Global Japanese StudiesWaseda University

Waseda University’s Global Japanese Studies Model Unit was established as part of the Japanese government’s Top Global University Project with the goal of promoting international humanities research focusing on Japanese literature, theater, film, media, and history. We are striving to build a single network of Japanese cultural and historical research, which until now has been proceeding on separate tracks in Japan and overseas. In this new network, we hope to combine our efforts with researchers from abroad, tell the world about the knowledge and experiences that this wider array of researchers will have fostered in one another, and create a new future for the study of Japanese culture and history.

At the Global Japanese Study Model Unit, we collaborate with research institutions from around the world, particularly those from East Asia, Europe, and North America. Our main partners have been Columbia University, UCLA, and Stanford University. We offer research and education programs that have nurtured Japanese studies scholars who are active worldwide. Through the Top Global Universities Project, we have established a Global Japanese Studies program as part of the Transcultural Studies theoretical configuration of the School of Culture, Media and Science. We have similarly established new master’s and doctoral program courses for Global Japanese Studies in the Graduate School of Letters, Arts and Sciences. These additions complement the more traditional research areas of philosophy, history, and literature offered by Waseda University’s Faculty of Letters, Arts and Sciences. We have thus created the foundations for more broadly contributing back to the international community the accumulated results of our research and education.

The Global Japanese Studies Model Unit aims to produce dynamic international scholarship that reappraises the constant creation and transformation of Japanese culture and history as contextualized among the diverse cultures and histories found throughout the world, to disseminate the results of that scholarship, and to foster researchers who are active globally.