A Report on the 75th Annual Conference of the JARS
By The International Connections Committee
JARS held its 75th annual conference at Waseda University in Tokyo from September 9-11, 2016. A total of 627 people, including 75 non-member participants, attended. We owe the success of the conference to our conference organizers, and above all, to chief organizer, Professor Teruhisa Tajima.
The theme of this year’s opening symposium was “Basic Problems of the Philosophy of Religion”. Professor Emeritus Klause Riesenhuber of Sophia University made a public lecture entitled “Die Frage nach dem Sinn: Zur Regrundung von Religionsphilosophie” in Japanese, followed by two assigned commentators’ comments and questions. Many participants attended them and enjoyed the presentations and discussions.
The conference organizers want to express their gratitude to the members for their kind collaboration.
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You can find the texts of the presentations by the keynote speaker and the comments by the assigned commentators at the following URL: http://jpars.org/annual_conference/
Speakers at the opening Symposium and their papers:
Public Lectures
Basic Problems of the Philosophy of Religion
Klaus Riesenhuber (Sophia University), Die Frage nach dem Sinn: Zur Begründung von Religionsphilosophie
Masako Keta (Kyoto University), Report by Assigned Commentator: Dialogue between Professor Riesenhuber and Me
Hitoshi Minobe (Meiji University), Report by Assigned Commentator: The Absoluteness in the Meaning
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The regular program consisted of 18 panels and 250 individual papers, which were organized into 15 parallel sessions.
Panel Titles and Conveners
Reexamination of Mircea Eliade in Modern Religious Studies (Fumiaki Okuyama)
Religion and Language in Toshihiko Izutsu’s “Oriental Philosophy” (Yoshitsugu Sawai)
The Paradox of Religious Freedom: Beyond the Unilinear and Progressive View of Its History (Satoko Fujiwara)
Kokugaku Scholar Takayoshi Matsuyama’s Acceptance of Christianity and Understanding of Religion (Yipyo Hong)
World History of Monotheistic Religions Reexamined (Hiroshi Ichikawa)
Comparative Sociology of Religions in Well-being and Religions (Yoshihide Sakurai)
Is It Possible to Find Transnational Common Religious Beliefs? (Akira Kawabata)
The Discourses on Religious Experience and Their Influences in Meiji Period (Takuya Hasegawa)
Effects and Applications of Sutra Chanting as Religious Care (Yōzō Taniyama)
Reconstruction of Mountain Religion: The Case of a Shugendō Revival Movement at Mt. Hiko (Atsushi Kamezaki)
The History and Present Status of “Mizuko-kuyō” in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea (Kyōko Fuchigami)
Religion and Community in Post-Disaster: Rethinking Issues through the Involvement Research (Tatsuya Yumiyama)
Religious Studies and Global Environmental Issues (Takeshi Kimura)
Medicine in which Human Beings are Regarded as Souls: Possibilities of Medical Professionals who Have Religious Faith (Shigeki Mabuchi)
The Significance of the Possibility of Psychology of Religion (Kōbō Matsushima)
The Era of Religions: Media, Expo, and Anti-Religious Movements in the 1930s (Takashi Nagaoka)
Layered Structure of African Religious Culture and Regional Diversity: A Religious Anthropological Approach (Yoshihito Shimada)
Education concerning Myths and Folktales as Traditional Language Cultures (Chieko Ōsawa)
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