The International PEN Congress Tokyo 2010 - "Environment and Literature"

The Japan P.E.N. Club

The International PEN Congress Tokyo 2010 - "Environment and Literature"

●Schedule and venue of the 76th International PEN Congress Tokyo 2010

Dear PEN colleagues and friends,

We are preparing the 76th International PEN Congress Tokyo Congress 2010.You're your travel arrangements, we would like to inform the date and the venue of the Congress beforehand.
Please come not only the Congress but also Literary Forum and Kyoto session.

Venue: Shinjuku Keio Plaza Hotel, Tokyo (for PEN congress)
Waseda University, Tokyo (for Literary Forum)

Schedule (tentative)

1 Literary Forum/Seminar September 23rd to September 30th
2 Opening Ceremony September 26th
3 International PEN Congress/Seminar September 27th to September 30th
4 Post congress Tour/Seminar in Kyoto October 1st to October 3rd

Further details of Congress will be sent through the PEN centers in April 2010.

February 22nd, 2010

Best regard,

Secretariat for the Congress
The Japan P.E.N Club

Our contact: info@japanpen.or.jp

●Year 2010 - International PEN Congress in Tokyo

Based on our long-held desire to stage the International PEN Congress in Tokyo, The Japan P.E.N.club took action to extend this invitation to the International PEN Secretariat (at London headquarters) and the PEN centres in each country. At the congress recently held in Bogotá, Colombia, our proposal was accepted, with the official decision being made to hold the 2010 congress in Tokyo (International PEN Congress Tokyo 2010) over a period of approximately one week in the end of-September.
This will be third time Tokyo has been host, the first two being 1957 (Yasunari Kawabata, chairman) and 1984 (Yasushi Inoue, chairman). The year 2010 will also be the 75th anniversary year of the founding of the Japan P.E.N. Club (Toson Shimazaki, founding chairman).

●The theme of International PEN Congress Tokyo 2010 - "Environment and Literature"

The theme for "International PEN Congress Tokyo 2010" is "Environment and Literature".
The topic of "the environment" is a wide one, however, and what we are envisioning is not limited to the global warming and environmental destruction problems that are currently the subject of worldwide debate. It goes without saying that many aspects of human birth, aging, sickness and death are intimately connected to the natural world. The actions of nature, from the miniscule elementary particle and gene level to the huge scale of the solar system and universe, exert tangible and intangible forces on the era and society as well as influencing the way people live and their ideas and literature. From a broad perspective, it could be said that the theme of "Environment and Literature" encompasses everything involving human beings.
At the root of the International PEN Congress Tokyo 2010 theme of "Environment and Literature" is a question: In what ways can literature express and portray the environment as something which exerts such a controlling influence on human life and circumstance?

●Assembly of Delegates of International PEN Congress

International PEN Congress normally comprises two parts: (1) the annual Assembly of Delegates with two representatives from each country over the world participated in the annual Assembly of Delegates as well as the committees' meetings.
We plan to hold the Assembly of Delegates at the Keio Plaza Hotel in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo.

●Literary Forum

Literary Forum covering literary topics and including a general audience While "literature and the environment" will be a common theme extending across both these two parts, we will be making a special effort to hold substantive Literary Forum activities.
For the Literary Forum activities, with the cooperation of Tokyo area universities such as Waseda University , we are arranging for the use of facilities worthy of an international event, and we plan to hold activities open not only to writers from Japan and abroad but also to literature readers and community residents.
We anticipate that during the congress period the Literary forum will be the subject of consideration in a variety of venues, including symposiums, lectures, public readings, video documentaries, etc.

●Congress organization

The International PEN Congress Tokyo 2010 Executive Committee is chaired by Japan P.E.N. Club president Takashi Atoda , the chief secretary for International Conferences is Japan P.E.N. Club senior managing director Jiro Asada, and the chief secretary for the Literary Forum is Japan P.E.N. Club managing director Shinobu Yoshioka.

●Contact:

Please contact the Secretariat of the Japan P.E.N. Club, e-mail: info@japanpen.or.jp the Japan P.E.N. Club, 20-3 Nihonbashi Kabutocho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 103-0026, Tel +81-3-5614-5391,Fax +81-3-5695-7686). for any inquiries of the Congress.

~~~~~~~~~~ Read More from Japan~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Japan P.E.N. Club's statement concerning the settlement agreement for the Google Book Search lawsuit

Source : Japanese PEN Club

As an organization of writers, the Japan P.E.N. Club is continuing to evaluate the specifics of the settlement agreement for the Google Book Search lawsuit, which was brought against Google in the United States and covered the scanning of books and their display via the Internet. At this time, however, we would like to clarify our view of the settlement from the three perspectives below and also offer some cautionary thoughts on the handling of copyrights in our digital age.

First, there are copyright-related problems. Despite the fact that the series of actions involved in Google's digitization of books represent a clear violation of the rights of reproduction as defined in Japanese copyrights, the settlement permits the digitization actions of Google. Furthermore, we have a major problem with the settlement's acceptance of the internal U.S. rule of "fair use" as a de facto "world standard."

Second, there are procedural problems. We strongly fear that adoption of the "opt-out" method--in which people's rights are protected only if they specifically request it--will serve to weaken the position of rights holders, and we believe it may conflict with the Berne Convention, the international rule covering copyright law. The fact that rule changes with such major inherent problems are being made in a one-sided manner and without adequate information, disclosure would seem to indicate that insufficient weight has been given to the writer's position. In addition, it seems to us that entrusting the identification of out-of-print books for which net viewing is permitted entirely to Google or some other organization in the United States may result in insufficient weight being given to the opinions of writers (and publishers) in Japan.

Third, there are problems with the monopolization of information distribution. There is a danger that permitting the private corporation Google to take the lead in this area will result in a de facto monopoly in the field, thus adversely affecting the diversity of information distribution. The creation of such a database by a single private corporation makes the information dependent upon the policies or existence of that corporation, and this could undermine the foundations of publishing culture itself. In addition, there are also dangers inherent in what would be, in effect, monopolistic centralized management of copyright-holder information (personal information included) in the "Registry" set up with Google support for the purpose of the processing of copyright matters.

Containing as it does major problems such as those above, this settlement agreement could cast a large shadow on freedom of expression and the development of publishing culture. Therefore, the Japan P.E.N. Club hereby states that we find the settlement agreement very difficult to accept.

April 24, 2009

Takashi Atoda, President

The Japan P.E.N. Club

The Japanese Centre of International P.E.N.