Inoue Nobutaka (; born 1948), is a Japanese scholar of religious studies, who specializes in modern

Shinto , also called Shintoism, is a religion originating in Japan. Classified as an East Asian religions, East Asian religion by Religious studies, scholars of religion, it is often regarded by its practitioners as Japan's indigenous religion and as ...

studies. He is a professor emeritus at

Kokugakuin University Kokugakuin University , abbreviated as ''Kokugakudai'' () or ''Kokudai'' (), is a Shinto-affiliated private research university in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. The university consists of undergraduate departments in humanities and social sciences and ...

Education

Inoue attended the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

in Religious Studies. His thesis was written on the topic of ''Arguments Regarding Religious Freedom in the Meiji Period''. In graduate school he was influenced by

Hirata Atsutane was a Japanese scholar, conventionally ranked as one of the Four Great Men of Kokugaku (nativist) studies, and one of the most significant 19th century theologians of the Shintō religion. His literary name was , and his primary assumed name ...

, a Japanese theologian who lived during the Edo period.

Work

In 1982, Inoue resigned from his position on the faculty of literature at the University of Tokyo, to take a job at Kokugakuin University. There he founded the Japanese Association for the Study of Religion and Society, and the Religious Information Research Center, an archive centered on the study of modern Japanese religion. Beginning in 1990, he served as co-editor of the definitive work, ''Encyclopedia of New Religions'' that covered over 400 religious leaders and 300 new religious groups in Japan. In 1995, he helped to moderate and temper society's responses to the

Aum Shinrikyo , better known by their former name , is a Japanese new religions, Japanese new religious movement and doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1987. It carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been respo ...

terrorist attack in Tokyo.

Selected publications

Following the print version, Inoue developed an online version of ''Encyclopedia of Shinto''. Other publications include ''Shinto: A Short History'', 2003, Taylor & Francis, co-authored with Endo Jun, Mori Mizue, Ito Satoshi; ''Folk Beliefs in Modern Japan'', 1994, Institute for Japanese Culture and Classics, Kokugakuin University. ''Contemporary Japanese Religion'', 2000, Foreign Press Center, Japan, among others.

Honors

In 2019, Inoue was elected as an International Honorary Member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

References

External links