12th Kansai University EU Workshop

The 12th Annual Kansai University EU Workshop will take place online via Zoom on Thursday, 21st and Friday, 22nd October 2021, from 9:30-13:00 (CEST, UTC+2) on both days. 

Presentations will be held in Japanese and in English.

The workshop is free and open to the public. No registration is required. Please join using this Zoom link

The purpose of these workshops is to gather established and young scholars from Japan and Switzerland in order to hold conversations on topics within East Asian art history.

The collaboration between Kansai University in Japan and the University of Zurich is a well-established tradition that takes place twice a year, once in Japan hosted by the Kansai University and once at the University of Zurich. These opportunities have given the advanced students at the University of Zurich the chance to present work in process at scholarly events, surrounded by both established professionals in the field and fellow students and future colleagues.  

Under usual circumstances, the annual workshop takes place in person. In Japan, the annual workshop is held on the Kansai University campus and in the mountains of Asuka. In both Japan and Zurich, the sessions are open to the public and widely advertised. Typically, visitors from the museum and academic worlds join us for the discussions.  

The workshop is based on border crossing, as it represents collaboration between the academic cultures of Japan and Switzerland. Not only are the languages of the presentations mixed (English and Japanese), but the students and participating faculty members are from both countries. Thus, the young participants get not only a living impression of the presentation styles of both cultures, but also the type of feedback from people working in other countries. For the students the workshops represent a superb way to make connections to their peers across borders. The workshops symbolize the global and cross-cultural aspects of education: by crossing borders we can achieve new forms of communication. 

The workshop members typically consist of three faculty members from the Kansai University and one member from the University of Zurich. The presenters are advanced students (MA and PhD) from both universities. The organizers are Professor Hans Bjarne Thomsen from the University of Zurich and various professors from the Kansai University. This year Associate Professor Dr. Adrien Carbonnet and students from the KU Leuven will also be participating.