Elected as the 6th president of the World Archaeological Congress (WAC) in January, 2013, Professor Mizoguchi Koji is one of Japan’s most distinguished archaeologists. His research interests include the comparative study of the emergence of ‘social complexity’ in Europe and Japan (with particular reference to issues of state formation and national identity), and the history of archaeology as a modern discipline. In 2008, he was elected a fellow of the London Society of Antiquaries.
The principal foci of his teaching at Kyushu University include:
1. Educating students as to how to excavate, record, and make sense of the material culture of the past by referring to very latest outcomes of international theoretical and methodological discussions.
2. Teaching students the “contextuality” of doing archaeology as a profession in contemporary world in which the past is given increasingly significant social, cultural, and political meanings.
3. Training students to enable themselves to deliver academic presentations in international meetings and contribute their articles to international journals in English.
4. Internationalising Japanese archaeology through education (see above) and writing and presenting in English as much as possible.
Some of Prof. Mizoguchi’s recent publications:
“An Archaeological History of Japan: 30.000 BC to AD 700”. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.
“Archaeology, Society and Identity in Modern Japan”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. (http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521849535)
“The Archaeology of Japan: from the Earliest Rice Farming Villages to the Rise of the State”. Cambridge University Press, in press, Due our August 2013
“Identity, Modernity, and Archaeology: The Case of Japan”. In “A Companion to Social Archaeology” (eds. by L. Meskell and R. Preucel), pp. 396-414. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mizoguchi, K. 2009. Nodes and edges: A network approach to hierarchisation and state formation in Japan. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Vol.28-1: 14-26.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WH6-4VDGTN9-1&_user=131115&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000009658&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=131115&md5=62ff3764fece3e55e55c4b02c53e360d)
More information about Prof. Mizoguchi’s research and teaching activities is available on the main university website:
http://hyoka.ofc.kyushu-u.ac.jp/search/details/K001760/english.html
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