International Research Center for Japanese Studies

The International Research Center for Japanese Studies (国際日本文化研究センター, Kokusai Nihon Bunka Kenkyū Sentā^?), or Nichibunken (日文研), is an inter-university research institute in Kyoto. Along with the National Institute of Japanese Literature, the National Museum of Japanese History, and the National Museum of Ethnology, it is one of the National Institutes for the Humanities. The center is devoted to research related to Japanese culture.

The official origins of the institute are traced to an early study carried out by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture in 1982 on "methods of comprehensive research on Japanese culture". After surveying the field of Japanese studies for several years, the ministry, under the administration of Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro, established the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in 1987 in Kyoto with the prominent philosopher Umehara Takeshi as its first Director-General. Prominent Kyoto academics Umesao Nobuo and Kuwabara Takeo also played key roles in the founding of the center.

In 1990 the center moved to its current site in Oeyama-chō, Nishikyō-ku. In 1995 Kawai Hayao, a Jungian analyst of Japanese psychology and religion, was inaugurated as the second director-general of Nichibunken. In 2001, Yamaori Tetsuo, professor of Japanese religion and folklore, became the center's third director-general. The current director-general, Katakura Motoko, was inaugurated in 2005. She is Nichibunken's first female director-general and, as a cultural-anthropologist who specializes in Middle-Eastern Studies, she is also the center's first director-general who is not a Japan specialist.

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