I write this minutes after Samurai Blues were knocked out of the World Cup by a resurgent Brazil, after keeping us on tenterhooks, and highly entertained, well into the second half. Ah well, as they say in Japan どんまい、次は頑張ろ. As Naomi Osaka reminded us on the opening day of the Wimbledon season, though, Japan wins hands down in terms of cool sports wear.
It felt like a Japanese summer here in East Anglia over the past week – as June temperature records repeatedly tumbled across Europe.
We were, then, perhaps fortunate to undertake our pilgrimage from Norwich to Little Walsingham before the heat dome formed over Norfolk. Over four days some thirty intrepid pilgrims walked some 50 miles (80 kilometres), with weather ranging from sunshine to thunder and lightning. We received unforgettably hospitable welcomes in churches and village halls all along the route, which took us along disused railways tracks, forest glades, haunted hollow ways, and even dual carriageways as we followed the Walsingham Way, one of medieval Europe’s most significant pilgrimage routes. Congratulations and thanks to everyone who joined us, and in particular our inspiring guest speakers and walking pros Susan Whitfield and Olivia Butler. Thank you also to the UEA Impact Fund for ensuring we could all soak tired feet in hot water and sleep in comfy beds at the end of each day. Watch this space for news on the Japan counterpart – most likely in late 2028.
I was only a couple of days off the plane from Japan when the pilgrimage began. One of many highlights of the trip was a visit to Fukui prefecture where we were hosted by Tomokatsu Uozu and Daichi Yamaguchi of the Fukui Prefectural Archaeology Centre and their colleagues. Mindful of my interests in prehistory, we were taken to the Mimuro Jomon site and the adjacent elementary school where the kids were practicing for their forthcoming Jomon festival. We greatly enjoyed joining them on their wild boar hunt and were hugely impressed by the enthusiasm for archaeology on display. We also visited the new Ichijōdani Museum. Ichijōdani, the mountain fastness capital of the Asakura clan prior to its destruction by Oda Nobunaga, featured in our Archaeology of Medieval Towns project, and has latterly been the subject of a new book by one of our original Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellows, (now) Professor Morgan Pitelka of the University of North Carolina. It was a particular pleasure to meet Professor Ono Masatoshi again, who has done so much to promote medieval archaeology in Japan, in particular at Ichijōdani.
I also had the opportunity to visit one of the ‘greats’ of European Japanese Studies at his home in Bonn. Professor Josef Kreiner has pioneered the anthropology of Okinawa and the Ryukyus over a long and distinguished career, as well as the Ainu. A particularly impactful contribution has been the exceptional survey of Japanese materials in European collections, a foundational work for ongoing work in this area which is also close to many projects undertaken by the Institute. By luck it was spärgel season on the Rhine!
Our June Third Thursday Lecture was delivered in person and online by our current Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow, Dr Clara Momoko Geber-Mérida, who introduced a spellbound audience to the world of women in the craft neighbourhood of Arakawa in Tokyo. Many thanks to Dr Victoria Cann for her report on this talk which you can read here.
We close this season of Third Thursdays with, In the Shadow of Empire: Art in Occupied Japan, a lecture from another of our former Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellows, Professor Alicia Volk of the University of Maryland. Alicia will be speaking as part of our first Ishibashi Foundation Network Leader Fellowship conference, which we will hold in Norwich and London in July. In addition to Prof Volk’s lecture, on 9th July, at the start of the conference, Professor Bert Winther-Tamaki from the University of California, Irvine, will be speaking at Norwich Castle on “Militia of Freedom”: The Art Pedagogy of Kitagawa Tamiji. We have greatly enjoyed hosting Bert and his partner Keiko over the past three months. The associated workshop Alternative Paths in Japanese Arts, taking place across 9 – 11 July, is also available for all to attend via Zoom. More information on these events can be found here.
We focus on this major project in this month’s bulletin. Last week the selection committee for the 2026-27 cohort had the very difficult task of selecting seven from the many applications we received from around the world. We are tremendously grateful to the Ishibashi Foundation for their very significant support for this initiative. I was delighted to be able to visit the Foundation at the Artizon Museum in Tokyo and to be able to express our thanks in person on behalf of all the participants to the President of the Foundation Mr Hiroshi Ishibashi.
We congratulate our Deputy Director Professor Eugenia Bogdanova-Kummer on winning the Kenneth B. Pyle Prize for the best article published in The Journal of Japanese Studies in 2025. As the Editor of JJS, none other than the same Morgan Pitelka mentioned above, wrote:
The Kenneth B. Pyle Prize for Best Article in JJS honors the founding editor of the Journal of Japanese Studies. For 2025, the selection committee is proud to award the Pyle Prize to Eugenia Bogdanova-Kummer for her essay, “Zen Violence: The Legacy of Nantenbō Tōjū’s Calligraphy in the Postwar Avant-Garde.” The committee was impressed with the author’s skillful analysis of the Zen of the Japanese Empire that engendered the artist as masculine hero on the artistic and more broadly cultural battlefields of the Cold War. Elegantly interweaving religion and art, at times of war and peace, Bogdanova-Kummer deftly engages a broad range of scholarship in her pursuit of creative, novel, and ambitious interpretations.
As usual, the Institute takes a break in August. Some of us, keen for even more hot weather, will be heading to Japan for research. I hope you all get an enjoyable and restful summer break wherever you are. See you in September if not at one of our events in July.
Professor Simon Kaner
Executive Director