Japan to be explored
The important role of sports in contemporary Japanese society is the theme of a conference being held on campus Friday and Saturday, March 31 and April 1.
"Sports and Body Culture in Modern Japan" was organized by William Kelly, the Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies at Yale, and Professor Sugimoto Atsuo of Kyoto University of Education. It is sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. The conference will take place in Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave. Admission is free, and the public is invited.
"The organized sports of contemporary life are high public drama and grinding anonymous routine," writes Kelly in his description of the conference's objectives.
"This is as true in Japan as in the West," he adds. "Despite prevalent images of a nation resolutely and exclusively at work, modern Japan has also been a nation at play. ... The broad sporting landscape of contemporary Japan includes both sports that have been significantly reshaped from indigenous, premodern practices of village and temple rituals (like sumo wrestling and field day events), of aristocratic pursuits (like archery), and martial training (like kendo) and sports that have been introduced from the West, sometimes in their original form and sometimes strikingly domesticated and reformed (like bicycle racing, mountaineering, baseball and soccer)."
Because these sports have been a "crucial intersection of school pedagogy, corporate aims, media constructions, gender relations and patriotic feelings," says Kelly, they "are a significant window on to the lifeways and institutions of modern Japan."
The conference will bring together anthropologists, sociologists and historians from Japan, North America and Europe to examine such issues as the role of sports in shaping the Japanese people's ideas of physical conditioning and body imagery, as well as their national identity; the ways that corporations and the mass media have influenced, and been influenced by, sports; and the role of sports studies in anthropology, sociology and history.
A complete conference schedule is available at www.yale.edu/ceas/events/sport.html. Information is also available by calling (203) 432-3426.
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