Europe Japan Research Centre

Contact: alexanderjacoby@brookes.ac.uk +44 1865 484106

About us

欧日研究会

The Europe Japan Research Centre (EJRC) was launched in 2001 and, since then, has brought over 200 academics, artists and other performers from around the world to Oxford Brookes University for scholarly talks and other public events. In addition to this seminar series, the EJRC has hosted research conferences, supported visiting researchers, and published occasional papers. At the postgraduate level, we support students working on various aspects of Japanese Studies through the Japanese by Research MA degree as well as through independent Mphil/PhD research.

EJRC has become a home for researchers in Japanese Studies across the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences with a wide range of research expertise, including Japanese cinema, linguistics, language pedagogy, religions of Japan, modern Japanese history, and contemporary Japanese culture.

Japanese ceremony

Part of

Related courses

EJRC is pround to be supported through generous funding from The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation seeks to promote mutual understanding and cooperation between the UK and Japan through financial support for activities in a number of fields, from arts and culture to humanities and social issues, from Japanese language to sport and education, from science and technology to medicine and health.

Research impact

EJRC is committed to strengthening collaboration and exchange between the UK and Japan and raising interest and awareness in the cultural, artistic and historical influence of Japan in the world.
Our research makes an impact on the social policy environments related to the aging society, contemporary religious organizations, and criminal justice. It also impacts the way artists, linguists and historians appreciate Japan's unique contributions in these fields through the development of educational resources and though hosting a variety of demonstrations, performances, symposia and other public engagement activities.

Leadership

Dr Alexander Jacoby

alexanderjacoby@brookes.ac.uk

Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies and Director of Europe Japan Research Centre

View profile for Alexander Jacoby

Membership

Name	Role	Email
Dr Jason Danely	Associate Professor of Anthropology	jdanely@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Alice Freeman	Lecturer in Modern Japanese History	afreeman@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Hanako Fujino	Senior Lecturer in Japanese Language and Linguistics	hfujino@brookes.ac.uk
Professor Joy Hendry	Emeritus Professor of Anthropology	jhendry@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Alexander Jacoby	Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies and Director of Europe Japan Research Centre	alexanderjacoby@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Laurence Mann	Senior Lecturer in Japanese and Korean, Director of BrookesEDGE	lmann@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Louella Matsunaga	Research Associate	lmatsunaga@brookes.ac.uk
Yumiko Ishiwata O'Meara	Lecturer in Japanese	yishiwata@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Kerri Russell	Senior Lecturer in Japanese Language and Linguistics	kerri.russell@brookes.ac.uk

Name	Thesis Title	Supervisors	Completed
Dr Sébastien Boret	New Buddhist “natural” funerals in Japan	Professor Jeremy MacClancy, Professor Joy Hendry, Dr Mitchell Sedgwick	2011
Alexandra Chesters	The Joy of Possessions and Decluttering in Japan and the West	Dr Jason Danely, Professor Jeremy MacClancy	2021
Dr Paola Esposito	Butoh and the West: A Performative Ethnographic Analysis of the Spread of Butoh-dance outside of Japan	Professor Jeremy MacClancy, Dr Mitchell Sedgwick	2014
Dr Anna Fraser	Medical properties of hot springs in Japan	Professor Chris McDonaugh, Professor Jeremy MacClancy, Professor Joy Hendry	2013
Dr Douglas Frewer	The social agency of postage stamps: Japanese postage stamps in a global context	Professor Jeremy MacClancy, Catherine Atherton, Professor Joy Hendry	2004
Dr Duccio Gasparri	Locals, New-locals, Non-locals: (Re)mapping people and food in post-disaster Ishinomaki, Japan	Professor Jeremy MacClancy, Dr Louella Matsunaga	2020
Dr Ruth Martin	Opportunity and fulfilment: Overseas transfer and the Japanese housewife	Professor Joy Hendry, James Roberson	2004
Dr Stephanie Oeben	Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games in Europe and Japan: A Comparative Anthropological Study	Professor Jeremy MacClancy, Dr Mitchell Sedgwick	2013
Brittany Rapone	Cultural Influences Behind Exotic Pet Cafés in Japan and their Relation to the International Pet Trade	Dr Jason Danely	Active
Dr Ayumi Sasagawa	Life-choices: university educated mothers in a Japanese suburb	Professor Joy Hendry, Dr Jane Ribbens-McCarthy	2001
Dr Phil Sawkins	(Not) only connect – investigating the place of the mobile phone in Japanese lives	Professor Joy Hendry, Dr Mitchell Sedgwick	2007
Dr Katsunobu Shimizu	Spurning the Classroom: The discourse and reality of School Non-Attendance in Contemporary Japan		2009

