Vytautas Magnus University Department of Sociology cordially invites you to the seminar of Erasmus visiting lecturer dr. Jakub Havliček (Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic) under the title “Religion and Society in Modern Japan: Yasukuni Shrine Controversy“.

September 19, 2012, Wednesday, at 16:30 at K. Donelaičio str. 52–309, Kaunas.

The Yasukuni Shrine, a Shinto sanctuary in Tokyo with the enshrined “spirits” or “souls” of those who supposedly sacrificed their lives for Japan, remains a subject of controversy. From the end of the WWII many politicians, including the prime ministers of Japan, visited the shrine to pay homage to the war victims. The shrine is considered a symbol of Japanese militarism and the so-­‐called “State Shinto,” a nation-­‐building ideology officially abolished after the war. What is the role of religious phenomena in the modern Japanese society? What is the relationship between religion and politics in Japan? Is it possible to apply the categories of “religious” and “secular” in the “non-­‐Western” Japanese context?

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