Happy New Year to all Forum members. Apologies for cross-posting. We are delighted to have received over 100 paper submissions (either individual papers or in panels) for the 2022 British Association for Japanese Studies (BAJS) conference. The conference promises to be an exciting event! As the maximum capacity of the conference is 120 papers and we would like to make full use of this if possible, *we have decided to make a short extension to the deadline for submitting abstracts until Thursday 20 January 2022*.

The conference is to be held at the University of Manchester from 7 to 9 September 2022. Abstracts for each paper should be between 100 and 300 words, and should be submitted to bajs2022@manchester.ac.uk (preferably as a Word file). Those submitting abstracts should include information about their work position and contact details, including university affiliation if any. Postgraduate students and early career researchers (ECRs) should also ask their supervisor or head of department/line manager respectively to send a brief email to the same email address verifying their status. We define ECR as a scholar either on probation, tenure-track but not yet tenured, or in a non-permanent position (e.g. postdoctoral fellowship, fixed-term contract). Those successful can expect to be notified in February 2022.

PhD and MA supervisors, please encourage your students (who may not always be on mailing lists) to submit abstracts, as a generous grant from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation has made it possible to reduce the registration fee for presenters who are postgraduate students, early career researchers, and unwaged scholars. Please note that registration fees for presenters will be significantly lower than those for non-presenters, thanks to the funding we have received.

Further, a generous grant of £2500 from the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation has made it possible to offer travel subsidies to a limited number of presenters whose universities are further from Manchester (up to £50 for UK-based presenters and up to £100 for non-UK presenters).

It is planned to hold the conference as a largely in-person event. There will be up to 120 presentations; up to 10 may be remote presentations using Zoom (remote presenters must be outside the UK and regions of Europe within easy reach of Eurostar train stations). (These plans will be kept under review, given the ongoing pandemic, though we are encouraged by the fact that this conference will be held at the end of summer in the northern hemisphere, and by the relatively wide take-up of vaccinations in many countries where they are available.)

Submissions may be either of individual papers related to any aspect of Japanese Studies, or of panels of three or four people. There is no requirement for papers to be related to a particular theme. No preference will be given to panels over individual papers; selection will be based on the organizing committee's judgment of the quality and interest of the proposed papers. (Individual papers will be grouped into thematically coherent sessions by the organising committee.) Four-person panels may include either four papers and no discussant, or three papers and one discussant. Three-person panels will consist only of paper presentations, without a discussant. Panels may not include more than one remote-by-Zoom member. Those wishing to present remotely using Zoom may also submit individual papers. Presentations will be up to 20 minutes, with 10 minutes Q&A/discussion.

There will be no keynote speakers, in order to maximise time for presentation of research by those submitting papers.

The registration fee for the conference will be announced in April 2022, once we know the outcome of our final funding application to reduce the costs, but is expected to be in the range £90-£140 for postgraduate students/early career researchers/unwaged scholars (PGR/ECR/UW), and £150-175 for others. We do not expect to be able to offer a reduction in registration fee for remote presenters. Conference registration is expected to open in May 2022.

Organizing committee: Peter Cave, Erica Baffelli, Jonathan Bunt, Aya Homei, Sharon Kinsella.

Peter Cave
Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies
Research Postgraduate Director, Modern Languages and Cultures
SALC, University of Manchester
Samuel Alexander Building
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)161 275 3195
www.manchester.ac.uk/research/peter.cave/ <http://www.manchester.ac.uk/research/peter.cave/>