The Young Scholars’ Programme was initiated by the Society on 20 November 2006, at the suggestion of the Honorary Patron of the Society, HIH Princess Takamado, to give researchers at doctoral level the opportunity to present their research on Japan and/or Asia and answer questions on it in English. From 2021 the Young Scholars’ Programme was held for the first time online, allowing young scholars to participate from all over the world.

The ASJ Young Scholars selected this year are as follows – Ms. Ziru Chen, Kellog College, Oxford University, U.K., Mr. Ivan Croscenko, University of Naples L’Orientale, Italy, Mr. Francesco Firth, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, and Dr. Anna Wonzy, University of Tokyo and Princeton University, U.S. Please see the brief biographies and abstracts for the presentations, in alphabetical order below. The Asiatic Society of Japan is very honoured to host this special online event showcasing the research of young scholars from around the world.

The Young Scholars’ Programme is a very important part of the Society’s activities and it is hoped that as many members as possible can attend.

The Asiatic Society of Japan is deeply appreciative of the Hugh E. Wilkinson Foundation for its contribution to support the Young Scholars’ Programme. The Hugh E. Wilkinson Foundation was inaugurated at the 2018 Asiatic Society of Japan’s Young Scholars’ Programme which was held at Aoyama Gakuin University and 2025 marks the eighth year that the Foundation has supported the programme. The Foundation awards research grants to the four successful young scholars to continue and deepen their academic studies. Professor Hugh E. Wilkinson was President of the Society from 2003-2005.

‘The Aesthetic Matrix: Sensory Becomings in Contemporary East Asian Art Cinema’

Ms. Ziru Chen

Ms. Ziru Chen is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on contemporary East Asian cinema, with a particular emphasis on sensory aesthetics and questions of media and cultural circulation. Her work has appeared in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture and Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, and is forthcoming in the Journal of Chinese Cinemas.

Abstract

Ms. Chen’s research is situated at the intersection of East Asian film studies, media ecology, and transnational cultural exchange. Her current project, The Aesthetic Matrix: Sensory Becomings in Contemporary East Asian Art Cinema, explores how contemporary East Asian filmmakers have developed distinct but resonant aesthetic practices. The study pays particular attention to figures such as Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Kore-eda Hirokazu, whose works circulate widely across international festivals and cinephile networks. It also considers the influence of Japanese film criticism, especially the role of Shigehiko Hasumi, who has shaped both the discourse surrounding cinema in Japan and the training of key directors. Hasumi’s cameo in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Café Lumière is taken as emblematic of the porous boundaries between critical writing and filmmaking. More broadly, Ms. Chen situates these cinematic practices within the institutional and cultural frameworks of festivals, film education, and transnational co-productions. By foregrounding the sensory and stylistic dimensions of films alongside the broader contexts in which they circulate, her work highlights the cross-regional entanglements that define East Asian art cinema today.

‘The Positionality of ‘Provincial Nō Theatre’ Actors: Redefining Meanings and Cultural Environment’

Mr. Ivan Croscenko

Mr. Ivan Croscenko is a second-year PhD candidate at the University of Naples L’Orientale, Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies. He earned both his bachelor’s (2020) and master’s degree (2023) in East Asian Languages and Civilizations (Japanese Curriculum) at Sapienza University of Rome. From January to September 2025, he was a Visiting Research Fellow at Waseda University, Faculty of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

His PhD research revolves around historical and literary common traits of heterodoxies of Nō Theatre which he describes as “Provincial Nō Theatre”, with a focus on current day Yamagata and Niigata prefectures. Mr. Croscenko is also interested in shinsaku nō plays based on popular manga and anime series.

Abstract

Mr. Croscenko’s PhD research investigates the uprise and development of several heterodox traditions that can be referred to as Provincial Nō Theatre (地方能, Chihō Nō). This term denotes non-standard traditions of Nō Theatre deeply rooted in provincial identities which developed between the late Muromachi and Edo periods independently from their “official” counterpart. Specifically, he focuses on five traditions located between the current day Yamagata and Niigata prefectures, namely Kurokawa Nō (黒川能), Yamato Nō (山戸能), Matsuyama Nō (松山能), Ōsudo Nō (大須戸能), and Sado Nō (佐渡能). The diffusion of Nō Theatre led to the adoption of Nō’s praxis by farmers and townspeople who developed distinct local styles that soon became the highest expression of their cultures. Furthermore, the dissemination of this traditional performing art opened to a complete shift in the socio-cultural environment in which Nō Theatre was embedded, from the world of elite and warrior-class to provincial villages and towns where the locals were both actors and viewers. Having become part of local cultures, Nō Theatre is still contextualized still today in folk and religious events, acquiring new meanings.

Mr. Croscenko’s presentation will focus on how the positionality and role of actors also differs from professional settings, taking into consideration historical and socio-cultural common traits, fieldwork data, and interviews. Indeed, as bearers of liminal traditions between Nō Theatre and Folk Performing Arts, they rigorously know their local style better than anyone. However, since Provincial Nō Theatre is not their full-time occupation, but rather an activity balanced with their jobs or retired life, although they might not be addressed as professionals, they aren’t amateurs either. Mr. Croscenko will explain why he suggests to consider them as “semi-professionals”.

