Past Events

28 September 2005

The Japanese Employment System: Adapting to a New Economic Environment

This comprehensive study looks at how the employment system is adapting to its new economic environment. Using the latest statistical evidence, the book focuses on the growing use of part-time and other forms of atypical employment relationships, and illustrates how this is expressed in several different parts of the labour market. Particular attention is given to the changing situation of women, the decline of the family enterprise, the problems faced by older workers, the poor prospects for recent high school graduates, and the recent rise in unemployment.

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21 September 2005

Does Heritage Matter? Is the past serving the present in Japan and Europe?

In both Europe and Japan, though, while spending on heritage is at record levels, heritage practitioners are being forced to be innovative in making heritage of relevance to the contemporary world. The speakers considered the justification for public support for heritage projects, the efficacy of heritage policies, and the appropriateness of heritage in contemporary society.

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19 September 2005

Wings of the Cicada: textiles and kimono by Takeshi Kitamura and the Usuhata Group

Woven from silk, ra is a delicate material and was highly prized in ancient China; few examples of it have survived. The ra garment was included in a touring exhibition of Chinese artefacts in Japan and one of the people to see it was Takeshi Kitamura. He was profoundly moved by it and began his own experiments to rediscover the lost knowledge of how to weave ra. After several years of study and experimentation, he finally succeeded. For this achievement, he was honoured by the Japanese government as a Living National Treasure (Important Intangible Cultural Property) in 1995.

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16 June 2005

The Performing Arts: Culture and Practice in the UK and Japan

The touring of international productions, the training of performers in different methods and techniques, and the lessons that are learned, both artistically and culturally, were explored by our speakers and chairperson who have each worked in an international performance context and are involved in ongoing initiatives to encourage and support collaboration in the performing arts.

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24 May 2005

Hokusai and His Age: Ukiyo-e Painting, Printmaking and Book Illustration in Late Edo Japan

Although best known for his landscape print series, Hokusai also excelled in book illustration, erotica, privately commissioned woodcuts, and paintings of historical and legendary themes. This volume provides new insights into the diverse aspects of Hokusai’s life and work in essays by Asano Shugo, Gian Carlo Calza, John T Carpenter, Timothy Clark, Doris Croissant, Julie Nelson Davis, Roger Keyes, Kobayashi Fumiko, Kobayashi Tadashi, Kubota Kazuhiro, Naito Masato, David Pollack, John M Rosenfield, Timon Screech, Henry D Smith II and Tsuji Nobuo.

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12 May 2005

Japan’s Global Role: the Diplomacy of Aid, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding

The March 2005 meeting of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, held in Tokyo and Nagoya, highlighted various areas of UK-Japan cooperation in responding to global challenges. Peace and security, as well as aid issues, increasingly dominate the geopolitical agenda. How both countries might work together in future to share knowledge and experience and to meet these global challenges were addressed by the speaker, Professor Akiko Yamanaka, a former Member of Japan’s House of Representatives with an extensive portfolio of involvements relating to international diplomacy and security and crisis management.

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3 May 2005

New Paradigm in Macroeconomics

‘New Paradigm in Macroeconomics’ is published by Palgrave Macmillan. It is both a powerful and important book, which challenges both much received wisdom and the role of the Bank of Japan.

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7 April 2005

UK-Japan Overtures: Developments and Collaborations in Music

From the introduction of the Western classical tradition to Japan in the Meiji period to the study of Japanese traditional music in the West, the cross-currents of influence have evolved in a range of performance contexts. Music education in Britain has been enriched by the influence of Yamaha and Suzuki methods while Japanese artists and musicians have become central to the international music scene.

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