In this chapter, Kohei Suzuki aims to provide a brief overview of Japan’s local government system.

Loneliness and social isolation have become a significant problem in contemporary Japan. The financial burden associated with an ageing population has severely constrained the ability of local authorities to address the problem. As a result, policymakers have sought cost‐effective methods of tackling…

Andrew Littlejohn published the article 'Ruins for the future: Critical allegory and disaster governance in post-tsunami Japan' in American Ethnologist about the ruins left by Japan's 2011 tsunami.

This study aims to examine how South Korea (hereafter, Korea) and Japan, two neighboring countries in Northeast Asia, have been responding to and mitigating the spread of COVID-19.

Rebecca Tompkins defended her thesis on 21 March 2019

A delegation from Leiden University will be visiting several Japanese universities and research institutions from 18 to 26 November to discuss research and teaching collaborations.

Bas Verberk defended his thesis on 6 September 2016

A delegation from Leiden University visited Japan from 18 to 26 November to facilitate cooperation in research and teaching. The delegation also attended the signing of a twinning agreement between the cities of Leiden and Nagasaki and the opening of a bridge to Dejima, once literally the bridge between…

A delegation from Leiden University visited various universities in Japan at the end of March. The strong ties between the Netherlands and Japan are still based on a long tradition of knowledge exchange.

Kohei Suzuki, Assistant Professor at Institute of Public Administration, was interviewed by Infobae about loneliness in Japan and the role of government and society.

An impressive 60 alumni recently came to the Dutch Embassy residence in Japan to meet, network, see friends and practise their languages.

Leiden Asia Centre researcher Anoma van der Veere argues that the Japanese government has failed to respond properly to Covid-19. There were difficulties with implementing government measures aimed at limiting the spread of the virus – in some cases those measures were not even taken seriously. How…

Dividing Worlds: Tsunamis, Seawalls, and Ontological Politics in Northeast Japan

The correspondence of the Dutch factory in Hirado, Japan, 1609-1633

This study examines recovery planning committees across Japan's Tohoku region.

In 1968 Japan was shocked by student protests and even today, exactly fifty years later, their effects can still be felt. An interdisciplinary group of researchers recently met to discuss them at Leiden University.

On or around 26 November every year, Cleveringa meetings are organised for Leiden alumni throughout the world. Including in Tokyo, where Professor of Japan Studies Ivo Smits delivered his Clevering lecture to a packed hall.

The 2011 disasters precipitated widespread concern among heritage scholars about the fate of Tohoku’s cultural properties, tangible and intangible. Damage to not only buildings and landscapes but also ‘formless’ heritage, some worried, could weaken social infrastructure and thus slow or undermine re…

Are you thinking about studying abroad for a semester? We came across two students who want to share their experiences with you.

In 2017, Leiden University secured ties with numerous foreign partners. This is how we bring foreign talent to Leiden, and ensure our students and scientists can gain experience across borders. In this article, we look back on four foreign trips.

What do climate change and traditional Japanese music have to do with each other? A great deal, university lecturer Andrea Giolai suspects. He has been awarded an NWO grant to study the relationship in more depth.

Dr. Andrew Littlejohn has been awarded a Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. The fellowship provides funds for early-career scholars to write and publish significant monographs that will impact the development of anthropology.

As a woman, working in Japan and Korea can be pretty tough, Yorum Beekman discovered. It prompted her to pursue a PhD on the subject: ‘I thought: hey, that’s interesting!’

It was long thought that the early development of Japanese children's books served mainly as a propaganda tool of the state: the literature was supposed to have been written to shape children into perfect citizens. PhD student Aafke van Ewijk nuances this image. Children's book writers wanted to have…

2017 was the Leiden Asia Year. Leiden has had connections with Asia and built up extensive knowledge of the continent over many centuries. This Leiden-Asia link has been in the spotlight for the past year.

The research profile ‘Asian Modernities and Traditions’ (AMT) aims to raise the strength and visibility of research, teaching and dissemination on Asian studies at Leiden University.

Alumnus Anoma van der Veere did Japanese studies and talks in this interview about his studies in Leiden and his work as a researcher at the Leiden Asia Centre and as Japanese correspondent in Tokyo.

Japanese was not always the language spoken in Japan. Researchers link the arrival of the language in Japan with the migration of farmers around 400 BC. Linguist Elisabeth de Boer has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to carry out research on the further spread of the language in Japan.

Stories of resistance in the Second World War are widely covered in Dutch historiography: Hannie Schaft, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, and Professor Cleveringa are some of the best known. But these accounts largely focus on the Dutch domestic perspective. On the other side of the world, a complex colonial…

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