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シンポジウム “Affecting Spiritual Healing, Re-making (Alternative) Worlds”SYMPOSIUM　　＊＊＊NO ARCHIVES AVAILABLE＊＊＊ 
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Registration deadlines:

– “Discussing” part only: 2024/12/05

– “Discussing” and “Experiencing” parts: 2024/11/30

This symposium explores the relationships between anthropology, phenomenology, spiritual healing, and the transformative process of remaking worlds. The focus is on lived experiences of healing that go beyond medical interventions, emphasizing affects, feelings, and bodily perceptions.

Phenomenological research has highlighted the significance of “remaking a world” in healing processes. This concept, proposed by Das et al. (2001), refers to the transformative efforts by communities and individuals in response to traumatic and insidious violence, addressing suffering, enduring, working through, breaking apart, or transcending the impact of violence at various levels – local worlds, interpersonal relations, and individual lives.

While widely accepted, the concept has faced several criticisms. It has been critiqued for overemphasizing narrative, neglecting the lived, embodied experiences of healing and the structural constraints on individuals’ capacities to transform their realities. Other criticisms include that it overlooks the collective dimensions of healing and may be too rooted in Western individualism, failing to adequately account for non-Western perspectives.

This symposium aims to bridge these gaps by providing accounts of religious and spiritual healing across diverse ethnographic contexts. By focusing on affects, feelings, and bodily perceptions, it highlights the importance of intersubjective lived experiences in the making and remaking of new, different, alternative worlds. By analyzing these transformative processes, it aims to contribute to the understanding of how individuals and communities navigate and transcend their experiences of suffering, ultimately creating new worlds and ways of being in the world which connect to their wellbeing.

The symposium is divided into two parts: “discussing” and “experiencing.” In the “discussing” part, scholars academically explore the topic in a traditional symposium format. In the “experiencing” part, participants engage with the core themes of the symposium through their senses and perception. The goal is to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the topic by integrating both halves.

Program

Saturday, December 7th

DISCUSSING

1:00 PM – 1:05 PM: Andrea De Antoni (Kyoto University)

Opening Remarks and Symposium Overview

1:05 PM – 2:30 PM: Keynote Lecture: Thomas Csordas (UC San Diego)

Alterity and Identity in Religious Healing: The Case of Roman Catholic Exorcism

2:30 PM – 2:40 PM: Coffee Break

2:40 PM – 3:20 PM: Ran Muratsu (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

Distancing from the Emerged “Thing”: Religious Healing and Biomedicines in Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches in Benin

3:20 PM – 4:00 PM: Daniela Calvo (JSPS, Kyoto University)

Remaking a World in Afro-Brazilian Religions. Meaning-Making, Affects and Spiritual Healing Among Brazilian Immigrants in Japan

4:00 PM – 4:10 PM: Coffee Break

4:10 PM – 4:50 PM: Junko Iida (Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare)

Cutting the Birth, Unbinding the Spirit: Exorcist Rituals in Northern Thailand

4:50 PM – 5:45 PM: General Discussion 1

EXPERIENCING

5:45 PM – 6:00 PM: Move to Seibu Hall

6:00 PM~: Networking Event (Catering, Buffet, Provider TBD)

6:30 PM – 7:00 PM: Thomas Csordas Live Performance

7:10 PM – 8:10 PM: ALKDO Live Performance

Sunday, December 8th

10:30 AM – 10:35 AM: Andrea De Antoni (Kyoto University)

Opening Remarks

10:35 AM – 11:15 AM: Miho Ishii (Kyoto University)

From Passion to Compassion: Healing Rituals in an Independent Church in Southern Ghana

11:15 AM – 11:55 AM: Fumihiko Tsumura (Meijo University)

Something Rises: The Materiality of Possession and Magical Powers in Northeastern Thailand

11:55 AM – 12:05 PM: Coffee Break

12:05 PM – 12:45 PM: Andrea De Antoni (Kyoto University)

All Around me are Familiar Faces, Worn-out Places: Feelings and Environments (Re-)Making the Spirit Worlds in Contemporary Okinawa

