We welcome participants in BAJS 2022 to Manchester for a long-awaited opportunity to meet and discuss in person over three days. We are very happy to have been able to accept 120 excellent papers across many areas of Japanese studies. The Call for Papers is now closed.
TIMELINE AND REGISTRATION
On-site conference check-in will start from 11 am on Wednesday 7 September 2022 and will be available throughout the conference. After a buffet lunch from 12 noon, the first session of presentations will begin at 1 pm. The final session of presentations after lunch on Friday will be followed by the BAJS Annual General Meeting for BAJS members. The conference programme is available via the link on the righthand menu.
The early bird registration fee (until 31 July 2022) will be £115 for postgraduate students (PGRs), early career researchers (ECRs) and unwaged participants, and £145 for others. We define ECR as a scholar either on probation, tenure-track but not yet tenured, or in a non-permanent position (e.g. postdoctoral fellowship, fixed-term contract). The registration fee includes buffet lunches and refreshments, provided to all conference participants, as well as a drinks reception on 7 September. Those wishing to register should communicate this by email to bajs2022@manchester.ac.uk, together with information about any dietary requirements or disability access requirements. You will then be sent a link to the University of Manchester estore system, where you can pay by card. Postgraduate students and early career researchers should also ask their supervisor or head of department/line manager respectively to send a very brief email to bajs2022@manchester.ac.uk verifying their status.
From 1 to 23 August 2022, the standard registration fee for non-presenting participants will apply, if registration for the conference is not full (up to 200 participants are possible); this will be £130 for PGRs/ECRs/unwaged, and £160 for others. Registration will not be possible after 23 August.
CONFERENCE VENUE AND LOCAL TRANSPORT
The Schuster Building is located on the University of Manchester’s Oxford Road campus – it is Building 54 on the Campus Map, found on the university’s Maps and Travel webpage. It includes four lecture theatres, in which the four parallel sessions of the conference will be held. Check-in, lunches, refreshments, and the drinks reception will take place in the central atrium.
The conference venue is within easy reach of Manchester city centre and Manchester Piccadilly station. Buses running frequently from the city centre down Oxford Road to the university campus include numbers 42, 42A/B/C, 142, 43, 143, and 111. Payment by contactless cards or mobile payments (as well as cash) is accepted on boarding, and a single ticket costs about £2. The above bus numbers are all run by the Stagecoach company, which also sells 7-day ‘Megarider’ bus passes that can be purchased on the bus (unfortunately passes for shorter periods do not seem to be available). If travelling from the city centre, get off at the stop immediately before or immediately after the main university tower, seen on the webpage link on the righthand menu. Opposite the tower is Brunswick Park, the pedestrianised way that leads to the Schuster Building. Taxis run from Manchester Piccadilly station and other city centre taxi ranks. The city centre and Piccadilly station are roughly 25 minutes’ walk from the conference venue.
International travellers are likely to arrive at Manchester Airport. Trains run frequently from Manchester Airport station to Manchester Piccadilly.
ACCOMMODATION IN MANCHESTER
Manchester has a large range of accommodation for different budgets, easily searchable through standard search engines such as booking.com, tripadvisor.co.uk, kayak.co.uk, and others. There are no designated or recommended hotels for the conference, but participants may like to know that the nearest hotels to the conference venue are the Hyatt hotels at the Alliance Manchester Business School. Those attending an event at the university (including BAJS 2022) can obtain a preferential rate on their individual booking – see under 'More Information' menu. However, please note that the Hyatt hotels may not be the most inexpensive option. Among the other hotels nearer to the campus are the Holiday Inn Express Manchester, the Maldron Hotel Manchester City Centre, the Premier Inn Manchester City Centre, and the Ibis Manchester Centre Princess Street. However, as noted above, these are just a few of a large range of accommodation options within the city centre.
Manchester also has a large range of dining options; we will provide more information on some of our own favourites as the conference approaches.
SUSTAINABILITY
Please note that we will not be providing items such as conference bags, paper, pens, or plastic name holders to participants. This is in the interests of sustainability. You are encouraged to reuse plastic name card holders in your possession, or borrow them from colleagues or supervisors. Name cards will be provided, as will sticky name labels for those unable to beg or borrow plastic name card holders.
Likewise, no printed conference programmes will be provided. The conference programme, abstracts, and other documents will be provided as PDFs. We encourage use of electronic rather than paper documents as far as possible.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank the Japan Foundation, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, and the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation for the generous grants they have awarded to support this conference. We are also very grateful for the support received from the President, Secretary, and other officers of the British Association for Japanese Studies. https://www.bajs.org.uk/
HEALTH MATTERS AND COVID TESTS
As of the time of writing, the UK government does not impose any requirements in relation to Covid-19. UK government guidance in relation to Covid-19 can be found under 'More Information'. Visitors to the UK who contract Covid-19 and need hospital treatment with the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) are not charged for this; for more information on this and medical treatment for visitors more generally, see the righthand menu. In the unlikely event that you need emergency medical treatment while visiting Manchester, the Accident and Emergency (A&E) department of Manchester’s main hospital, the Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) https://mft.nhs.uk/mri/ is located about five minutes’ walk from the conference venue.
In July 2021, The Guardian newspaper published an article about obtaining a Covid test for travel to another country, which is still likely to be useful for many of you. The article recommends using the website of the Covid Testing Network (https://www.covid19-testing.org/travel-testing) to find a test provider. This website seems to be helpful and provides information about several test providers in Manchester city centre and at Manchester Airport.
LOCAL ATTRACTIONS
The official tourist information site, Visit Manchester (https://www.visitmanchester.com/), has lots of information about things to see and do, as well as accommodation, eating and drinking, and much else. Although famous as a centre of the Industrial Revolution, and more recently for association football (aka soccer), Manchester has a history dating back to Roman times (Roman remains can be seen in the Castlefield district). Chetham’s Library (https://library.chethams.com/), founded in 1653, is the oldest public library in Britain, and was used by Marx and Engels. The John Rylands Library (https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/rylands/) in the city centre is one of the most beautiful neo-Gothic buildings in the country, and also displays the oldest fragment of the New Testament in the world.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
The University has its origins in colleges set up throughout the nineteenth century. In 1870 it was granted its university charter as the Victoria University, originally with campuses in Leeds and Liverpool as well as Manchester. The oldest buildings were built in the late nineteenth century, including the impressive Whitworth Hall and Council Chamber (https://www.manchester.ac.uk/study/virtual/360-tours/historic-campus/). Among notable scientists and scholars to have worked at Manchester are physicists and Nobel laureates Ernest Rutherford, Lawrence Bragg, Patrick Blackett, and Andre Geim, mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing, historians Lewis Namier and A.J.P. Taylor, economist Arthur Lewis, and social anthropologists Max Gluckman and Victor Turner.
WEATHER
England is well known for its unpredictable and changeable weather! In early September, it could be balmy, warm, and dry, or cold and wet – or both. Please check weather forecasts and pack appropriate clothing (and probably a folding umbrella).
