Message from the Director
During the last academic year the Center initiated mainly two
types of events. One of them was intended basically for students and non-academics. We for
example in June invited Professor Sun Ge from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.
She gave us a lecture on the challenges that China was facing at that time, and it became a great
opportunity for all attendants to think about many topical issues such as Tibetan independence and the Sichuan earthquake. We also hold the Symposium ‘China, Okinawa: Possibilities of
umentary/Art’ in October. In this conference we invited various guests from home and abroad,
such as Mr. Wu Wenguang, a documentary film director from China, and Mr. Nakazato Isao,
a film critic from Okinawa. This event was quite epoch-making in the history of the Center
because this was the first time for us to set films as the theme of such a gathering;
it was also new for us to screen films (the ones directed by Mr. Wu) in the opening of a conference.
The Symposium itself was very successful in that we had a large audience, including students,
and could have very stimulating discussions. I thus would like to thank all those who helped us
organize this big event, especially collaborators and translators from Yamagata Documentary Film
Festival and the chair of the Symposium, Mr. Ikegami Yoshihiro, the chief editor of the journal
Gendai-shiso (Contemporary Thought).
Another main event that the Center organized during the last academic year
was the international Symposium held in March: ‘Democracy and Nationalism in Asia
and the West’ (in collaboration with the Faculty of Law, Seikei University). The Center has
in fact organized a conference on a similar theme before; it was the Symposium ‘The Future of
Democracy in Asia and Europe’, held in March 1992 in commemoration of the tenth anniversary
of the foundation of the Center. Professor Kato Takashi, the director of the Center then, and
Professor John Dunn from Cambridge University, a main speaker sixteen years ago, were also
present in the conference of this spring. It is therefore very significant for the Center to
have held a symposium on the issue of democracy again, in the sense that we could examine what
has changed and what remained unchanged in our concerns and historical contexts during those
years that separate those two meetings. The speeches given in the Symposium will be published
in a book in the near future; it will be an important product of a joint research project
supported by the Center, ‘Democracy and Nationalism’(rep. Professor Kato), which is in
the third and last year of the project at the moment.
In this academic year, too, we will organize more events and conferences that
serve both academics and non-academics. For instance we are now planning to screen more films
and hold public lectures as our continuous efforts to give people the chance to consider issues
in Asia and the Pacific region, so please look forward to them.
In order for the Center to initiate such events with more vigor, we have
introduced a new post in our stuff members this April. We had long hoped, since its foundation,
to have the rofessional researcher who belongs to the Center; and we now have a long-awaited
Chief Research Fellow with us, thanks to the full support of the University and the Seikei-gakuen
to the request we made last year. From now on he and I will lead in tandem for planning the events
initiated by the Center and editing our Journal and newsletters, in cooperation with other stuff
members.
One of the main tasks that the Center has put a great deal of efforts into for long is to improve
our supporting system for young researchers. And as a fruit of such efforts, we launch this academic
year a new grant program for those who wish to publish his/her doctoral thesis. We are also now
under the consideration of introducing a new support program for post-doctoral students. Therefore
if you are interested in these new initiatives of ours, please keep watch on our newsletters, website,
etc.
As you can see now, the Center, the only research institution of the University
with an inter-disciplinary character, are serving all kinds of people including professional
academics, post-doctors, postgraduates, undergraduates and sometimes the general public, and
will to do so. So please feel free to come to the events that we organize, and always let us
know what you think about the activities that the Center initiates!
