About the Conference

      I am happy to announce that our 13th International Conference on the Literature of Region & Nation is to be held in Shiga, Japan, in the year 2010. This is going to be the first conference of this series ever to be held in Asia. Our most recent conference was organized by J. Derrick McClure in Aberdeen in Scotland, where the series started a quarter of a century ago. The earliest conferences focused mainly on the literature of the nations/regions of the British Isles, but over the years we have widened our scope to a greater variety of regions and literary genres.
      This time, I shall be particularly pleased to introduce to those who have not been much exposed to Eastern culture some of our cultural aspects. The 2008 conference twin themes were: "Local voices: dialect and folk-speech in regional literatures" and "Exile and homeland: the preservation of identity in diaspora literature." For 2010, we would like to suggest keeping these themes and revisiting a third, which has been discussed before in our series: "Cultural Translations."
      For a distinguished example, Prof. Shoichiro Kawai of Tokyo University will deliver our plenary lecture. Prof. Kawai is an award-winning and very active Shakespearian scholar who has written some provocative academic books, translated many of Shakespeare's stories into Japanese, and created a successful Kyogenized drama based on Richard III which has been shown nation-wide on Japanese television. We will, of course, have many other stimulating speakers to discuss Cultural Translation and other themes.

      Many of you may not have heard of the area named "Shiga," but it was once an ancient capital of Japan. It now represents one of the fastest-growing populations in Japan. Shiga is located near the middle of Japan's main island, and includes the biggest lake in the country. It is rich in historical sites and is locates next to famous Kyoto, which was another ancient capital for more than 1,000 years.
      At the time for which the Conference is planned, the weather here tends to be quite hot, but we intend to organize the conference venue, accommodation and sightseeing accordingly, to be as comfortable and convenient as possible for all delegates.
      When traveling, the most convenient international airport is Kansai International Airport (Osaka), but some airline services go via Tokyo's Narita Airport, with transfer to a domestic flight to either Kansai International or Itami Airport (Osaka).
      The conference will be held in the Piazza Ohmi beside Lake Biwa, and if you have any questions or special requests, do not hesitate to ask; we will do our best to help.