This October, Tohoku University invites you to the third installment of the Frontier Religious Studies lecture series, featuring historian Yunosuke Kimura.

In the years just before Japan opened to the wider world and when awareness of Christianity was beginning to grow, the idea of conducting weddings according to Shinto rites first took hold. From these origins, the Shinto wedding ceremony gradually took shape, competing with other forms of marriage ritual. Today, as the very meaning of the wedding is being fundamentally re-examined, tracing the approximately 170-year intellectual history of Shinto weddings offers a way to reflect on the broader course of modern and contemporary Japan.

This English-language event is free and open to anyone interested. Registration is required.

Date: October 9, 2026
Time: 4:30 - 6 p.m.
Venue: Tohoku University Kawauchi Campus, Multimedia Education and Research Complex, 6F (map)
To register: Google Form
Language: English

About the Lecturer:

Yunosuke Kimura is a historian of modern and contemporary Japanese religion, with a particular focus on Shinto. He earned his PhD in Literature from the University of Tokyo in 2025 and serves as a JSPS Research Fellow (PD) at Tohoku University. His research centres on the historian Kunitake Kume, modern Shinto studies and the history of Shinto wedding ceremonies. He received the Association for Japanese Intellectual History's Encouragement Award in 2026.

This lecture is organised by the Department of Japanese Religion and Intellectual History, Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, Tohoku University, and supported by the Toshiba International Foundation.