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WIAS Newsletter is published twice a year and covers the work of WIAS and its researchers.

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Introduction of our activities

1. Director and Associate Directors Participate in UBIAS Directors’ Meeting

Director and Associate Directors of WIAS participated in the UBIAS Directors’ Meeting held at Nagoya University from October 31 to November 1, 2023.

The University-Based Institutes for Advanced Study (UBIAS), a global network of advanced research institutes, has held this conference once every two years. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was canceled in 2020. The conference was held for the first time in five years since the previous conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2018.

At the invitation of Nagoya University Institute for Advanced Research, the host institute, more than 40 people from 23 institutes in 20 countries participated. On the first day, based on UBIAS priorities, each institute’s initiatives were reported, and on the second day, discussions were held on efforts being implemented at each institution related to research topics. On the third day, the next meeting was discussed.

From our institute, Director Akao gave a lecture on the history and future of WIAS, and Associate Director Tokoro introduced Waseda University’s main efforts, including the framework for fostering young researchers and open innovation initiatives. In addition, Associate Director Yamamoto talked in a session on digital humanities and open science to introduce the current 8K cultural heritage content and to introduce the possibilities and challenges of new approaches to the humanities, stimulating the audience into an active discussion.

The three-day conference was held in an open and lively atmosphere suitable for international conferences with a touch of Japanese culture, such as a tea ceremony at the temple. There was much to learn from the hospitality of Nagoya University Institute for Advanced Research. We had the opportunity to interact with many overseas institutes and were able to spend a very fulfilling three days as a participating institute. The next meeting was decided to be held in Ghana, Africa and at that the conference was closed.

In addition, through participation in this conference, we have had the opportunity to hold discussions with overseas institutes we have not interacted before. This leads to new developments of WIAS as an advanced research institute.

2. Exhibits at Waseda Open Innovation Forum 2023 (WOI’23)

The Waseda Open Innovation Forum 2023 was held from November 9 (Thu.) to 10 (Fri.), 2023. Two booths were set up for exhibits from WIAS, and the following researchers introduced the latest research outcomes.

Theme: Exploring in depth of Japanese society with digital humanities and big data analysis
  • Assistant Professor MORRIS, James HarryKirishitan Texts in the Digital Age”
  • Assistant Professor ABE, Tatsuya “Benefit evaluation of fuel tax and eco-car tax reduction and subsidy policy”
  • Assistant Professor OIKAWA, Masato “The impact of the change in the out-of-pocket ratio on medical demand of elderly people”
  • Assistant Professor KARAISL, Antonia “算額 vs Euclidean geometry: history of tangents or parallel lines?”
Theme: Development and application of new technologies supported by diverse advanced research – from a cross-disciplinary perspective
  • Associate Professor FUKUNAGA, Tsukasa “Development of information technology for estimating the function-unknown genes”
  • Associate Professor SHIMAKAWA, Rhythm “Application of citizen astronomy ‘Galaxy Cruise’ to machine learning”
  • Assistant Professor OMINATO, Yuya “Explanation of physical phenomena in atomic-scale thin films with a view to next-generation devices”
  • Assistant Professor HOSHINA, Naosuke “Basic principles of nerve cell connection aiming to overcome psychiatric and neurological diseases”

Throughout the two-day event, a total of approximately 100 people, including those from general companies, researchers, and students visited the booths. We received very positive comments from the researchers who conducted the booth exhibition, including a remark such as, “We were able to advance the building of a network that will be useful in our future research.”

For those who stopped by, thank you very much for visiting and participating.

The Waseda Open Innovation Forum 2023 report is also posted on the Waseda University website.
産学のリーダーが集まり知を共創する早稲田大学 (waseda.jp)

3. WIAS Homecoming Day

Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS) held our very first Home Coming Day on December 9, 2023. The following is the report from Assistant Professor FAHEY Robert Andrew, who contributed to this event as a member of WIAS’ Chief Secretaries.

The inaugural WIAS Homecoming Day event was held on December 9, 2023. This event aims to connect WIAS’ alumni with the institute’s current members, giving the current members an opportunity to present their research projects while receiving advice and insights on their future career opportunities from the former members. WIAS now has around 200 former members working in academia, government, and private sector companies, so their experiences and knowledge are of immense value to the current WIAS researchers who are in earlier stages of their careers.

