chinese body practice, scholars have argued that it was “invented” as a therapeutic practice in the 1950s. Yet, despite its relatively recent origins, qigong continues to be practiced and “reinvented” through bodily techniques and embodied experiences across diverse cultural settings. Drawing on ethnographic research, this lecture explores how practitioners engage with the sensory and affective dimensions of qigong, revealing its transformation from an “invented tradition” into an “embodied tradition”.

Huang Xinzhe is a senior researcher at the Kinugasa Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University. His research explores qigong and spiritual practices in China and Japan. He recently published a book in Japanese (The Anthropology of Qi: Embodied experience in Qigong Practices, Sekai Shisōsha 2025) based on his PhD dissertation.

This hybrid lecture will be held on site (registration required in advance from here) and via Zoom.

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84974847315

Meeting ID: 849 7484 7315