2026 Tanaka Symposium in Japanese Studies — Soft Power in Hard Times: Japanese Cultural Power After COVID17.4.2026 {en}
The convenors are please to announce that the 2026 Tanaka Symposium in Japanese Studies will be held on May 5, 2026, at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. This year’s theme is „Soft Power in Hard Times: Japanese Cultural Power After COVID.“
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan’s cultural industries have found themselves in a precarious position. While inbound tourism and interest in Japanese literature and popular media have only increased in the 2020s, the devaluation of the yen and increased global geopolitical tensions have created economic and political issues that have in turn impacted the country’s much-vaunted soft power initiatives. At the same time, growing cultural diversity within Japan and the increasingly global nature of media production have created new opportunities and possibilities for artists, writers, and other media creators.
What does ’soft power‘ mean to Japan in the 2020s? This symposium will assess how cultural and soft power is understood and negotiated in Japan’s cultural industries since COVID, moving past earlier paradigms such as the government-led ‚Cool Japan‘ initiatives of the late 2000s and 2010s. It will consider how global interest in Japanese media products intersects with ongoing economic and geopolitical issues and reexamine what ’soft power‘ itself is and what it can do in an increasingly unstable and rapidly re-militarising world. Areas of discussion will include shifts in Japanese literary translation, the globalisation of media industries such as anime and video games, and how changing economic and geopolitical conditions have reshaped perceptions of ‚Japan‘ both domestically and internationally.
Convenor: Professor Linda Flores, Fellow in Japanese Studies, Pembroke College
Organiser: Dr. Patrick Carland-Echavarria, Tanaka Junior Research Fellow in Japanese Studies, Pembroke College
Keynote Speaker: Professor Susan J. Napier, Goldthwaite Professor of Rhetoric, International and Cultural Studies, Tufts University
Register for the Conference in-person or online here.
Programme
09:00-09:30 Welcome and Registration
09.30-09.45 Opening Remarks
Professor Linda Flores
09.45-11.15 Panel One: Japanese Literary Translation in the 2020s: Cats, Cafes, and the Classics
‚Why So Many Cats and Cafes? Affect, Ambience, and „small things“ in Japanese Cosy Fiction,‘ Professor Linda Flores & Dr. Patrick Carland-Echavarria, Pembroke College, University of Oxford
‚Understanding the Dazai-boom in this Post-Pandemic, Cosy-Seeking World,‘ Dr. Serena Ceniccola, College Lecturer in Japanese Studies, Pembroke College, University of Oxford
‚Feel-good fiction or self-help books? Methodological issues surrounding a new content category,‘ Thomas Garcin, Associate Professor in Japanese Studies, Paris-Cité University
11.15-11.30 Break
11.30-13.00 Panel Two: Japanese Media Production in Global Contexts
‚Netflix and Nostalgia: Affecting the Global Audience,‘ Jennifer Coates, Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Sheffield
‚Contesting Anime’s Power: From Political Resistance to AI Mimicry,‘ Rayna Denison, Professor of Film and Digital Arts, University of Bristol
‚Japan As Atmosphere: Aesthetic Soft Power, Cultural Capital, and the Global Circulation of Japan After COVID,‘ Christian Wilken, Research Associate in Modern English Literature, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.30 Keynote Speech
Professor Susan J. Napier, Goldthwaite Professor of Rhetoric, International and Cultural Studies, Tufts University
15.30-15.45 Break
15.45-16.45 Roundtable Discussion: Rethinking Soft Power in Japan Today
Moderator: Dr. Filippo Cervelli, Lecturer in Modern Japanese Literature and Popular Culture, SOAS University of London
16.45-17.00 Closing Remarks
17.00-17.45 Drinks Reception
Further information at https://www.pmb.ox.ac.uk/event/2026-tanaka-symposium-japanese-studies.
Source: ANN: 2026 Tanaka Symposium in Japanese Studies — Soft Power in Hard Times: Japanese Cultural Power After COVID, H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US.
