On Thursday, 8 February 2024, the workshop “Dreams in Japanese Literature and Culture: Reconsidering, Intersecting, and Sharing Research Methodologies” was held face-to-face at the No.10 conference room in Building 33 on Toyama campus.
The workshop was aimed at exchanging and sharing knowledge among postgraduate students, mainly in the master’s program, and college juniors and seniors considering postgraduate study. Unexpectedly, a wide range of students, from college freshman to those who had already submitted their master’s thesis, attended. The coordinators were Satomi Arakawa and Saki Koizumi, Guest Junior Researchers of the Research Institute for Letters, Arts and Sciences.
The participants were asked to imagine that they were going to give a presentation on the theme “Dreams”. First, they were asked to describe their research methods on a worksheet, including the works they would use, their specific theme, and how they would research it. They worked enthusiastically filling in the worksheets based on their own specialties and interests.
After, they broke up into groups of four and discussed their impressions of “Dreams” and the research plans based on their worksheets. As the participants’ research areas varied from Japanese classical literature to modern and contemporary literature, many opinions were flying around during the discussions.
The main topics for discussion focused especially on how the characters interpreted “Dreams”, the relation between psychoanalysis and the reading of works, and the transformation of impressions of “Dreams” from ancient to modern literature.
One participant shared their interest in the film adaptation of literary works which created an opportunity to discuss how we express literary works using “Dreams”. There was also a lively discussion on how to define research with the subject “Dreams”, and how to organize and analyze the collected data.
In the second half of the discussion, the members of the groups changed and participants shared the information from the first half with their new groups, enabling them to further deepen their discussions with new perspectives.
Participants commented:
- It was great opportunity to input and output knowledge across areas of research.
- I enjoyed the event and learned a lot.
- I had the wonderful opportunity to hear the opinions from seniors, since the workshop was attended by undergraduate and graduate students.
The workshop was held in a friendly atmosphere from start to finish, creating an opportunity to share knowledge beyond the boundaries of the laboratory. This workshop was organized by the Global Japanese Studies Model Unit, Waseda University Top Global University Project.
Event details
- Date and Time: 15:00-16:30 (JST), February 8, 2024
- Venue: Conference Rm. 10, Bldg. 33, Toyama campus, Waseda University
- Attendees: Students, faculty members, researchers
- Language: Japanese
- Fee: Free
- Organized by: Global Japanese Studies Model Unit, Waseda University Top Global University Project
