Josai University Educational Corporation

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Chancellor Mizuta Gives Keynote Address at World Conference on Japanese Education

Chancellor Mizuta Noriko of Josai University was invited to give the keynote address at the 10th Annual World Conference on Japanese Education which took place at Tianjin Foreign Studies University on August 20-21.

This year’s conference, adopting “Japanese Education for Communication with Other Cultures” as its topic, attracted 2,030 participants—the most to date—from many different countries and invited individuals who have made important contributions to the field of Japanese education such as former Senior Vice Minister of Education Nakagawa Masaharu, Minister Horinouchi of the Tianjin Board of Education and Japanese Embassy, and Hirata Oriza, shaping this conference to be the most significant one yet.

Chancellor Mizuta began her address entitled “The Subjective Expression ‘I’ in Contemporary Women’s Poetry,” starting at 3:10 PM on August 20. Chancellor Mizuta explained that whereas in the past poetry was understood and enjoyed on the basis of being written in the author’s voice--an unmediated expression of the author’s interiority—it was seldom treated as a proper subject of criticism or literary analysis.

Through the analysis of works by prewar authors such as Hayashi Mamiko, Sagawa Chika, and Nagase Kiyoko and postwar authors like Ishigaki Rin, Ibaragi Noriko, and Shiraishi Kazuko, Chancellor Mizuta contends that poetry does not merely express the thoughts and imagery of an individual “I” but transcends the notion of an unmediated authorial voice by employing a variety of literary devices and modes of expression to create a complex fictional world of “the female self.”

Following the address, audience members said that they were impressed by the fresh and compelling approach that Chancellor Mizuta’s speech took and felt inspired to work even harder in their academic field.

Chancellor Mizuta delivers her keynote address

Chancellor Mizuta delivers her keynote address


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