The February session of the monthly workshop will continue the theme of "bureaucrats" from January, but now in the prewar era.* Presenting will be Judit Erika Magyar, who is working on a PhD in modern history at Waseda.

From the Meiji period a key to building a centralized, intrusive state was developing the Weberian "rational-legal" bureaucracy. Powerful officials not only ran the governmental ministries; distinctively, in late Meiji and Taisho Japan, they increasingly moved into party politics. Judit's presentation will focus on the norms attached to the roles played by these ex-bureacrats as members and leaders of political parties. How much was carried forward from their earlier official careers? Where did nationalism come in? And what did it all mean for the tribulations of democracy in Japan, in Taisho and beyond?

Please let me know if you are a young(ish) social scientist who might be interested in being on our mailing list. Also, I appreciate hearing if you are coming to this next session.

jc

*Meetings of the Shaken Social Science Dissertation Workshop start at 12 pm and go to 1:30 and sometimes beyond. The Institute of Social Science provides coffee and tea and you are welcome to bring lunch. The location is a seminar room on the 5th floor in the Akamon General Research (Sougou Kenkyuu) Building.
The building is down a little passage to the right after you come through Akamon. It is Bldg 37 on this
map:

http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/about/documents/Hongo_CampusMap_E.pdf
__________________________
>From John Creighton Campbell
Professor Emeritus of Political Science
University of Michigan
Visiting Scholar, Institute of Gerontology Tokyo University jccamp at umich.edu