PhD candidate / research and teaching fellow (wissenschaftliche Assistenz) Japanese Studies 60%

Start of employment 1 January 2027 or upon agreement

The Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies at the University of Zurich (UZH) is the largest center for research and teaching on Asia in Switzerland. The Chair of Social Science Japan Studies, led by Prof. David Chiavacci, invites applications for the position of a PhD candidate / research and teaching associate. In addition to other research activities, the Chair currently hosts two major third-party funded research projects:

• Agenda Setting and Framing of Immigration in Japan, 1975–2025 (https://data.snf.ch/grants/grant/10004726)
• The Japan Transnational Education and Career Panel Study (JTEPS): International Student Mobility and Its Consequences (https://data.snf.ch/grants/grant/10002843)

Your responsibilities

The position is designed to enable the successful candidate to develop her/his own research project (PhD project). Responsibilities include independent teaching at the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels (2 hours per semester), participation in administrative duties at the Chair, and the opportunity to contribute to the Chair’s ongoing research projects.

Your profile

Applicants are expected to have:

• Excellent MA in Japanese Studies or a social science discipline with a focus on Japan.
• Broad expertise on contemporary and modern Japan.
• Solid training in social science theories and methodologies.
• Very good command of Japanese and English.
• Good command of German is not a requirement, but an advantage.

We offer:

• A PhD / research and teaching associate position (60%), initially appointed for three years, with the possibility of extension up to a total of six years pending good performance.
• A collegial, cooperative, and intellectually stimulating working environment with good infrastructure within a small and highly motivated team.
• Opportunities to develop and strengthen one’s research profile and teaching portfolio.
• Opportunity to develop and carry out your own PhD research project.
• Opportunities for developing teaching skills and attractive funding possibilities for various academic activities (workshops, working groups, fieldwork, participation in conferences etc.).

Information on your application

Please upload your application as a single PDF file via the UZH job portal. Application Deadline is 31 July 2026. The application should include:

• A motivation letter (including a brief research statement).
• Curriculum vitae.
• Copies of academic diplomas.
• A short PhD research proposal (max. 800 words excluding references).

Please repost and share with those in your networks who might be interested!

For further information, please contact David Chiavacci (david.chiavacci@uzh.ch).

The 45th International Conference of Young Orientalists – Yerevan, Republic of Armenia | October 15–16, 2026

The Institute of Oriental Studies invites young scholars to participate in the 45th International Conference of Young Orientalists, to be held in Yerevan, Republic of Armenia, on October 15–16, 2026, within the framework of events dedicated to the 55th anniversary of the Institute of Oriental Studies.

Application deadline: June 26, 2026

Submission and Contact

Email: youngorientalist@gmail.com

We are pleased to announce the call for applications for the Japanese Studies Research Showcase, a one-day workshop for doctoral students and early-career postdoctoral researchers in Japanese Studies based at universities in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. The event will take place at the Japanese Cultural Institute in Cologne / The Japan Foundation on 9 October 2026.

The workshop provides a friendly and supportive setting in which participants can present their research in Japanese, receive feedback from specialists, and practice responding to questions in Japanese. Each presenter will give an 8-minute presentation, followed by a 7-minute Q&A session.

The event is open to scholars working in Japanese Studies broadly defined, including history, literature, anthropology, sociology, political science, and related fields. In addition to presentation practice, the workshop will offer opportunities for networking and information exchange on fellowships and research funding related to Japan Studies.

The application deadline is 15 July 2026.

Please feel free to circulate this call widely.

Contact Information

Hiro Fujimoto
hiroshi.fujimoto@hcts.uni-heidelberg.de

Tamara Fuchs
Tamara_Fuchs@jpf.go.jp

Sincerely,

Hiro Fujimoto

—

Hiroshi Fujimoto, Ph.D.

Lecturer/Research Scholar, Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies (HCTS), Heidelberg University

Karl Jaspers Centre, Voßstraße 2, Building 4400, Room 400.01.14, Heidelberg 69115 Germany

hiroshi.fujimoto@hcts.uni-heidelberg.de

https://www.hcts.uni-heidelberg.de/en/centre/people-a-z/dr-hiro-fujimoto

---

Our Language and the Anthropocene Research Group is pleased to invite you to a guest lecture on “Ainu in deep time” by Prof. Dr. Anna Bugaeva at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology in Jena.

The event will take place on 23rd June at 14:00 in the library.

Participation is free but it would be convenient if you could register for online participation. The link below contains an abstract, short bio and a link for registration.

You are very welcome!

Best wishes,

Martine

Prof. Dr. Dr. habil Martine Robbeets

Language and the Anthropocene Research Group Leader
Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
Kahlaische Strasse 10
07745 Jena, Germany

Honorary Professor

Department of Linguistic Typology

Johannes Gutenberg University

Mainz, Germany

We are pleased to invite you to a roundtable titled “Funding, Influence, and Knowledge Production in Japanese Studies: From Case Studies to Deontological Framework”.

This roundtable brings together scholars working on Japanese Studies to discuss issues related to funding, influence, and research practices, through a series of perspectives ranging from historical analysis to contemporary cases.

Following opening remarks, the program will include:

Karoline Postel-Vinay (Sciences Po, CERI): “The Failed Legal Attack of the French Sasakawa Foundation Against a Scholar: Old and New Issues”

Arnaud Grivaud (Université Paris Cité): “Relations between Sasakawa-related Foundations and the Japanese Government Today: A Brief Overview”

Constance Sereni (University of Geneva): “Sasakawa Ryōichi and His Foundations: A Few Historical Milestones”

Philippe Pelletier (Université Lumière Lyon 2, emeritus): “Deontological Implications and Issues in Social Sciences Research”

Date: June 12, 2026

Time: 14:00 (CEST)

Format: Online (Zoom)

We would be very pleased to have you join us for this roundtable addressing issues of shared concern within the field.

