Minutes of the general assembly of the 30th EAJRS conference, Sofia
1. Approval of the minutes of the general assembly of the 29th conference held at Kaunas
See here and program booklet. The minutes are approved.
2. Next year’s venue
pending.
Dates proposed: 16 through 19 September, alternatively 9 through 12 September. Venue will decide.
PS: The Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian academy of Sciences has confirmed to host the 31st EAJRS conference in Saint Petersburg, 16-19 September 2020.
3. Funding
EAJRS expresses its gratitude to the Japan Foundation, as well as to the Sofia University Research Funds Project, who supported the conference. We are also very grateful to the resource providers for their support.
4. Program booklet
The abstracts, the presentations and/or the text of each presentation will later on be uploaded on the EAJRS website, if and when the speaker agrees to do so. Many speakers have already given their consent. The speakers who did not deliver their file to the secretary and wish it to be uploaded on the EAJRS website, are kindly requested to send it in to him (eajrs@eajrs.net).
5. Format of the next conference
Resource providers’ workshop: vital role and contribution of the resource providers, both the public or non-profit institutions and the commercial vendors. We thank them for their presence, for organizing the workshop and for their support in general. I heard nothing but extremely positive echoes about this year’s workshop. Hirotatsu Kanō of Kinokuniya very efficiently prepared and coordinated the workshop.Hopefully we will be able to include the same features in the program of next year.
Growing numbers of presentations and participants: limit to single session or rather parallel sessions? We prefer a unique session, which limits the number of slots available for presentations to around 30. The consequence is that this may entail and has entailed in the past rejection of good proposals. Still, we believe that the pros outweigh the contras.
6. Deadline for applications for the 2020 Conference
The Board proposes mid-May 2020 as the deadline for the submission of applications and the abstract. End of May, screening of proposals will be completed, and the results will be notified beginning of June. Guidelines will be added to streamline the presentations. Power point presentations should normally not exceed 25 slides.
7. Next year’s special topic
Tentative topic: Materiality and Virtuality in Japanese Studies Resources. All other topics related to Japanese Studies resources are as always welcome.
8. Scholarships
This year's scholarships went to
- Vladlena Fedianina, Moscow City University (Russia)
- Yuliya Osadcha Ferreira, The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Ukraine)
- Andrijana Stojanović, University library "Nikola Tesla" (Serbia)
- Makiko Tsunoda, University of Oxford (UK)
- Till Weingärtner, University College Cork (Ireland)
Next year, scholarships will be offered depending on funding.
9. Report from the secretary
There were 101 registrations, of which 92 actually participated in the conference. 2 cancelled, 5 did not show up, and 2 were accompanying partners.
Participants came from 19 different countries:
- Belgium: 4
- Bulgaria: 7
- Canada: 1
- Denmark: 1
- Egypt: 1
- Finland: 1
- France: 7
- Germany: 3
- Ireland: 1
- Japan: 38
- Netherlands: 1
- Norway: 1
- Russia: 3
- Serbia: 1
- Sweden: 1
- Switzerland: 2
- United Kingdom: 11
- Ukraine: 1
- United States: 7
by continent
- Europe: 45
- Asia: 38
- North America: 8
- Africa: 1
Apart from the opening and announcements made at the General meeting, there were 37 presentations (23 English / 14 Japanese). 51 people took the stage in these presentations.
In the Resource Providers Workshop, on Friday, 12 institutions participated.
10. Election
Alexandro Bianchi resigned.
11. EAJRS liaison to NCC
not decided yet.
12. EAJRS related events
Kuzushiji in Oslo in March 2020. Organized by Kokubunken, National Institute of Japanese Literature, supported by EAJRS. March 2020.
13. Database list for Japanese Studies
Recent Development (since Last Year’s Conference)
Many independent institutions are considering creating a metadata database of available (database) resources in Japanese studies. The EAJRS, by agency of Kamiya Nobutake, would like to see these initiatives to join forces, rather than to have independent supplementary initiatives. Gotō Makoto of the National Museum of Japanese History (partner in the National Institute for the Humanities) has offered to provide the ICT infrastructure for such a database. As such the platform would be neutral, and the contributing organizations would be in charge and responsible for the contents. The EAJRS is in favor of this construction and will investigate possibilities of contributing and cooperating partners.
14. Words of gratitude
We thank all presenters, for the many excellent presentations. Moreover, virtually everyone respected the allotted time.
Thanks to Arjan van der Werf, who once again put in a great deal of effort and time to prepare the conference.
Thanks to the members of the board, who have accepted to chair each one or two sessions.
Thanks to the local organizers, Gergana Petkova, Stella Zhivkova, Vyara Nikolova, and Tsvetomira Ivanova, Ludmila Kirilova, Evgeniy Kandilarov and many others whose names I have not been able to retrieve, for the impeccable preparation, the fine facilities, and the pleasant surprises.
15. AOB
17. Closing of the general assembly and the conference.