In case anyone is in Japan now or will be come June 2011, there is a call for papers out on pre-modern warriors panel for the Meiji Gakuin University‘s Asian Studies Japan Conference, held next at the International Christian University. Sounds like it will be a very interesting conference! Check out the announcement below. Deadline for submissions to this panel is November 8th, deadline for other areas of the conference November 15th.

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Dear Colleagues,

I am developing a panel on pre-modern warrior studies at the Fifteenth Asian Studies Conference Japan, to be held on June 25-26, 2011, at International Christian University, Tokyo. The tentative panel title is “The Warrior Tradition in East Asian Literatures: Interpretation, Socialization, and Idealization.”

The aim of the panel is to identify similarities and differences in warrior cultures of different regions of East Asia, as well as broader sociological and cultural trends in warrior societies of these regions by exploring the ways warrior cultures were represented in pre-modern literary sources.

The panel is particularly concerned with clarifying misconceptions and confusion over warriors in different periods of history, as well as with identifying the intangible foundations of warrior cultures and constituents comprising warrior identity. In this discussion, it will be crucial to bring to light the socio-cultural context behind the authors’ attempts to interpret or idealize what they perceived as the “true warrior.”

We already have two panelists who will speak on Japan and China. For a complete panel, we need one more paper. If you are interested in participating in our panel, please send me your proposal of 250 words maximum by November 8, 2010.

Dr. Anatoliy Anshin
Asian Languages Department
Institute for Linguistics
Russian State University for the Humanities / Moscow International Higher Business School MIRBIS
Email:    aanshin@mirbis.ru