Country Report 2009
JAPAN
The English Literary Society of Japan held its annual meeting at Tokyo University on 30-31 May 2009. Thirteen symposia were organised and fifty-odd individual papers were read on English and American literature and on the history of English. As the largest comprehensive conference mainly on literature, organisers consider the balance of themes every year. Facing a crisis of literary studies after the university reform introduced from 2004 by the government’s economic policy and the gradual decrease of high-school graduates (as a result of the falling birthrates), some subjects of symposia articulate deep concern about future education of English literature. The next meeting will be at Kobe University on 29-30 May 2010, when Beowulf to Edgar Allan Poe will be discussed in twelve symposia. (http://www.elsj.org/)
The English Linguistic Society of Japan, the largest linguistic society in our country, held its annual meeting at Osaka University on 14-15 November 2009. A workshop on the present and future studies on “case” and student workshops were offered before the main conference. Symposia on syntax, collocation, comparative studies between English and Japanese, metaphor, etc. were organized and thirty-odd papers were read. The next meeting will be at Nihon University (Tokyo) on 13-14 November 2010; a reunion of linguistics and philology in a practical way, e.g. how to analyse a particular structure linguistically and philologically, will be discussed there in a symposium. (http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/elsj/)
The Japan Society for Medieval English Studies (JSMES) held its annual meeting at Keio University (Tokyo) on 28-29 November 2009. One of the symposia to be noted was entitled “‘Gothic’ and Modern: In Memoriam Derek Brewer”, organised by Toshiyuki Takamiya, Professor Emeritus, Keio University, and Japanese disciples of Prof. Brewer were invited among the audience. Fifteen papers on Old and Middle English language and literature were read. The next meeting will be at Osaka University of Education on 4-5 December 2010. (http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jsmes/)
From among many other meetings and conferences, a relatively young society is to be introduced on this occasion. The Society of Historical English Language and Linguistics (SHELL), organised by Yoshiyuki Nakao (Hiroshima), who is also the current president of JSMES, held its third international conference at Hiroshima University on 28-30 August 2009, where Antonette diPaolo Healey (Toronto), Hans Sauer (Munich), Young-Bae Park (Kookmin, Seoul) were invited and read plenary papers, together with two Japanese scholars, Akira Wada (Professor Emeritus, Yamaguchi) and Michiko Ogura (Chiba). Besides twenty-odd papers by Japanese scholars and graduate students, Robert Stevick (Washington), Leena Kahlas-Tarkka (Helsinki) and John Scahill (Keio) read their individual papers. As Hiroshima has a long tradition of Chaucer studies under the influence of a pioneer scholar Michio Masui, his followers held a symposium on the language and style of Chaucer. The Society meets biennially and the fourth conference will be at Chiba University on 1-3 September 2011. (shell@hiroshima-u.ac.jp)
To name a few recent publications, chiefly international: Meiko Matsumoto, From Simple Verbs to Periphrastic Expressions: The Historical Development of Composite Predicates, Phrasal Verbs, and Related Constructions in English (Linguistic Insights 81, Peter Lang, 2008), Kiriko Sato, The Development from Case-Forms to Prepositional Constructions in Old English Prose (Linguistic Insights 88, Peter Lang, 2009) and Naoë Kikuta Yoshikawa, Margery Kempe’s Meditations: The Context of Medieval Devotional Literatures, Liturgy and Iconography (The University of Wales Press, 2007). Mention should also be made of Toshiyuki Takamiya and Takami Matsuda (edd.), Introduction to Medieval English Literature (Yushodo, 2008 [Japanese]), a useful volume full of information on various aspects of medieval studies. Even though it is written in Japanese, bibliography and technical terms are all in English, so that readers may not be misled by an unknown tongue.