Center for Japanese Studies Graduate Student Seminar Series

Center for Japanese Studies Graduate Student Seminar Series present the panel presentation and discussion, Manipulation, Contestation & Negotiation of Okinawan identity: Language, Library policy, and Media representation.

This panel examines how the contestation and negotiation over Okinawan identity in education reform, cultural policies, and media representations during the past century have been, in no small part, a function of Okinawa�'s political relationship with mainland Japan and the United States. The panel consists of the three paper presentations by UHM graduate students, Chie Fukuda (PhD, East Asian Languages & Literatures), Fujiko Uehara (MA, Library Information and Science), and Kinuko Maehara (MA, Sociology).

Fukuda�'s paper reveals how the Ryukyuan "language" has been conceptualized, deployed, and utilized by linguists, forklorists, administrators, politicians, and Okinawans since Japan�'s implementation of assimilation policies at the end of the 19th century. Uehara'�s presentation will introduce how Ryukyuan-American cultural centers, established and managed by the United States of Civil Administration of Ryukyu Islands (USCAR), were used as a tool for policy control through, among other things, USCAR publications including propaganda magazines such as Shurei-no Hikari and Konnichi-no-Ryukyu. Maehara, in her presentation, examines the representation of contemporary Okinawa in a popular NHK television drama, Churasan, and analyzes audience reaction and commentary as found on the show�'s official website. Maehara�'s paper will also provide discussions about Japan�'s relationship with Okinawa as an ethnic other and Japan'�s myth of cultural and racial homogeneity.

Ticket Information
Free and open to the public

Event Sponsor
Center for Japanese Studies, Manoa

More Information
Center for Japanese Studies, 956-2665, cjs@hawaii.edu, http://www.hawaii.edu/cjs/gradseminarseries.html

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