Since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, the Japanese people have started to encounter unfamiliar words and deeds such as ‘volunteering’ and ‘charity’ on the TV news and in magazines and newspapers. Before that disaster, the existence of charity in Japan was rarely noticed, although of course that does not mean that there was no indigenous tradition or practice of charity. On the other hand, for a new graduate student who happened to choose modern British history in 1995, it was not long before he realised the ubiquity of charity and philanthropy in modern and contemporary British society. The speaker would like to talk about the peculiarity of Britain in terms of charity through the lens of some Japanese observers in the 19th and 20th centuries. We hope that this will also reveal the peculiarity of Japan.

Date: Thursday 25 March 2021

UK Time: 12:00pm-1:00pm (GMT)
Japan Time: 9:00pm-10:00pm (GMT+9)

About the contributors

Professor Shusaku Kanazawa is Professor of Western History at the Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University. His research interests focus on the comparative study of modern British and Japanese charity, maritime history, and Western historiography in general. His publications include Charitī to Igirisu Kindai (Charities in Modern Britain), awarded the Sompo Japan Foundation Prize and the Yujiro Hayashi Prize (by Japan NPO Research Association). He edited Umi no Igirisu Shi (A Companion to British Maritime History) and Ronten Seiyōshigaku (A Companion to Critical Issues of Western History). An article of his in German appears in Religion und Philanthropie in den europäischen Zivilgesellschaften: Entwicklungen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. He has also published an article in the English Historical Review.

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