As part of a new national policy of “making persons” (hitozukuri) who could support Japan’s rapid economic growth, in the mid-1960s Japan's Ministry of Education adopted a new objective centered on fostering students as “reliable human figures” (kitai sareru ningenzō). Despite the explicit legal prohibition regarding religious education in Japan’s constitution, policy makers clearly expected public schools to inculcate both personal piety and professional diligence as part of this new orientation. This talk shows how public education aligned with religious indoctrination as policy wonks temporarily partnered with clerics to advance a type of non-confessional training known as “religious sentiment education” (shūkyō jōsō kyōiku).

Jolyon Thomas is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan (2019) and Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime, and Religion in Contemporary Japan (2012).

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This colloquium series is made possible by the generous support of the U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant.

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