12:45 – 13:00: Thomas Csordas (UC San Diego)

General Comments

13:00 PM – 1:30 PM: General Discussion 2

Overview of the “Experiencing” Part

This live performance aims to enrich the symposium experience by offering cultural and emotional perspectives aligned with the workshop’s theme. Thomas Csordas is not only known for his groundbreaking research in anthropology and phenomenology and as the keynote speaker of this symposium, but he is also a talented singer-songwriter. He composes acoustic folk-rock music, focusing particularly on protest songs. His performance blends academic discourse, artistic expression, and insights on “remaking alternative worlds,” thereby enriching the symposium experience. The combination of performance and academic discussion allows the event to explore the theme not only intellectually but also through lived, sensory experiences.

Additionally, the invitation of the band “ALKDO” is particularly significant in relation to the symposium’s theme of “constructing alternative worlds.” Operating from the cultural center “Hashinoshita-ya,” which they run by renovating a traditional Japanese house in Toyota City, ALKDO has built strong ties with the local community. Their music fosters understanding and empathy across cultures, offering participants experiences that transcend daily routines. Formed around frontman Yoshiki Nagayama and percussionist Take Mai of the large ensemble band TURTLE ISLAND, ALKDO blends Asian sounds and beats into their unique style called “Acoustic Asian Trad Punk.” Through their activities at Hashinoshita-ya, they incorporate traditional Japanese cultural practices, creating a space where diverse people gather to explore music, art, and communal living. ALKDO’s music resonates deeply through emotions and physical perception, promoting empathy and understanding beyond individual senses.

Such a post-symposium event is expected to complement discussions on cultural diversity and hopes for a sustainable future, providing participants with deep insights and inspiration beyond scholarly discussions.

PERFOMERS’ PROFILES

Thomas Csordas

Thomas Csordas is known for groundbreaking research in anthropology and phenomenology, and he is the keynote speaker of this symposium. Additionally, he is a talented singer-songwriter who composes acoustic folk-rock music, particularly focusing on music production that emphasizes protest and resistance.

ALKDO（https://www.tunecore.co.jp/artists/ALKDO）

ALKDO is a minimal formation consisting of Yoshiki Nagayama (Vo, G), the frontman of the large ensemble band “TURTLE ISLAND,” which operates domestically and internationally based in Toyota City, Mikawa, Aichi Prefecture, and Take Mai (Vo, Taiko), forming an acoustic Asian trad punk duo. They express a world of music and songs that ride on Asian rhythms and beats, embodying a spirit that is simple yet distinctive. While their core is two members, they continuously tour nationwide, adapting their lineup with various members from different places over time. Since 2012, they have co-hosted the Hashinoshita World Music Festival with the microAction label and operate the traditional house-renovated cultural center “Hashinoshita-ya” near Toyota City Station. Beyond music, they actively create a communication space where various expressions and diverse people gather locally on a daily basis. The band name “ALKDO/アルコド” derives from Yoshiki’s roots on the Korean Peninsula; “al” in Hangul means “naked,” and “kdo” stands for “TURTLE ISLAND,” collectively translating to “Naked Turtle Island” or in essence, “Acoustic Turtle Island.”

This lecture will look into the dynamics of Japanese science fiction by tracing back the gradual emergence of the genre through various guises— from extraordinary journeys and war chronicles to political novels and detective fiction, examining how it evolved over time and contexts. It will highlight the pioneering role of postwar writers such as Abe Kōbō and reflect on science fiction’s slow but steady infiltration into mainstream literature at the turn of the 21st century.

Denis Taillandier is Professor at Ritsumeikan University’s College of International Relations. His research focuses on the interplay between science fiction and the scientific discourse in contemporary Japan. He has also published anthologies of Japanese SF in French translation.