The event was planned by WIAS’ Chief Secretaries – Dr. Tomohiro Fujita (Natural Sciences), Dr. James Harry Morris (Humanities), and Dr. Robert Fahey (Social Sciences) – and held with the assistance of the WIAS Events Committee and the WIAS office staff. Since the primary aim of the event was to allow former and current members to network and get to know one another, the format of the event was informal and relaxed. Current WIAS members prepared posters introducing their research projects, while several former members gave short talks and answered questions about their careers after WIAS. In between the talks, attendees could help themselves to coffee and doughnuts while they explored the posters and talked to the current WIAS researchers.

Following opening remarks from the WIAS Chief Secretaries, there were two career talk sessions during the afternoon-long event at Waseda University’s International Conference Centre. In the first session, Dr. Shinya Kato (Principal Research Scientist, Nanofiber Quantum Technologies) and Dr. Reto Hofmann (Associate Professor, Curtin University) discussed their career paths, while the second session consisted of talks by Dr. Jiro Nishinaga (Senior Research Scientist, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) and Dr. Kohei Watanabe (Senior Data Scientist, Lazard Asset Management). The speakers outlined a very wide range of different research career paths, and each of their talks was followed by a lively Q&A session.

Finally, the afternoon session was closed by comments from Professor Takuya Soma (Associate Professor, Kyoto University Hakubi Centre), who talked about his fond memories of his time at WIAS and expressed his hope that events like this which engage the institute’s alumni community will continue in future. This afternoon event was then followed in the evening by a buffet meal and drinks for the event participants, which was opened with remarks and an opening toast from former WIAS director Professor Hideaki Miyajima (Executive Vice President for Financial Affairs, Waseda University). Members enjoyed the evening together, strengthening the bonds within the WIAS community, with the party finally being closed with a toast – a traditional “kanto ipponjime” – by WIAS Associate Director Professor Chiharu Tokoro.

The event highlighted the diversity of research themes and approaches being explored by current WIAS members, as well as the different career paths pursued by former members of the institute, and brought together WIAS researchers from across the institute’s 17 years of operation. After several years of the COVID-19 pandemic in which face-to-face events could not be held, creating this kind of opportunity for networking and socialising within the WIAS community is especially important. We look forward to holding many such events in the future, and will actively seek ways to develop the Homecoming Day and other such events so that even more of WIAS’ alumni – including those outside Japan – can participate and feel more involved in the ever-growing community of WIAS researchers.

The posters exhibited at the event can be viewed from the following page.

WIAS Home Coming Day(*Event held on Dec. 9, 2023)

 

4. WIAS initiates Network Research Visits program with partner institution ZUKO

WIAS and ZUKO (Zukunftskolleg at the University of Konstanz, Germany), our partner institute, have started a reciprocal exchange program to foster research collaboration. Associate Professor ROMMESWINKEL Hendrik is the first researcher to use the program and visit ZUKO. His reports introduce the motivations for this visit and the progress of his research activities during his stay.

Report #01: WIAS initiates Network Research Visits program with partner institution ZUKO

Report #02: ZUKO and WIAS Network Research Visits program report vol. 2 (Associate Professor ROMMESWINKEL Hendrik)

5. Assistant Professor MORRIS James Harry’s “Kirishitan-ban in the Digital Age” Project

A font package and an English repository of digital tools were released through a project led by Assistant Professor MORRIS James Harry. He introduces the overview of the project, detailing its background, progress, and future prospects.

A font package and an English repository of digital tools were released through a project led by Assistant Professor James Harry Morris

The “Kirishitan-ban in the Digital Age: A Study of the Opportunities and Limitations of Applying Digital Methods to Kirishitan-ban” project, which is kindly funded by a DNP Foundation for Cultural Promotion Graphic Culture Research Grant and a Waseda University Grant for Special Research Projects, emerged through my experiences in the fields of Kirishitan studies and the digital humanities. Firstly, I noticed that there was a paucity of accessible resources available online for the study of the Kirishitan (16th and 17th century Roman Catholics in Japan). This means that there were potentially limitations accessing materials for those early career scholars and scholars based outside of Japan who do not have immediate access to the primary or secondary sources through their libraries. Secondly, I found myself experiencing challenges created by the Latin-centric and Anglo-centric design of computers that made it difficult to do even the most basic of tasks with Kirishitan texts. Despite this, I also realized that some solutions could be developed easily. The project aims then to identify potential issues and create solutions for everyday computer users and those on the peripheries of the digital humanities rather than those engaged heavily within computer science.

Repository

In order to increase access to the different resources available online, I decided to create a repository targetted at early career scholars. This was completed with the assistance of Joseph Bills (Keio University). The repository consists of three parts:

  1. Resources – a descriptive list of online databases, projects, tools and resources.
  2. Texts – a collection of texts that can be accessed through the site.
  3. Collections – a list and map of physical collections in Japan.

