2026 AGM and Closing Lecture of Japan Series

The Society gathered yesterday for its 2026 Anniversary General Meeting. Apart from being a cornerstone of the institutional governance of the Society, the AGM is also an opportunity for current members to connect, celebrate the Society’s achievements in the past year, and look ahead to what’s next.

This year, the meeting opened with a report from Treasurer, Elizabeth Robb, on the Society’s finance. She reported that the Society’s financial position remains strong, and expressed her appreciation to the Director and staff for their careful stewardship of the Society’s resources.

Next, Dr Norbert Peabody delivered his Presidential Address, giving an overview of the Society’s accomplishments in the past year across events, outreach, collections and publications. A standout success was the Japanese Studies lecture series, which helped sharpen the Society’s focus on East Asia and drew enthusiastic engagement. Special mention was also given to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, which saw rising submission numbers and growing visibility in North America and Asia. Dr Peabody also shared on what to look forward to in the coming year – a new lecture series themed around maritime South East Asia is in the pipeline, while preparations for the awarding of the Society’s several prizes and awards will soon begin. If you are interested in finding out more about our performance in the past year, the report can be accessed here.

The meeting concluded with the election of new Council members. This year, six new Council members were elected: Dr Mehreen Chida-Razvi, Dr Annabel Teh Gallop, Professor Simon Kaner, Professor Prashant Kidambi, Professor Scott Redford and Dr Tom Young. We warmly welcome them to the Council and extend sincere thanks to the retiring members – Dr Priyanka Basu, Dr Richard Blurton, Dr Barbara Brend, Mr Lionel Knight, Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones and Professor Francis Robinson – for their dedicated service.

It’s customary to hold a lecture following the AGM to mark the occasion. This year’s talk was delivered by newly elected Council member Professor Simon Kaner, Executive Director of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC). His lecture, Towards 150 years of Japanese archaeology and its broader Asian connections, served as a fitting finale to the Society’s successful Japanese Studies series co-hosted with SISJAC and The Courtauld Institute of Art. Over the past year, the series has brought around 20 international scholars to speak on topics ranging from Buddhist art and Noh theatre to European–Japanese cultural exchange.

For this lecture, Professor Kaner gave us an introduction of an exciting upcoming three-year project of the Institute looking at the history of Japanese archaeology. He also traced the latest development within the field and highlighted the historical contributions made by European scholars, such as Heinrich von Siebold, the 19th‑century German translator credited with coining the Japanese term for ‘archaeology’.

The history of Japanese archaeology is an immensely broad topic to fit into one lecture, so, although I have said that this was the closing lecture of the series, Professor Kaner will indeed be delivering a second lecture dedicated to the same topic. This lecture will be hosted online by our sister society, the Asiatic Society of Japan, on Monday 18th May at 10am (BST) / 6pm (JST), when Professor Kaner will dig deeper to uncover the entanglements of Japanese and European archaeology. Further information of the lecture can be found here. If you’d like to attend, please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KfYt5jJGQhStbvoDCOerAA