MEARC’s research origin lies in a VICI grant jointly awarded to Professors Axel Schneider (former MEARC director) and Rikki Kersten in 2003 by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to conduct their research project 'Historical Consciousness and the Future of Modern Japan and China', a comparative study of the conservative and revisionist reinterpretation of tradition and its impact on the creation of national and political identity in modern China and Japan.
MEARC has been fortunate to host a number of other projects that strengthen MEARC's research profile since.
In December 2008, Professor Chris Goto-Jones (director of MEARC and Asiascape.net) won the same prestigious VICI research award of 1.25 million Euro to run a five year project entitled 'Beyond Utopia - New Politics, the Politics of Knowledge and the Science Fictional Field of Japan'.
The latest addition to the list of MEARC hosted projects is 'The Grazing Ban in China's Northwest: Assessing Grassland Policies for Sustainability and Herders' Livelihood', run by MEARC's other director, Professor Peter Ho.
Project director Peter Ho
Period 2011-2013
Starting from 2011, MEARC is launching a new research project on rural poverty, environmental degradation and sustainability in the steppe and grassland region of China. The project is funded by the Ford Foundation.
Project director Chris Goto-Jones
Period 2010-2014
Utilizing the ‘techno-media’ of anime, manga and video games, and focusing on the radical potentials of the genre of speculative science fiction, this project aims to analyze and model a series of political visions as potential alternatives to liberal capitalism, hence contributing to the field of political thought.
Project director Axel Schneider
Period 2009-2013
The Western roots of many aspects of modern Chinese thought have been well documented. Far less well understood, and still largely overlooked, is the influence and significance of the main exemplar of Indian thought in modern China: Yogacara Buddhist thought.
One of the aims of this project is to explain why this Indian philosophical system proved to be so attractive to influential Chinese intellectuals at a time when 'Western' systems and ideas prevailed in China.
Project director Chris Goto-Jones
Started 2007
Asiascape.net is the home of the Contemporary East Asian Media Centre (CEAMC). It is an attempt to build a new international research coalition in the rapidly emerging fields of cyberculture (New Media, Convergence Culture, Video Games and other related media, such as fan-culture) and animanga (anime and manga), especially as they relate to (or originate from) East Asia.
Research collaboration between MEARC and Osaka University's School of International Public Policy (OSIPP)
Projectdirector Professor Hisakazu Matsuhige, Osaka University
Period 2011-2013
Funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Current issues and phenomena occurring in the East Asia suggest both limits of the conventional notion of ‘international order’ and the possibility of a different framework which may overcome it. The project purports to advance this point, by creating a notion of ‘multi-lineal international order’ and undertaking comprehensive research
Some of OSIPP's project staff is currently based in Leiden as LIAS/MEARC Visiting Researchers to work on the project:
Dr. Josuke Ikeda
Dr. Asami Miyazaki
Miseon Kim
Subproject Extraterritorial Application and Private Enforcement of Competition Law in America, Europe and East Asia
Emika Tokunaga
Subproject Evolution of International Disaster Response Law: An Analysis from International Law Perspective in East Asia
From MEARC's side, Dr. Lindsay Black is involved in this research project at the moment.
Past MEARC hosted projects
Projecdirectors Axel Schneider, Rikki Kersten
Period 2003-2008
Funded by NWO, VICI grant
This research project seeked to deliver a comparative study of a major factor in the intellectual life of modern China and Japan: the conservative and revisionist reinterpretation of tradition and its impact on the creation of collective identity. Manifested in debates on history and modernity, this process has hitherto been largely neglected by Western scholars. The fact that both countries have strongly and consciously influenced each other in this process of collective identity formation requires a comparative analysis of this phenomenon.
Projectdirector Chris Goto-Jones
Period 2006- 2008
Funded by NWO
Bushidō ('the way of the warrior') is a highly visible and significant intellectual and martial tradition in Japanese history, yet there are precious few scholarly texts in Western languages that take it seriously. Its 'study' has been appropriated by populist writers, and its credibility has been damaged. This project aims to provide the first scholarly Western-language treatment of bushidō.
