I am delighted to post this on the Japan Studies Association of Canada’s (JSAC) new website! JSAC incorporated as a not-for-profit (NFP) organization last year, so we needed our own site with more functionality. 

Always a pioneer, York University Japanese professor Norio Ota launched our first site in October 1998, and it since served as JSAC’s virtual home and archive. Over the past year, with the dedicated help of our website group, we chose an appropriate provider (Yapla.com, a Montreal firm that works internationally for NFPs), and started building the site. We are continuing to develop it.  

The website and our NFP status (see "JSAC is incorporated as an NFP") represent new shifts in JSAC’s role as Canada’s only national scholarly social sciences and humanities association focused on Japan. JSAC is grateful to work with institutions fully committed to Japan studies: the Universities of Toronto (Centre for the Study of Global Japan), British Columbia (Centre for Japanese Research), and Alberta (Prince Takamado Japan Centre for Teaching and Research). Importantly though, JSAC also fosters Japan-related scholars and teachers who are part of smaller groups or on their own at other universities. Japan studies at these institutions is more precarious, so deserve our attention.

Our 2024 conference, hosted expertly by Sachiyo Kanzaki and her team at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) was another shift. It was the first time JSAC was held at a Francophone university. This is a crucial step in creating  a truly Canadian JSAC. We are looking forward to further engagement with Francophone scholars.

As someone who has been in the Canada-Japan “business” for decades (including 4 years at JETRO’s Toronto office), I am reluctant to again say that this relationship is more vital than ever. Both countries have benefited from their close ties to the US, and both must salvage what they can of these ties, while deepening relations with other countries. JSAC and its partner organizations, including the Japan Foundation, which has been with us from the start, have more work to do.

We are ready.

Photo:  Yuta Shimoyama (University of Tokyo), Kenji Suzuki (Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts), Norie Yazu (Kwansei Gakuin University and President Japanese Association for Canadian Studies), Mai Kanzaki (Doshisha University),and  James Tiessen (Toronto Metropolitan University) at JSAC 2024 Conference at UQAM.