Call for Papers Deadline Extended to July 24, 2024

We are extending the deadline for the call for paper.

The Society for the Study of Japonisme International Symposium 2024 “Japonisme and Colour”

The Society for the Study of Japonisme is pleased to announce the 2024 edition of its International Symposium, co-organized with the Ebara Hatakeyama Memorial Foundation. Under the general theme “Japonisme and Colour,” the symposium aims to examine the phenomena of Japonisme from a wide range of viewpoints. This year’s symposium will be held in person in Tokyo, with the option of participating online via zoom. Presentations and discussions will take place both in person and on-line with simultaneous translation into English or Japanese. Please note that we might have to make changes to our schedule or even reschedule the entire symposium.

Japonisme and Colour

In the early twentieth century, Lafcadio Hearn / Koizumi Yakumo called Japan ‘the land of perfect good taste in chromatics’. Hearn was by no means unique in expressing such a marked fascination with the use of colours in Japanese art, culture and society. Indeed, colour has acted as a hinge in the exchanges between Japanese and Western cultures, a means of revealing both cultural differences and similarities. As colour technologies transform across time, Japanese colours embody the tension between tradition and modernity. Straddling all media (painting, photography, architecture, literature, etc.) and disciplines (art history, anthropology, sociology, science, etc.) colour is thus an ideal topic to explore the multi-faceted nature of japonisme.

  • The use, perception and translation of the colours of Japan across the arts
  • Colour symbolism, exoticism, eclecticism
  • Colour materialities and technologies (traditional and new crafts of colour, pigments and dyes)
  • Colour and the body
  • Colour and performance
  • Colour in nature and the environment
  • Scientific and/or religious uses of colour

Date: Sunday December 1, 2024

Place: Musashino Art University, Ichigaya Campus Access | Musashino Art University (musabi.ac.jp) / Hybrid Symposium

Organizers: The Society for the Study of Japonisme / Ebara Hatakeyama Memorial Foundation

Language: Japanese or English (with simultaneous interpretation)

Requirements: The Society for the Study of Japonisme membership.

Non-members may sign up when submitting their proposals (see the “Join Us” page on our website https://japonisme-studies.jp/join-us/). Your proposal will be considered once the Board of Directors approves your membership application.Please email an abstract for a 20-minute presentation as attachment (single-page A4 document of about 300 words) to the address below by 17:00, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, Japan Standard Time (Extended Deadline).

Submissions will be reviewed by the Board of Directors and accepted applicants will be notified around Thursday, August 15.

Please note that we don’t accept papers which have been published elsewhere.

Accepted applicants will be asked to submit their manuscripts by Sunday, November 17 for the purpose of simultaneous translation. If you will be participating in the symposium virtually, please also submit pre-recorded video presentations.

The symposium will be held in person in Tokyo, with the option of participating online via zoom.

Send enquiries and proposals to: japonisme.kokusai.symposium@gmail.com
(The Society for the Study of Japonisme, Directors in Charge: Hitomi INOUE, Yu KISHI)