NEWSymposium: New Perspective on Taisho Japan

Symposium: New Perspective on Taisho Japan

Date: April 18, 2026, 9:15-18:45

Place: International Conference, Dialogue House

8:30        Doors Open 

9:00    Welcome Address and Introduction to the Concept of the Taishō Edited Volume 

Nadine Willems, University of East Anglia (UK) 

9:15-10:45     New Aspirations in the Taishō Era 

Chair and Discussant: Ian Rapley 

「自己解放」の時代——内省と改造の行方 (The Era of ‘Self-Liberation’: A Path towards Introspection and Transformation) [In Japanese] 

Fuke Takahiro, Kyoto University (Japan)  

“Esperanto estas la Latino de la Demokratio”: International Language Ideals and Politics in Taishō Japan 

Edwin Michielsen, Hong Kong University (China) and Eugenia Gudieva, Waseda University (Japan) 

Colonial Taiwan and Transwar Anarchist Trajectories: Empire and the Question of Decolonial Politics  

Ya Hsun Chan, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (Taiwan) 

Enjoying Genocide: On the Superegoic Injunction Driving the Kantō Massacre 

Sašo Dolinšek, Osaka University (Japan) 

10:45-11:15    Coffee Break 

11:15-12:45    The “Places” of Grassroots Taishō

Chair and Discussant: Morisato Takeshi 

Shūyō among Female Factory Workers: Self-Cultivation and Gender in Modern Japan  

Ōsawa Ayako, Tōhoku University (Japan) 

 Asakusa Cinemas and Their Audiences in the 1910s 

Irena Hayter, University of Leeds (UK) 

 The Nakamuraya Bakery as a Meeting Point of Ideas 

Ian Rapley, Cardiff University (UK) 

Shinkō buyō: the Rise of Modern Dance

Innami Fusako, Durham University (UK) 

12:45-13:45    Lunch Break 

13:45-15:15    Border Crossing, Imagination, and Spirituality 

Chair and Discussant: Nadine Willems 

Re-entering Rashomon: How Do We Break Through the “Shining Darkness” of Akutagawa’s Literary Existentialism? 

Morisato Takeshi, University of Edinburgh (UK) 

The Dissemination of Reigaku (Spiritual Learning) during the Taishō Period 

Namiki Eiko, International Christian University (Japan) 

Taisho at Sea: Maritime Literature and Imagining Africa across the Indian Ocean 

Robert Fletcher, University of Missouri (US) 

A Southern Islander Meets the Northern Continent: Nobori Shomu in Soviet-Russia 

Amano Naoki, Sophia University (Japan) 

15:15-15:45    Break 

15:45-17:00    Reading (in) the Taishō Era 

Chair and Discussant: Irena Hayter 

Print Culture and the Taishō Intellectual Landscape 

Andrew Kamei-Dyche, Aoyama Gakuin University (Japan) 

Playing with Identity: A Nishidian Reading of Higuchi Ichiyō’s Takekurabe 

Denise Ee Ting Ho, The University of Edinburgh (UK) 

The Literary Zeitgeist at the End of Taishō Twelve: Magazine Editors and the Great Kantō Earthquake of September 1923  

Claire Demenez, University of East Anglia (UK)  

17:00-17:15    Break 

17:15-18:45    Multifaceted Taishō Rurality 

Chair and Discussant: Innami Fusako  

宮沢賢治作品における労働の芸術化の試みと表現　「オツベルと象」を軸として　(Miyazawa Kenji’s Literary Experiments and Representations of Transforming Labor into Art: Focusing on Otsubel and the Elephant) [In Japanese] 

Ōshima Takeshi, Bunkyō University (Japan)  

Blossoming Upon the Earth: Sumii Sue’s Anarcho-feminism and Continuities in Rural Radicalism　 

Tyler Walker, Western Washington University (US) 

Cosmopolitanism in the Nagano Mountains: Reconsidering Rural Educational Experiments  

Nadine Willems, University of East Anglia (UK) 

18:45-19:30    General Discussion and Conclusions 

*You can download the poster from here.