Events

This lecture will introduce the legal disputes surrounding the interpretation of religion as a category within Japanese law. The terms "religion" and "religious" (shūkyō, shūkyōteki / shūkyōjō) appear in two articles of Japan's 1947 Constitution, yet they are never explicitly defined.

Similarly, the Religious Juridical Persons Law, first enacted in 1951, establishes a detailed framework for how religious organizations can incorporate and function within Japanese society, but it also fails to provide a clear definition of "religion."

As a result, the responsibility for defining religion has fallen to the Japanese judiciary which, in adjudicating lawsuits involving interactions between religious organizations and public entities, has at times presented conflicting interpretations of the term.

In this lecture, historian of religion Ernils Larsson will provide an overview of several key rulings and discuss their implications in relation to broader political debates, including the role of Shinto in postwar national identity.

Date: October 18, 2024
Time: 1 - 2:30 p.m.
Venue: Tohoku University Kawauchi Campus, Multimedia Education and 雷速体育_中国足彩网￥在线直播 Complex, 6F (map)
Language: English
Open to all, registration not required

About the Speaker

Ernils Larsson is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Multidisciplinary 雷速体育_中国足彩网￥在线直播 on Religion and Society at Uppsala University and is affiliated with the Organization for Advanced 雷速体育_中国足彩网￥在线直播 and Development at Kokugakuin University. His current research project examines how Shrine Shinto actors have negotiated the constitutional principle of secularism in postwar Japan. Larsson holds a PhD in the history of religions from Uppsala University.

This lecture is organized by the Tohoku University Graduate School of International Cultural Studies (Dept. of Japanese Religion and Intellectual History), and co-hosted by the Graduate School of Arts and Letters (Dept. of Innovative Japanese Studies).

For more information, please visit the homepage here:
https://web.tohoku.ac.jp/modern-japan/events/#2024-10-18