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Early works on the history of the tea ceremony during the modern period emphasise the roles of the modern industrialist elite and their connoisseurial appreciation of tea objects. They argue that their aesthetic value derived from the history of the tea ceremony and that the space provided by tea gatherings played a critical role in the collection and display of art objects in the modern period. This article focuses on the social life of the elite in Tokyo during the mid-to-late Meiji period and examines how the tea ceremony generated new socio-economic networks and cultural institutions. It suggests that the modern development of the tea ceremony was influenced not only by the modern industrialist elite, but by a broader set of actors from various social groups, with differing motivations, that transcended nationality and gender. Towards the end of the Meiji era, the tea ceremony prompted the emergence of new institutions and became a medium for public diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There has been a sea change in the way policy-makers around the world see the economic role of universities. With the rise of the knowledge economy, universities are regarded as potential engines of growth, capable of contributing not only to the creation of individual companies, but also of new industries. This is the reason why Japan has been far from alone in emphasizing university-industry relationships and their role in industrial innovations since the late 1990s. The objective of this article is to examine the economic roles played by Japanese universities and the factors that helped or inhibited them from becoming engaged with the economy. More specifically, the article discusses how their roles changed through three distinct periods: the late nineteenth century to the 1950s when Japanese universities were very active economically, the 1950s-80s when they became somewhat removed from the industrial development process and the 1980s onwards when they began to re-engage with the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]