Center for Cultural Research and Studies

/ Atsunobu Sasaki / Professor
/ Koichi Ota / Professor
/ Koji Gotoh / Associate Professor
/ Koichi Hasegawa / Associate Professor
/ Noriyuki Kikuchi / Associate Professor
/ Tomoko Izumita / Assistant Professor
/ Ken Nakazawa / Research Associate

The Center for Cultural Research and Studies (CRS) offers abroad-based educational and research program, in the humanities, social sciences, physical education and education course. Through this program, the Center is working to achieve the university's goals of internationalization, human development, and the promotion of regional industry, education, and culture.

The Center is composed of scholar-teachers in the following disciplines: educational philosophy, literature, psychology, urban and regional planning, physical education, and sociology. In addition to offering courses in their disciplines, Center members have invited students to participate in field work and have involved students in special research projects. Students are welcome to use a growing collection of books and videotapes that the Center is developing. Programs to investigate the use of computers in the humanities, the social science disciplines and physical education are now underway at the university and will welcome student participation.

Computer science, the basic field of study at the University of Aizu, cannot develop properly without proper attention to basic issues of ethics and human development. These issues are complex and are best explored through a variety of disciplines, several of which are represented at the Center. The Center blends these varieties to extend the frontiers of knowledge. Through the Center's program, the University of Aizu can prepare both researchers and students for work that benefits society as a whole, in Japan and internationally. This is an unique feature of this Center. The Center publishes its own ``Annual Review".

Each of the faculty members in this Center has his/her own discipline and s ubject for studying and teaching.

• Professor Koji Gotoh has studied modern Japanese literature and lectures on literature. His present research subject is Kunikida Doppo and other authors of those days.

• Professor Koichi Hasegawa studies Kendo history and teaches physical education and physical training. His research theme is ``The systematization and construction of Kendo techniques". He has been coaching Kendo in Germany and Italy in recent years.

• Professor Tomoko Izumita has been developing the interdisciplinary course of ``the Humanities and Computer" as a part of general education for students in computer science and technology since April 1998. She is the editor of ``CRS Annual Review". Her current interest centers around Spatial data analysis using GIS, Landscape planning, Operational Research, and Telework centers.

• Professor Noriyuki Kikuchi researches psychology for adolescents and teaches educational psychology for adolescents and so on. His research theme is ``Career-choice in the adolescence". An attitude survey on students' decision of career is underway.

• Professor Ken Nakazawa studies exercise psychology. His current theme is psychological analysis of sports players. As a supervisor of team competition of swimming, he contributed to establish a new Japanese record in the National Athletic Meet at Fukushima.

• Professor Koichi Ota has made a study of educational thought in western countries. He teaches subjects of education course such as introduction to education and so on. His research concerns the educational thought of J. A. Comenius.

• Professor Atsunobu Sasaki has been researching communities positively, and he teaches sociology. His current theme is Integration in community of medical care and social welfare in an aged society.