Announcing a combined workshop and conference on “New Sources for the Study of Japanese Religion,” organized by Prof. Kikuchi Hiroki of the Historiographical Institute (Shiryō Hensanjo) of the University of Tokyo and myself, to be held at Princeton University on March 14-16, 2014 (opening reception March 13).

A complete schedule for this event, abstracts of workshops and presentations, and a link for online registration are now available at http://religion.princeton.edu/newsources/.

The deadline for registration is February 21, 2014. Please feel free to pass this announcement on to your graduate students or anyone else who might be interested. Queries may be addressed to newsources@princeton.edu.

Workshop Description: In the last few decades, scholars of Japanese history and religion, especially of the ancient and medieval periods, have expanded their research beyond formal doctrinal writings and written historical records to include texts written on the reverse side of documents (shihai monjo  紙背文書), hagiography, narratives, and other little known or understudied textual sources, as well as pictorial scrolls and other art historical materials, stone and bronze inscriptions, sites and archaeological remains. Led by a number of prominent scholars from Japan, this combined workshop/conference aims to introduce some of these new sources and the interdisciplinary possibilities they offer for the study of premodern Japanese Religion and History, and also provide some preliminary training in their use. We envision a workshop of somewhere between 25-30 people, mostly faculty and graduate students. Apart from talks by American presenters on March 16, the workshop will be conducted primarily in Japanese.