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

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87819642692

Meeting ID: 878 1964 2692

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)

17:15

Carmen Sapunaru Tamas (University of Hyogo)

“Not Discrimination but Separation”: Women and Matsuri in Contemporary Japan

17:30

Martina Baradel (Nagoya University)

“I was Always Treated like a Man”:  Women in Japanese Organised Crime

17:45

Maiko Kodaka (Sophia University)

From Performed Desire to Precarious Encounters

18:00

James Welker (Kanagawa University)

Leaving Home to Find Lesbian Selves: Overseas Travel and the (Re)Crafting of Lesbian Identities in 1970s Japan

18:15

Letizia Guarini (Hosei University)

Does Japan Have No Future? Compulsory Allosexuality and Asexual Experiences in Sobakasu (2022)

18:30

Discussion

18:55-19:00

Concluding remarks

This hybrid Workshop will be held on site and via Zoom 

Registration is required in advance by November 21st. Please register here.

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

This talk expands on more than three decades of research that began in 1993 with the publication of the American Institute of Architects-Award-winning book Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan. With the goal of better understanding Wrightʻs philosophical priorities and process of design, his interpretations of traditional Japanese forms are re-examined in the context of current notions otherness, appropriation, abstraction, synthesis, translation and myth.

Kevin Nute is a British American architectural theorist based at the University of Hawaiʻi. He is an internationally recognized authority on the transcultural implications of Japanese architecture. He recently published Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan Revisited: Traditional Japanese Culture as a Means to Modern American Architecture (World Scientific Publishing, 2025).

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

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83190708879

Meeting ID: 831 9070 8879

Concept

This lecture presents a multi-sited ethnography, with a focus on its China component. The overall project, HealthXCross (funded by the European Research Council, 2021–2026), analyzes and compares how scientists in different parts of the world study microbes as entities that connect humans to their environments. It takes into account variations in technologies, methods, approaches, and socio-political contexts.

Microbiome science is popularizing a symbiotic understanding of health and ecology: between 50% and 90% of the cells in the human body are microbial. The microbiome influences metabolism, weight, immunity, allergies, mood, and personality. It is shaped by factors like diet, birth, antibiotics, and social interactions—just as it, in turn, shapes us. Health emerges from this human-microbial ecosystem, challenging an anthropocentric view. The microbiome reveals how humans, microbes, and environments are deeply interconnected in the processes of life.

While microbiome science has revealed how microbes entangle human and environmental health, what remains unclear is how this process may give rise to new cultural concepts and practices of health. To explore this question, the project examines several case studies from regions such as Europe, the United States, Africa, and the Pacific. Since 2023, these cases have been complemented by a dedicated focus on China and Greater China, made possible by FARE funding (Italian Ministry of Research) through the project Microbiome Technoscience in Shanghai and Hong Kong in Pandemic Times: An Anthropological Study. This lecture will discuss preliminary findings from the HealthXCross/FARE project, with particular attention to the intersections of health governance and biopolitics.

Speaker

Roberta Raffaetà is associate professor of Socio-cultural Anthropology at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and Deputy Director of NICHE (The New Institute: The Centre for Environmental Humanities), where she coordinates the research cluster ‘Technoscience, Health and Justice in an Interdependent Planet’. Since obtaining a PhD at the University of Lausanne, she has worked at various universities in Italy and abroad (US, Australia, Switzerland). Her research has been funded by the European Commission, The Italian Ministry of Research, Fulbright, Wenner Gren and others.

This lecture will be held on site and via Zoom.

Registrations are required from here by October 20.

The history of wine consumption throughout the world remains largely unexplored and unwritten. Drawing on a range of sources, including the archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and several contemporary travel accounts from the 17th and 18th centuries, this lecture focuses on two key aspects: firstly, the consumption of wine by European expatriates in maritime Asia, and secondly, the emergence of a local market, primarily in Japan, during the Edo period. Wine is a product that allows us to connect diverse cultures and societies that existed in early modern times.

Joji Nozawa is a professor at Waseda University. He holds a Ph.D. in early modern history from the University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) and teaches history of East-West relations and French language at the Faculty of Education. His research interests include the European East India Companies, the globalization of material culture and French cultural diplomacy.

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

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82947530025

Meeting ID: 829 4753 0025