The Centre for Asian Studies invites to the International Symposium Japanology within Asian Studies in Lithuania: Historical Perspective and Present Situation, which will take part on November 3-4 in Kaunas, at the Historical Presidential Palace (Vilniaus g. 33, Kaunas).

The Symposium is dedicated to discuss and to evaluate the situation of Asian Studies in Lithuania. Specialists representing different fields of Asian studies will participate. The Symposium is organized on the occasion of the 10 years anniversary from the establishment of the Centre for Asian Studies of Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas.

The presentations on the first day of the Symposium (November 3) will be held in Lithuanian. The presenters of the morning session will be Prof. Antanas Andrijauskas, Dr. Valdas Jaskūnas, Dr. Agnė Budriūnaitė. The special guest speaker Dr. Eiko Sakurai, the author of the first Lithuanian language textbook in Japanese, will present the situation of Lithuanian studies in Japan. In the afternoon the focus will be shifted towards the history of japanology in Lithuania. The presentations will be read by Mr. Seo Jinseok, Dr. Birutė Railienė, Gabija Žukauskienė and Kristina Barancovaitė-Skindaravičienė.

On the second day presentations will be held in English. During the morning session Dr. Agnese Haijima (University of Latvia), Dr. Kyoko Koma (Vytautas Magnus University), Dr. Dalia Švambarytė (Vilnius University) and Dr. Outi Luova (Turku University) will present their experience about Asian and Japanese studies’ situation in Latvia, Lithuania and Finland. Dr. Masaaki Shiraishi, a prominent researcher of Ch. Sugihara, will deliver a lecture on Lithuania-Japan diplomatic relationships. His lecture will be followed by the presentation of his most recently published book.

Other related events planned during the symposium include the donation ceremony of a book collection collected by the famous Lithuanian orientalist a.e. Dr. R. Neimantas, his books’ exhibition, meeting of the Japan Alumnae Association, as well as honoring ceremony of the people who significantly contributed to the revival of Oriental studies in Lithuania during the last decades of Soviet regime.

The detailed program of the Symposium and the succeeding open project meeting Japan in the West: a Comparative Analysis can be found here, Please, also refer to the abstracts of the presentations.

Symposium is supported by Japan Foundation, under the auspices of the Embassy of Japan in Lithuania.

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