Conferences and Workshops

Conferences and workshops on specific topics are typically organized in collaboration with Japanese and European universities or research institutes. The École Française d’Extrême-Orient and the Institute for Research in Humanities are the preferred partners for these conferences, but the collaboration in this field is not exclusive. For over thirty years, the School has been a presence in the international scientific community among foreign research centers in Japan, providing a venue to present ongoing research findings.

Conferences and Workshops

Crafting Identities

Femininities and Masculinities in Contemporary Japan

22 November, 2025 17:00-19:00(JST) 9:00-11:00(CET)

Concept

In Japan, gender has always been more than a fixed category. Especially in modern and contemporary contexts, it emerges as a dynamic site of negotiation, transformation, and commodification. The ways in which femininities and masculinities are shaped through labor, media, institutions, and everyday interactions reveal an ongoing process of identity construction that moves beyond rigid binaries.

This symposium brings together scholars whose work explores how gendered selves are (re)crafted across diverse spheres, from sacred ritual to organized crime, from digital platforms to global activism, and from fictional representations to lived experience. Together, these perspectives illustrate how gender in Japan continues to be performed, contested, and commodified across time and space. By engaging scholars from gender studies, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and Japanese studies, this event aims to foster critical discussion on the diverse ways femininities and masculinities are being reshaped in response to social, technological, and political change, revealing the multiplicity of paths through which individuals and communities create, inhabit, and transform gendered identities.

Program

17:00

Opening Address

Gianluigi Benedetti (Ambassador of Italy in Japan)

Giorgio Amitrano (University of Naples L’Orientale, ISEAS Scientific Committee)

Greetings

Silvana De Maio (Director of the Italian Cultural Institute, Tokyo)

Andrea De Antoni (Kyoto University, ISEAS Research Coordinator)

Chair

Marta Fanasca (University of Bologna)