Name	Role	Organisation
Professor Sébastien Boret	Associate Professor	Tohoku University
Peter Wynn Kirby	Senior Member	University of Oxford
John LoBreglio	Editor, The Eastern Buddhist	Otani University
Dr Ruth Martin	Associate Lecturer in Anthropology	Oxford Brookes University
Hirochika Nakamaki	Professor Emeritus	Osaka Museum of Ethnology
James Roberson	Professor of Anthropology	Tokyo Jogakkan College
Dr Mitchell Sedgwick	Senior visiting fellow and guest teacher	London School of Economics
Dr Bruce White	Executive Director	The Organisation for Intra-Cultural Development (OICD)

Projects

Project title and description	Investigator(s)	Funder(s)	Dates
Japan 2020 Major online and in-venue survey of Japanese cinema from the silent era to the 21st century, timed to coincide with the (postponed) Tokyo Olympics now scheduled for summer 2021.	Dr Alexander Jacoby		From: January 2020
Eastern Buddhist Editorship John Lo Breglio moonlights as editor of the academic journal, carrying articles on all aspects of Buddhism as well as English translations of classical Buddhist texts and works by modern Buddhist thinkers. The journal was founded in 1921 by renowned scholar of Buddhism, D. T. Suzuki, and his wife, Beatrice Lane Suzuki. John is currently preparing for the centennial issue.			From: April 2017
Exploring Global Jodo Shinshu Through Ritual Practice: Histories, Transformations and Localisations Dr Louella Matsunaga, in collaboration with Dr Enrique Galvan-Alvarez (Universidad Internacional de La Rioja-UNIR) and Professor Mitsuya Dake (Ryukoku University).	Dr Louella Matsunaga	Numata Foundation	From: September 2020

Project title and description	Investigator(s)	Funder(s)	Dates
Comparison of older ex-offender resettlement and community-based organisations for reducing recidivi This research involved a year of fieldwork with ex-offender rehabilitation NGOs in the Tokyo area and western England.	Dr Jason Danely	SSRC, Sasakawa Foundation	From: April 2016 Until: April 2020
Kawashima: The Missing Link Retrospective films by Japanese director Yuzo Kawashima (1918-1963) at Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna. The latest programme in an ongoing collaboration with this festival inaugurated in 2012.	Dr Alexander Jacoby		From: January 2020 Until: December 2020
Poetry, song, heritage: the Poetic Mind	Dr Laurence Mann	John Fell Fund	From: January 2019 Until: December 2020
Can the music of poetry transcend cultural and linguistic barriers?	Dr Manon Jones	Creative Multilingualism	From: January 2018 Until: December 2020

Seminars and events

26 January 2026 - 26 January 2026

Brokenness and repair

Inspired by the sublime beauty of techniques of visual repair across cultures, these works invite reflection on brokenness and why it matters.

Let's Read Japanese

One of the most frustrating problems for students learning Japanese is the relative absence of good reading material which allows them to both practice the language at different levels, and also learn about Japanese history and society. The Let’s Read Japanese series fulfils this need by providing graded, engaging stories for all learners of Japanese.

The books include famous stories from Japan and other parts of the world - re-tellings of traditional stories, classic tales, Japanese legends and poems, as well as some newly-commissioned stories - all designed to introduce particular aspects of Japanese culture and society. The stories complement any textbook being used by a learner of Japanese anywhere in the world; the books are ideal for those learning in language schools or through self-study.

Podcasts