The Japan Research Centre (JRC) at SOAS

The Chair of the Centre says:

It is an honour to welcome everybody back to SOAS at the beginning of a new academic year as the new Chair of the Japan Research Centre. I would like to take this opportunity to offer my heart-felt thanks to Dr Helen Macnaughtan, who was at the helm of the JRC for not one, but two consecutive terms. It is due to her efforts that the JRC is in a stable and financially viable position in a quickly changing institutional landscape. Her exceptional leadership through the pandemic interruption has been inspirational. By moving the seminar series online, she has created an opportunity to invite speakers from all over the world (time zones allowing) and has greatly expanded the audience. I will try my utmost to continue in this vein and can announce that the Wednesday seminar series will remain online, at least for term one. I am also delighted to announce that Prof Joylon Baraka Thomas from the University of Pennsylvania has agreed to be our speaker at this autumn’s Meiji Jingu lecture. After proceedings had to be cancelled last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this year’s lecture will be the first Meiji Jingu lecture to be held online.

I am looking forward to working with the Steering Committee and all of you to continue the vital work of the Japan Research Centre, now in its 43 year!

Stay connected with the JRC

We produce, on a fortnightly basis during term time, a News and Updates eBulletin which provides information about the activities of the SOAS Japan Research Centre.

The eBulletin highlights the latest events, funding and knowledge being shared and other topical opportunities that we think will be of interest to you.

ebulletin sign up

Japan Sport Stories

Once the postponement of Tokyo 2020 was confirmed, the excitement that had been building for 4 years quickly dampened into little more than a flicker. 5-time Paralympic gold medallist Noel Thatcher and Japan expert and wheelchair fencing official Mike Salter wanted to try and rebuild that excitement, for the sport and the country, anyway they could.

With the world in lockdown, Noel and Mike needed a way to remind people of the fascinating stories of Japanese sport and its athletes -- Japan Sport Stories was born.

The Japan Research Centre is partnering up with Japan Sports Stories Podcast with thanks to generous support of the Toshiba International Foundation. Do check out this fantastic podcast series on Japan & Sport!

Further details

Facts and figures

13: UK Top 15 in the 2022 QS World University Rankings for Modern Languages

Teaching

With over 1000 undergraduate and postgraduate students at SOAS whose interdisciplinary studies include an aspect centred on Japan or Japanese no other institution in Europe has such a high concentration of students with a focus on the field.
There are two Meiji Jingu Japanese Studies Research Scholarships available. Each scholarship is valued at £7,000 in total.
The Sasakawa Postgraduate Studentship is open to any full-time Postgraduate Taught Masters Degree Programmes at SOAS.
The SOAS library holds some 160,000 monographs for Japanese studies.
With one of the largest concentration of Japan specialists outside Japan the fields covered by academic members of staff include anthropology, art and archaeology, drama, economics, geography, history, language and literature, law, media, music, linguistics, politics, religion and sociology.
We rank 2nd in the UK in the Times & Sunday Times University League Table 2015, 5th in the Complete University Guide 2015 (East & South East Asia)
The number of specialists in Japan located in the various departments of the School makes the BA degree one of the largest Japanese studies programme in the world.

Research

The JRC weekly seminar series examines the fundamental issues facing Japan today and provides unique opportunities to gain insight into Japan through the perspectives of internationally respected experts from both inside and outside of Japan.

The JRC Annual Review reports the activities of the Centre and its member and lists past and forthcoming events in SOAS

Read Japanese Studies at SOAS, University of London by Professor Andrew Gerstle and Dr Alan Cummings

News

View more news

No recent news items to display

Events

View more events

Thu26May

Walking the Sutra in Katsuragi, Japan: A Semiotic Theory of Pilgrimage

This talk intends to map, from a semiotic perspective, the interconnections between ethnography, translation, and pilgrimage, by exploring the contemporary practice and revitalisation of a premodern ascetic pilgrimage in Katsuragi, linked to the twenty-eight sutra mounds of the Lotus Sutra (Katsuragi nijūhasshuku no kyōzuka).

Tue07Jun

Celebrating 50 years of Gay pride in Britain / A special SOAS event celebrating African, Asian and Middle Eastern contributions to Queer London

Exploring key sites of importance from protest spaces, parties and meeting spaces and their spiritual, psychological, emotional value to Queer London.