Japanese Branch Report 2003

The seventh annual convention of the George Eliot Fellowship of Japan was held at Nihon University in Tokyo, on Saturday 29 November 2003. The morning session began with an opening address by Kimitaka Hara, a vice-president of the Japanese Branch and a professor at Nihon University. In the morning, three members read their papers under the chairmanship of Noriko Kubota, a professor at Tsuru Bunka University and Kyoko Kishimoto, a professor at Kyoto Sangyo University. The first paper, \u27The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton - the beginning of conflict\u27 was presented by Naomi Ohno, a lecturer at Toyo University. She analysed the four main characters, Amos Barton, his wife Milly, his daughter Patty, and the Countess and explained Eliot\u27s way of thinking about her novels. She concluded that Eliot became a novelist who approached the investigation of man, while feeling hope and fear in writing novels and fighting against conflict in her real life. The second paper, \u27Allegory in Brother Jacob and Silas Mamer\u27 was presented by Toshie Maeda, a lecturer at Kansai University. She tried to reassess \u27Brother Jacob\u27 which had been underestimated for being a short story and an allegory. She examined the description of the central character, David, and the meaning of the profession of a selling sweets. Furthermore, she pointed out that the problem of the new age brought about by the Industrial Revolution, and the situation of people living at that time in the next novel, Si/as Mamer. The third paper, \u27From Middlemarch to Daniel Deronda\u27 was presented by Shota Nakajima, an assistant professor at Tokushima Bunri University. He introduced the dispute between Andrew Davies who has dramatized a lot of English literature for movies or videos, and Jeanette Winterson who has criticized Davies\u27s dramatization. Also he pointed out the problems of dramatizing Daniel Deronda, comparing it with Middlemarch, and the influence and effect of dramatizing Eliot\u27s works. The afternoon session began with the general meeting, presided over by Yoshitsugu Uchida, the vice-president of the George Eliot Fellowship of Japan and a professor at Kansai Gaidai University. The board of trustees and steering committee were re-elected. The Japanese Branch elected Kazuo Fujikawa, an emeritus professor at Okayama University as a new head of steering committee, and Kimitaka Hara, a professor at Nihon University, as a new head official of the Japanese Branch. Masaru Koshimizu, the vice-chief of the College of Humanities and Sciences at Nihon University, made a speech of welcome