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International Samuel Beckett Symposium in Tokyo September 29 / September 30 / October 1, 2006

Under the auspices of

The 21st Century COE (Center of Excellence) Institute for Theatre Research, Waseda University
and
The Samuel Beckett Research Circle of Japan

Venue: Waseda University International Convention Centre

The year 2006 marks not only the one-hundredth anniversary of Samuel Beckett’s birth but also the fiftieth anniversary of the Japanese public’s very first encounter with his work. In 1953, a Japanese student named Ando Shin’ya watched the world premiere of En attendant Godot at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris and was enchanted by this “unprecedented” play. The Hakusuisha Publishing Company published Ando’s Japanese translation of the play in 1956. Ando himself directed Godot’s Japanese premiere for the major Shingeki (“modern theatre”) company Bungakuza in 1960, making a decisive impact on such playwrights as Betsuyaku Minoru, Suzuki Tadashi, Sato Makoto, and Kara Juro. The production triggered the avant-garde movement called the “Underground Theatre”, which developed into “Shogekijo-Undou” (the “Little-Theatre Movement”), the new wave of Japanese theatre. Godot has been performed repeatedly in Japan since the 60s, leaving a deep impression upon spectator and practitioner alike. Such theatre artists as Ninagawa Yukio, Kushida Kazuyoshi, Tsuka Kohei and Miyazawa Akio demonstrate the influence that Beckett’s play continues to have in contemporary Japanese theatre.

Japan’s first international Beckett Symposium will be held at the International Convention Centre at Waseda University for three days, from 29 September to 1 October, 2006. The Symposium will be co-hosted by Waseda University’s 21^st Century COE Institute for Theatre Research and the Samuel Beckett Research Circle of Japan. The symposium theme will be “Borderless Beckett”. The late Takahashi Yasunari, who initiated Beckett studies in Japan, described affinities between Beckett’s drama and classical Noh theatre. Noh crosses borders between reality and dream, between life and death. Beckett’s art too undermines dualistic thinking and transgresses various borders: traditional distinctions in genre, linguistic differences between English and French, geographical and political differences, and conventional frameworks of philosophy and aesthetics. Beckett’s writing, which seems on the one hand to be art reduced to bare essentials, is in fact paradoxically excessive, eluding conventional views of literature, media and culture. The symposium will aim to create a free critical and creative space, where diverse critical approaches and methodologies may reach toward and celebrate Beckett’s transgressive, borderless art.

KEYNOTE LECTURE 1

Mary Bryden (Cardiff University):
Clowning with Beckett

Date: Friday, Septermber 29
10:30 - 11:20
Venue: Ibuka Masaru Hall

KEYNOTE LECTURE 2

        Stanley Gontarski (Florida State University):
The Future of Performance

Date: Friday, Septermber 29
16:10 - 17:00
Venue: Ibuka Masaru Hall

KEYNOTE LECTURE 3
Evelyne Grossman (Université Paris VII):
A la limite. . .

Date: Saturday, Septermber 30
11:10 - 12:00
Venue: Ibuka Masaru Hall

KEYNOTE LECTURE 4

 Steven Connor (University of London):
"On Such and Such a Day. . . in Such a World" - Beckett's Radical Finitude

Date: Sunday, October 1
11:10 - 12:00
Venue: Ibuka Masaru Hall

SPECIAL LECTURE
(supported by the Embassy of Ireland in Japan)

Terence Brown (The Trinity College, Dublin):
Yeats, Beckett and the Ghosts in the Machines

Date: Saturday, Septermber 30
14:20 - 15:10
Venue: Ibuka Masaru Hall

PLENARY PANEL(ENGLISH)

Beckett and the Art of His Century

Enoch Brater (University of Michigan)

Angela Moorjani (Emerita, University of Maryland, Baltimore County)

Linda Ben-Zvi  (University of Tel Aviv; Emerita, Colorado State University)

PUBLIC LECTURE

J. M. Coetzee
(The Novel laureate of 2003)

Date: Saturday, Septermber 30
admission: 17:00
lecture: 17:20 -18: 50
Venue: Ibuka Masaru Hall

(with Japanese translation)

FRENCH PANEL
(supported by the Embassy of France in Japan)

"Dialogue entre Bruno Clément et de jeunes chercheurs"
 
Bruno Clément (Université Paris 8)

Agnieszka Tworek (Yale University, Ph. D candidate)
   
Manako Ono (Gakushuin University)

Date: Sunday, October 1
15:00 - 16:20
Venue: Ibuka Masaru Hall

GROUP SESSIONS

About sixty papers in English or in French  will be delivered
by Beckett scholars from over twenty countries
under the theme of "BORDERLESS BECKETT".

Among them are Chris Ackerley, Peter Boxall, Garin Dowd, Yan Mevel,
Minako Okamuro, Jonah Salz, Derval Tubridy, Anthony Uhlmann, Shane Weller
and many other known and unknown enthusiastic Beckettians.

For the details of Group Sessions, go to delegates page

For REGISTRATION to the Symposium, go to the JTB site

Online Registration for general participants will be accepted until September 20

THE CONFERENCE BOARD

Producers: Mikio Takemoto (The 21st Century COE Institute for Theatre Research,
Waseda University )
Masaki Kondo (Samuel Beckett Research Circle of Japan)

General Director: Minako Okamuro (Waseda University)

Executive Director: S. E. Gontarski (Florida State University)

Directors: Takeshi Kawashima (Waseda University)
Naoya Mori (Kobe Women's Unversity)
Manako Ono (Gakushuin University)
Yoshiki Tajiri (University of Tokyo)

Board Members: Michael Guest (ex-Shizuoka University)
Yoshiyuki Inoue (Meiji University)
Kaku Nagashima (Dramaturg)
Izumi Nishimura (Aichi University)
Mariko Hori Tanaka (Aoyama Gakuin University)
Michiko Tsushima (University of Tsukuba)

The Office of the 21st Century COE Institute for Theatre Research, Waseda University:
Natsuko Inaishi
Hiromitsu Kazama
Midori Sakai

￭ schedule ￭ registration/accommodation ￭ events ￭ delegates ￭ home

*Call for Papers--Now Closed

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
 International Meeting Series