The symposium opened with a keynote lecture by Dr. Sakari Katajam?ki (President of the European Society for Textual Scholarship), who has long been engaged in scholarly editing of Finnish literature. His lecture, titled “Rethinking Textual Scholarship Through an Archive: C. A. Gottlund as a Mediator of Carl Michael Bellman,” began with an overview of the general characteristics of textual scholarship — a field that encompasses various disciplines concerned with texts, including bibliography, paleography, and philology — examined from several perspectives such as historicity, materiality, and orthography. He then introduced the case of C. A. Gottlund, a nineteenth-century Finnish scholar and poet who translated the songs of the eighteenth-century Swedish poet Carl Michael Bellman, and discussed how the archival materials related to these translations may be examined from diverse perspectives in textual scholarship. As a framework for examining Gottlund’s case, Dr. Katajam?ki introduced the concept of “trextuality,” a term he developed together with his collaborators by combining “textuality,” “translation,” and “transmission.” This concept offers a theoretical lens for understanding the complex, multidimensional processes of textual variation and transmission that extend beyond a single language. Through this perspective, new light was shed on Gottlund’s translation processes and the textual variations they entailed, revealing the multifaceted nature of his translation project. For instance, his manuscripts show that he envisioned creating a distinctive Finnish edition to bring Bellman’s songs to new audiences. Dr. Katajam?ki concluded by drawing a parallel between Gottlund’s translation practice and the work of scholarly editing, suggesting that editing, too, is a cultural practice that opens literary culture to new readers.

The second lecture was delivered by Professor Kiyoko Myojo (Seijo University; Director of the Research Center for Textual Scholarship), titled “Genetic Criticism and Textual Scholarship: Encounters, Challenges, and Prospects.” Drawing on her own experience as a Kafka scholar, she examined the relationship between genetic criticism and textual scholarship. She pointed out that both German Editionswissenschaft and French genetic criticism developed their theoretical frameworks in response to conditions specific to modern texts. In Japan, however, theoretical discussions on issues surrounding modern texts have rarely crossed linguistic or disciplinary boundaries. Professor Myojo introduced her own efforts to address this situation, and then offered her vision for the future: rather than treating genetic criticism as separate from textual scholarship, she hopes to integrate genetic criticism’s compelling approach — its capacity to illuminate the creative process — into textual scholarship, thereby broadening its readership and invigorating discussions on cultural production.