CFP: Internat. Workshop at TCJS in Kyoto: "Exploring Mountainscapes: Material Forces, Knowledge, and Imagination in Japanese History"
Michael Wachutka
Dear Colleagues,
Please allow me to share a Call for Papers for the International Workshop:
Exploring Mountainscapes: Material Forces, Knowledge, and Imagination in Japanese History
Date: 2–4 April 2027 (Friday–Sunday)
Venue: Tübingen University Center for Japanese Studies (TCJS) in Kyoto, at Doshisha University's Imadegawa Campus
Abstract
History is usually written horizontally, as movement across lowlands, seas, and plains. Yet much of human experience unfolds along a vertical axis. This is particularly evident in Japan, an archipelago roughly two‑thirds mountainous. While settlement has chiefly concentrated on the coasts, life throughout the country (and throughout time) has been shaped by its inland, where the ground/landscape rises into steep, forested ranges, such as the three high chains of central Honshū, designated the “Japanese Alps” in the Meiji period.
This workshop proposes the “mountainscape” as a way to write that vertical history. The concept rests on a single claim: that the physical mountain and the imagined one cannot be understood apart, because each continually shapes the other. The material mountain, its ore and forests, snow, watersheds, altitude, and seismic force, sets the terms on which people can live, move, and extract; but how a mountain is known, mapped, worshipped, or governed in turn determines which of those material possibilities are realised, and so reshapes the mountain itself. A mountainscape is this whole: a bounded terrain grasped at once as a living physical system and as an object of knowledge, belief, and rule. To study mountainscapes is therefore to treat mountains not as backdrops to history but as active participants in it.
Japan is the workshop's anchor, its mountains running through pilgrimage and Shugendō, mining and forestry, surveying and science. They also trace the modern rise of mountaineering, tourism, and nature conservation, extending across the former empire into colonial Taiwan, Korea, and the Asian continent, thus opening the door to comparative and transnational contributions.
Possible themes include: environmental change and resource extraction; sacred peaks, pilgrimage, and religious practice; literature, visual culture, and imagination; mountaineering, exploration, and tourism; empire, colonialism, and Indigenous communities; conservation, national parks, and heritage-making; and comparative histories of mountain regions.
Participants
The workshop will bring together approximately twelve participants across different career stages, from doctoral candidates and early-career researchers to established scholars. Particular emphasis will be placed on fostering constructive dialogue between junior and senior scholars, creating opportunities for emerging researchers to receive feedback on their work and engage in broader scholarly conversations. The workshop is based on pre-circulated work-in-progress papers (ca. 3000 words) and revised longer versions might lead to the publication of a special issue or edited volume.
Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of mountain studies, we welcome contributions from a wide range of fields, including history, anthropology, ethnology, geography, environmental humanities, tourism studies, religious studies, and related disciplines. By bringing together scholars with diverse methodological and disciplinary perspectives, the workshop aims to promote new approaches to the study of mountains and verticality in Japan and beyond.
Funding
This workshop is part of the Emmy Noether Research Group “The Japanese Alpine Empire”, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and led by PI Jun.-Prof. Dr. Fynn Holm (University of Tübingen). Limited financial support for travel to and accommodation in Kyoto is available. Please indicate in your application where you are travelling from and whether you wish to receive financial support. Priority will be given to PhD candidates and early-career researchers.
Application information
Submission deadline of abstract: 1 August 2026
Notification of acceptance: late September 2026
Submission deadline of pre-circulated work-in-progress paper: 31 January 2027
Abstract length: 250 words in English
Pre-circulated paper length: ca. 3000 words in English
Please send abstracts or any inquiries regarding the workshop to Dr. Chris Tsui-Shuen Lau at tsui-sh...@uni-tuebingen.de.