The public is invited to the following lecture. A 1,000 yen donation from non-members would be appreciated, but is not required.

Place: Shibuya Kyoiku Gakuen (1-21-18 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo150-0002)
About 10 minutes on foot from Shibuya Station (JR East Exit; subway Miyamasu Exit 10 or 11; or 15 minutes from Omotesando Station, Exit B2; or 15 minutes from Meiji-Jingumae Station, Exit 4. The road forking right from Meiji-dori is quite obvious, and the Gakuen is the first big building after a row of shops, with a waterfall streaming down one wall.)

Information: ASJ Office

Asiatic Society of Japan
October 15, 2001 (Monday, 6:30 p.m.)
Speaker: Mrs. Doreen Simmons
Subject: Sumo: Samurai to Cyberspace -- How sumo is adapting to the changing times

The speaker for the October 15th meeting is one of our own Council members. Doreen Simmons has been watching sumo extensively and making notes on it since coming to Japan in 1973. Her bimonthly sumo column has appeared in the Kobe-based Kansai Time Out since 1983 and she was a regular contributor to Sumo World, the only English-language magazine dedicated to sumo, from 1987 to about a year ago, when she left to support an attempt to produce a new specialist magazine. She is probably best known, however, for her live sumo commentaries in English on NHK's worldwide satellite service, which began in 1992. For several years her spare time has been filled with writing the definitive book on sumo -- but she is burdened with the awareness of how vast the subject is.

Her academic background, in Classics and Theology, was itself the result of a fascination with systems of belief and the way in which traditions are handed down and new traditions are created. These interests give her view of sumo a somewhat unusual perspective. Her knowledge of sumo background is not only the product of personal interest, but reflects thousands of hours of observation and millions of yen spent on tickets, trains, hotels, and sumo parties.

For her talk she will look at how the apparently monolithic, even fossilized, world of sumo is, in fact, constantly adapting to the changing times. Although sumo history goes back some two thousand years, modern sumo evolved largely in the 19th century, and very much of what we see today goes back less than a century.

Adapted from "The Asiatic Society of Japan Bulletin No. 8", October 2001, compiled by Prof. Hugh E. Wilkinson and Mrs. Doreen Simmons.

Return to the ASJ 2001 lecture schedule