Although we set out to be exhaustive, we quickly found that this wasn’t possible – there were many online resources that had content pertinent to Kirishitan studies but not in large enough quantity to justify inclusion. There were also plentiful resources in various European languages, but Bills and I limited by our knowledge outside of Japanology and needing to draw a line somewhere decided to focus primarily on those in Japanese and English. This means that for the time being, the repository is primarily useful for those interested in the study of the Kirishitan in the Japanese language and in Japanese-langauge resoruces, however, there is also ample scope to include other materials later.

The resources list will help early career scholars to locate materials, tools and projects that might be of interest. It includes descriptions of the potential advantages and limitations of each resources to help users decide whether it is potentially useful to them. The texts section provides a IIIF viewer that allows users to access 7 Kirishitan-ban (Kirishitan publications) written in Japanese script and 7 written in Latin script in a single place. At the time of construction, these represented all of the texts that were available in IIIF format. This part of the repository helps users to access and locate new texts, and removes the need to open multiple tabs or visit multiple databases, library websites or repositories. The collections section is a list of museums and libraries in Japan with collections related to the Kirishitan. These are displayed as a list and on a map with details of address, telephone number and website where available. This can be particularly helpful for those looking for materials, and during the planning of research trips to Japan. Currently, the repository is only available in English though a Japanese translation is under preparation.

Tools

The problems that Kirishitan studies scholars face extend beyond the accessibility of digital resources. Even basic tasks such as inputting quotes or transcriptions from Kirishitan-ban into a word processor pose issues. Whilst text written in Japanese and Latin script provides few issues, Kirishitan-ban contain special characters (ligatures) that do not exist in Unicode and cannot be typed into a computer by everyday users. Traditionally, these special characters have been typed using surrogates such as alternative symbols or strings of Latin text. For instance, the characters labelled /ds and /ds2 in the below image have traditionally been rendered DS in transcriptions. In some cases, publishers have created fonts for the purpose but these are not accessible to everyday users. Current methods cause problems. We lose an important part of the original text including the ability to distinguish between different variants and our understanding and reading of these characters as logograms. Using surrogate texts complicates textual analysis since the user and computer is unable to easily distinguish between the ligature and Latin text. In order to address these issues, we created a font package (designed and implemented by Omagari Toshi) to allow users to type these special characters in their own transcriptions. It is recommended that users of Windows use Microsoft Word and that Mac users use Pages for the best results.

Whilst we are developing other tools such as flashcard decks for those learning how to read Kirishitan-ban and an online dictionary (planned for launch in 2024), another important part of the project is creating transcriptions of texts. Without typed transcriptions, scholars are unable to perform digital analyses of texts. We are using  platform Minna de Honkoku to create these transcriptions. On our individual project page includes 31 texts from various libraries both inside and outside of Japan with nine having been completely transcribed during the past year. Members of the public work on transcribing these texts and checking each other’s transcriptions. The complete transcriptions are free for anyone to use in their research or for other purposes. If you’re interested in practicing reading and transcribing Kirishitan-ban and related texts, please feel free to join us!

Final Thoughts

In the coming year, I hope to develop more resources and tools that will make Kirishitan studies more accessible, provide solutions to issues that hamper Kirishitan studies in the digital age, and which will facilitate the use of digital methods to analyse Kirishitan texts.

If you want to get involved, have any feedback or suggestions please don’t hesitate to reach out. Visit the project website at https://kirishitanbank.com/.

Information

WIAS invites outstanding overseas researchers who are active internationally, and contributes to the energizing of research activities at Waseda University through academic exchanges and seminars between our researchers and the invitees. Click here for more information.

Visiting Researchers

  • October 20 – November 19, 2023
    DREHER, Jochen
    Researcher, University of Konstanz (Germany)
  • January 8 – February 7, 2024
    ELDEM, Edhem
    Researcher, Bogazici University (Turkey)

Visiting Scholars

  • January 8 – February 16, 2024
    MIRIFAR, Arash
    Postdoctoral Associate, University of Florida (USA)
  • February 14 – April 1, 2024
    DUTTA, Vibekananda
    Assistant Professor, Warsaw University of Technology (Poland)

We welcome your comments and suggestions. Please contact us at the coordinates below.

Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS)

1st floor, Nishi-Waseda Bldg.
1-21-1 Nishi Waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-0051, JAPAN
URL:https://www.waseda.jp/inst/wias/en/
TEL:03-5286-2460
FAX:03-5286-2470
E-mail:[email protected]

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