Guillaume Muller

Université Bordeaux Montaigne

Claire Akiko Brisset

University of Geneva

Italian School of East Asian Studies (ISEAS)

ROUNDTABLE

Friday, July 24, 2026, 18:00-19:30 (JST)

Co -hosted by 

École française d’Extrême-Orient EFEO

Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies

Faculty of Integrated Human Studies, Kyoto University

Affect as Method: Working Through Feeling in Fieldwork

Speaker: 

Daniel White (University College London)

Marié Abe (University of California, Berkeley)

Emma Cook (Hokkaido University)

Andrea De Antoni (Kyoto University)

What if the most productive response to moments of ethnographic puzzlement and uncertainty were not the formulation of an answer but the cultivation of a feeling? And where academic professional practices discourage the experience of possible worlds, what if anthropology could leverage somatic rather than semiotic exercises to connect and cultivate collaboration with interlocutors in the field?

Anthropologists have offered ample analytical responses to the problematization of feeling, but they have not always engaged with affect as a phenomenon operating beyond Western philosophical traditions, nor fully explored its potential to challenge anthropology’s modernist explanatory drive and generate new ethnographic possibilities.

Developed through years of shared conversations and workshops among the presenters and published as Affect as Cultural Critique (Toronto 2026), this roundtable explores how affective encounters can shape research trajectories, orient fieldwork decisions, and open forms of understanding that exceed conventional analytic language. Moving beyond the treatment of feelings as data to be interpreted, the discussion approaches affective practices as techniques of knowing, attending, collaborating, guiding fieldwork choices, and experimenting when discursive accounts alone prove insufficient.

Drawing on ethnographic and artist-activist engagements involving meditation, encounters with spirits, experiences of illness, music, play, and other embodied exercises, the conversation will consider how affective methods can highlight the force of discourse, reconfigure how discourse operates by working through embodied forms, and unsettle disciplinary interpretive norms. The session invites participants to engage affect as a form of critique that not only diagnoses worlds but also contributes collaboratively to remaking them.

This hybrid lecture will be held on site and via Zoom (Registration from here by July 20).

Venue: ISEAS, 29 Kitashirakawa Bettō-chō, Sakyō-ku, Kyoto 

Italian School of East Asian Studies (ISEAS) 

Phone: 075-703-3015

E-mail: info.iseas@iseas-kyoto.org

Web https://iseas-kyoto.org—

デ・アントーニ アンドレア 京都大学 大学院 人間・環境学研究科 准教授 文化人類学

〒606-8316 京都府京都市左京区吉田二本松町

Andrea De Antoni (Ph.D.), Associate Professor, Socio-Cultural Anthropology
Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University
Yoshida Nihonmatsu-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan

国際日本社会人類学会（JAWS）―学会長
Japan Anthropology Workshop (JAWS) – Secretary General,

European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS), Anthropology of Japan in Japan (AJJ) Liaison Officer

イタリア東方学研究所（ISEAS）―研究企画担当

Italian School of East Asian Studies (ISEAS) Research Coordinator

宗教的治療の文化人類学ネットワーク

Religious Healing Anthropology Network Coordinator

http://religioushealing-anthropology.org/

個人ページ

Personal Website

https://kyoto-u.academia.edu/AndreaDeAntoni

Whales and Humans: Past Entanglements and Current Relations – International Conference at the University of Iceland, June 22 – 23, 2026

Scholarship on the relationship between humans and whales around the globe continues to be exciting and innovative. Yet, since the Sandefjord Whaling Museum last hosted a conference on the topic in 2013, there have been few opportunities for this community of scholars to come together. Therefore, we – a consortium of scholars from Iceland, Japan, and the United States – are soliciting papers for a conference on the history and present of humans and whales, to take place at the University of Iceland, in Reykjavik, from June 22 – 23, 2026.  We hope to receive submissions examining as many different parts of the world oceans as possible.

Those interested in presenting work on any aspect of the entangled histories of humans and whales, please submit a short CV (2-page maximum) as well as an abstract proposal of no more than 300 words no later than December 21, 2025. Conference sponsors aim to cover participants’ food and lodging in Iceland, as well as travel costs for some graduate students and early career scholars. The conference will take place in connection with the Húsavík Whale Museum’s annual Whale Conference, on June 25, with participants warmly invited to extend their stay in Iceland to attend.   

Please submit your CV and abstract in one email to: whales@hi.is

For inquiries, please use the same email address.

Updates will be posted on the conference website closer to the event, www.whales.hi.is

Conference committee & institutional sponsors:

Kristín Ingvarsdóttir, main organizer, University of Iceland

Ryan Tucker Jones, University of Oregon

Akamine Jun, ArCS III (Japan´s Arctic Challenge for Sustainability), Hitotsubashi University

Lissa Wadewitz, University of Oregon

The 45th International Conference of Young Orientalists – Yerevan, Republic of Armenia | October 15–16, 2026

The Institute of Oriental Studies invites young scholars to participate in the 45th International Conference of Young Orientalists, to be held in Yerevan, Republic of Armenia, on October 15–16, 2026, within the framework of events dedicated to the 55th anniversary of the Institute of Oriental Studies.

Application deadline: June 26, 2026

Submission and Contact

Email: youngorientalist@gmail.com