Studies in Shinto
The ISF provides studies in Shinto through lecture, speaking at conferences and offering reading material and newseltters.
The 2010 Shinto Essay Competition
The 13th Annual Shinto Essay Competition 2010 is underway!
This competition is open to university students (undergraduates, graduates) and researchers. Applicants should submit an essay of no more than 3,500 words (including footnotes and bibliography) on one of these topics:
1. Kami and Hotoke in Japanese popular culture
2. Shinto and Literature
3. Shinto as a "story" and/or Shinto as "doctrine"
Essays will be judged on their originality and the clarity of their argument. For further details, visit Shinto Essay Competition.
Professorship
Toshu Fukami Professorship of Shinto Studies at
Columbia University
One of the major activities of the International Shinto Foundation is
funding the establishment of chairs specializing in studies of Japanese
religion, specifically focused on Shinto as the core of Japanese cultural
values, at prestigious universities abroad. In 1997, the first Shinto
chair was endowed at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)
under the leadership of Prof. Allan Grapard. Another chair was set up,
in 1998, for a graduate studies degree in "Shinto and Japanese
Culture" at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. ISF began
providing funds for the London University School of Oriental and African
Studies (SOAS) to establish the Center for the Study of Japanese Religions
(CSJR) and start a Masterfs degree course from 1999. In 2001 Dr. Toshu
Fukami, ISF President, agreed to provide endowment funds to establish
the Toshu Fukami Professorship of Shinto Studies at Columbia Universityfs
Department of Religion. Prof. Michael Como was nominated the chair in
2006. In responding to the proposal of Prof. Nicholas B. Dirks, Vice
President for Arts and Sciences of Columbia University Dr. Fukami pledged
to increase the fund of this endowment for the full professorship covering
not only the Department of Religion, but also the Department of East
Asian Languages and Cultures. The new Gift Agreement was signed by both
parties of the ISF and Columbia University on April 10, 2008.
Conferences
October 23, 2009
CONFERENCE PAPER:
The role of Shinto in Japanese culture (Past, Present and Future)
Speaker: UMEDA Yoshimi - Director General, International Shinto
Foundation, Japan
I
am truly grateful to have been invited to this, the First International
Sun & Tao Conference, held at the prestigious Korea University.
I also feel greatly honoured to have been given the opportunity to make
a keynote speech. I understand from the information on the present
conference that its objectives may be summarized as follows: In the
21st Century, major advances in transport and communications have allowed
circulation of information and human and material exchange to proceed
on a global scale, and we are witnessing the globalization of our civilization.
In spite of this, obstacles to mutual cultural understanding between
East and West are still all too apparent. In order to eliminate
these tangible and intangible barriers, an interdisciplinary approach
to the indigenous cultures of East Asia is needed. Following this
theme, I should like to describe the role of Shinto in the indigenous
culture of Japan, and hope to share the understandings and criticisms
of the participants here.
(1) What is Shinto?
I should like to begin with a brief account of Shinto. Shinto is Japan’s indigenous religion. It is an ethnic religion which has continued from ancient times in Japan to the present; it permeates all aspects of the life and culture of the Japanese people, and, moreover, it has the power to accept foreign culture and transform it into something Japanese. In origin it is a complex of ancient folk belief and rituals, a basically animistic religion that perceives the presence of deities or of the sacred in animals, in plants, and even in things which have no life, such as rocks and waterfalls. Its roots go back to the distant past. A large number of artifacts discovered at sites dating from the Jōmon period, said to have ended about 200 BCE, are thought to have had some magical significance. Continue reading »
Shinto Publications
Rice
is Life
ISF's Midday Workshop Report 2004
Economic Social & Cultural importance of World's Rice Consuming
Population)
32 pages
Aerial View of Sacred Forests and Groves in Megalopolis
Tokyo
5 pages
Mutually Exclusive and Mutually Permeable Values
With a brief commentary on henotheism as contrsted with monotheism and
polytheism
16 pages