Director's Greeting/
Researchers' Profiles

The Meiji Jingu Intercultural Research Institute was established in January 2008. In addition to spreading the virtues of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken and the cultivation of Shinto sensibilities, which had up to that point been the domain of another study group, the Institute's goal is to pursue academic exchanges, centering on research into Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken's virtues and Meiji Jingu history, as well as to enhance inter-religious dialogue and international exchanges between different cultures.
Shinto is ingrained in the living practices of the Japanese people, as can be seen in the first shrine visit of the New Year and the "Shichigo san" (Festival for children attaining 7・5・3 years of age), and it serves as a framework for strong traditions and culture. Meiji Jingu as the grove of a village shrine provides a place where Japanese people validate their own origins, but it also provides a precious place where large numbers of foreigners visiting the shrine can obtain a deep understanding of Japanese culture.

There is a poem by Emperor Meiji that says
"Let us reveal to the world the beauty that is interwoven in Japan."
The Institute aims to take a fresh look-in the context of the current era-at the "Japan" that our ancestors have been creating since the time of distant legends, and consider what role Japan should fulfill within the globalized world. Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, who accomplished the modernization of Japan by way of opening up the country and leading the Meiji Restoration, are enshrined as deities at Meiji Jingu, which was built around 100 years ago through the devotion of our people. It is from this Shrine that we carry out our mission.

Imaizumi Yoshiko
Ph.D.

Senior Research Fellow (Research Advancement Division Chief)

Field of specialization: Meiji Jingu history

Born in Iwate Prefecture in 1970. After graduating from the University of Tokyo, specializing in Comparative Literature and Culture, she worked as a magazine editor, then took a program of Shinto studies at Kokugakuin University and obtained a Shinto priest's diploma. She received her Ph.D. from SOAS, University of London, in 2007 and recently published "Sacred Space in the Modern City: The Fractured Parts of Meiji Shrine, 1912-1958" (Brill). She served as a visiting researcher at L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in 2009 and as a visiting associate professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) for 4 years since 2015. Currently serves as an associate research fellow both at Nichibunken and at the Center for Promotion of Excellence and Education, Kokugakuin University.

Her literary works:

• Meiji Jingu: Sengo fukkō no kiseki (Kajima shuppankai, 2008)
• Meiji Jingu: "Dentō" o tsukutta dai project (Shinchōsha, 2013)
• Meiji Nihon no Nightingale tachi: Sekai o sukuitsuzukeru sekijūji "Shoken kōtaigō kikin" no 100 nen (Fusōsha, 2014)
• Meiji Jingu to Seinendan no zōeihōshi hyakunenmae no seinen ga tsutaeru “Mirai” eno “Rekishi”(Nihonseinenkan, 2015)
• Meiji Jingu, uchi to soto kara mita hyakunen: chinju no mori o otozureta gaikokujintachi (Heibonsha, 2021)

The jointly-edited works:

• Tokyō no re-design (Toward Environmentally Contributing City, Re-design of Tokyo: Maximizing the Global Environmental Value) (Seibunsha, 2010)
• Harajyukuomotesandō 2013 Mizu to Mori ga kyōsei suru machizukuri (Sangakusha)
• Meiji Jingu izen/igo: Kindai jinja o meguru kankyō keisei no kōzō tenkan (Kajima shuppankai, 2014)
• Kaizokushikan kara mita sekaishi no saikōchiku ~Kōeki to jōhōryūtsū no genzai o toitadasu~ (Pirate’s View of the World History: A Revered Perception of the Other Things) (Shibunkaku, 2017)
• Tennō no dining hall (Shibunkaku, 2017)
• Meiji, Kono fushigina jidai 3 (Shintensha, 2019
• Utsushi to utsuroi ~Bunkadenpa no utsuwa to shokuhen no jissō~ (Utsushi and Utsuroi –Metempsychosis and Passage: Recipients of Transcultural Migration and Haptic Transfigurations) (Kachōsha, 2019)
• Kindai Nihon Syūkyōshi Dai 3 kan Kyoyo to seimei Taishōki（Shunjusha, 2020）
• Miru, Yomu, Aruku Tokyo no rekishi 7 (Yoshikawakobunkan, 2019)

Uchikoshi Takaaki
Master's degree

Senior Research Fellow (Research Advancement Division)
Field of Specialization: Virtues and achievements of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken

Born in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1960. After completing a master's program at the Graduate School of Letters, Arts and Sciences at Waseda University, worked as an assistant at Waseda University and in other capacities before taking up a post as a full-time researcher at the Okura Institute for the Study of Spiritual Culture.
Joined the staff at Meiji Jingu in 2009, and is pursuing research and study on the enshrined deities (Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken). Concurrently serves as a visiting researcher at the Okura Institute for the Study of Spiritual Culture.
Currently undertaking a study of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken's historic sites that remain throughout Japan, and contributing a series entitled "Research into historic sites related to Emperor Meiji"; to Meiji Jingu Intercultural Research Institute's Kamizono journal, a series entitled "Visiting Holy Sites"; to Meiji Jingu's newsletter "Yoyogi" and a series of articles to Meiji Jingu monthly brochure "Magokoro".

His literary works:

• Meiji Tennō no Goshōgai - Kaiga to Seiseki de Tadoru (Tracing Emperor Meiji's Life Through Paintings and Holy Sites) (KADOKAWA)
• Shōken Kōtaigō no Goshōgai - Miuta to Miato de Tadoru (Tracing Empress Shoken's Life Through Poems and Holy Sites) (KADOKAWA)
• Meiji Tennō no Seiseki o Aruku - Nishinihonhen (Retracing the Footsteps of Emperor Meiji: Holy Sites in Western Japan) (KADOKAWA)

The jointly-edited works:

• Nihonshugiteki Gakusei Shisō Undō Shiryō Shūsei I/II (Ideological Movements of Nationalistic Students; Collected Documents I & II) (Kashiwashobō Publishing).