‘Late Edo and Early Meiji period Furigana gloss usage: On the value of Grapholinguistic Inquiry into Premodern Japanese Writing and the Necessity of a Formalised “Grammar of Adjacency’

Mr. Francesco Firth

Mr. Firth is a first year PhD candidate at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. He received his Master’s Degree in Asian Languages and Civilisations (Japanese Curriculum) from the same university in 2024 and his Bachelor’s Degree in 2021. His research interests include the history and (grapho)linguistics of writing systems within the Sinosphere and its surroundings as well as the naturally intersecting fields of Japanese paleography and Japanese textual scholarship. His research also heavily intersects with the related field of Semiotics. His PhD project focuses on applying the theoretical approaches and methodologies of descriptive graphetics to late Edo period Popular literature (i.e. Yomihon). Currently he is looking for parallels between the Japanese writing system and other morphographic systems such as Mayan and Egyptian hieroglyphs in order to open up new pathways to the understanding of the toposyntax of Edo period visual communication.

Abstract

Mr. Firth’s research pertains to the fields of Japanese philology, Japanese book studies and the field of grapholinguistics. The subject of his research is the analysis of Furigana gloss usage within late Edo period Yomihon and early Meiji period literature through the theoretical lens of descriptive graphetics, the branch of grapholinguistics concerned with the materiality of visual linguistic communication. While in their contemporary form Furigana are usually understood as simple phonographic reading aids placed above or beside Kanji to signal interpretation, historically interlinear glosses served many additional functions across Japanese writing.

The furigana subsystem owes its existence and high degree of sophistication to the unique historical circumstances surrounding the birth of proprietary Japanese writing: The adoption of Chinese writing during the 4th century CE and subsequent process of adapting it to represent Japanese writing with some degree of fidelity would necessitate several innovations and compromises in order to facilitate, disambiguate or otherwise steer a reader’s likely understanding of a piece of writing towards a desired interpretation. Interlinear glosses such as Furigana were thus born as a result of the asymmetries present between the written and spoken registers of the Japanese language.

In Edo literature, glosses extended beyond didactic or prescriptive functions. In Gesaku texts, authors used them to assign unconventional readings to Kanji, enabling two signifiers to coexist in one space and form layered meaning. Though never disappearing entirely, Furigana reached the peak of its expressive sophistication in the Edo and early Meiji periods. This unique practice, endemic to the multidimensional medium of writing, remains underexplored. Mr. Firth’s research seeks to record and analyse instances of expressive Furigana in late Edo and early Meiji texts to produce a systematic description and categorization. Through this, he aims to advance our understanding of early modern Japanese documents and the field of grapholinguistics.

‘Marriage Hunting: Negotiating Intimacy at the Nexus of State and Market Forces’

Dr. Anna Woźny

Dr. Anna Woźny is a joint postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University’s Global Japan Lab and Tokyo College, the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Tokyo. She received her PhD and MA in Sociology from the University of Michigan and her BA in East Asian Studies from the University of Tokyo. Her research focuses on gender and sexuality, culture, governance, and political economy. She is currently completing a book, Marriage Hunting: Dating Markets, Intimate Governance, and the Politics of National Decline in Japan, which examines how commercial dating services became central to the state’s response to population decline. Dr. Woźny’s work has been supported by fellowships and grants from the Mellon/ACLS, the Japan Foundation, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, among others. Her articles have appeared in Qualitative Sociology; Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society; Men and Masculinities; American Sociological Review; and the Annual Review of Sociology. Her interdisciplinary scholarship has received recognition from the American Sociological Association (Sally Hacker Prize), the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (Early Career Workshop Prize), Anthropology of Japan in Japan (Harumi Befu Prize), and the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs (Percy Buchannan Prize).

Abstract

Dr. Anna Woźny is a sociologist whose work explores the intersections of gender, culture, and political economy. Her current project examines Japan’s growing industry of dating services known as konkatsu or “marriage hunting.” Because marriage remains a near-universal precursor to childbearing in Japan—where only about 2 percent of children are born outside marriage—the Japanese government has increasingly partnered with the dating market to encourage marriage and, ultimately, reproduction.

To understand how this state-market nexus shapes people’s most personal experiences, Dr. Woźny conducted 27 months of fieldwork in Japan between 2018 and 2025. She interviewed 157 people, including government officials, dating-service professionals, and men and women looking for partners. She also carried out ethnographic research at marriage-hunting events, ranging from speed-dating sessions to seminars on “the rules of the mating game,” and compiled an extensive archive of policy documents, marketing materials, and media coverage. Drawing on this extensive research, she shows how the marriage-hunting industry functions as a long arm of the state, coaxing citizens toward forming nuclear families not through coercion, but by shaping individual desires and producing “marriageable” subjects. Yet participation in these markets does not simply produce conformity with state goals. Instead, men and women strategically craft hybrid forms of masculinity and femininity to navigate the competitive search for partners.

Dr. Woźny’s findings challenge common assumptions that commodifying intimacy necessarily undermines romance. Instead, she argues that when the chance to form a family depends on access to commercial dating markets, existing social inequalities are reproduced and often compounded. These insights not only reveal how governance reaches into the most intimate spheres of life but also shed light on broader issues of marriage and fertility decline in Japan today.