CJS SEMINAR SERIES

The Center for Japanese Studies sponsors a series of lectures (entitled "CJS Seminar Series") by faculty members and visiting scholars on various topics from recent research to personal impressions of current events in Japan. The lectures for the fall semester of 2006 will be held on Thursday afternoons in the Tokioka Room (Moore Hall 319) and are open to the public. In addition to these lectures, the Center also provides several workshops of interest to graduate students focusing on Japan. These include workshops on careers in Japanese studies, scholarships, and study-abroad programs.

Starting the fall semester of 2004, CJS will also be providing background assistance to a student-run seminar series for graduate students. Click here to view more details.

For a map of Moore Hall, click here. Center for Korean Studies is located across from Moore Hall on East-West Road.

Contact CJS for more information, disability access to seminars, or to be placed on the mailing list.

Spring 2008

"Political Ties of Visible and Invisible Social Movements in Contemporary Japan"

Dr. Patricia Steinhoff (Professor in Sociology) discusses the internal organizational structures and the political relations of the two types of social movements by leftists and conservatives.

Date: April 24 (Thursday), 2008
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"Kitty Subversion: Turning Cute on its Head"

Dr. Christine Yano (Professor in Anthropology) discusses subversive uses to which that Japanese icon, Hello Kitty, has been put in its global consumption.

Date: April 18 (Friday), 2008
Time: 12:00 - 1:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"Illustrated Classical Texts for Women in the Edo Period"

Dr. Joshua Mostow (Professor, University of British Columbia) discusses how the courtly texts such as The Tale of Genji and The Tales of Ise were “packaged” for female consumers of the early modern period, and what such packaging can tell us about both the reception of such “classical” texts and the construction of femininity in the Tokugawa era.

Date: April 17 (Thursday), 2008
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"Bashofu, Japan’s Mingei Movement, and the Creation of a New Okinawa During the Occupation Years (1945-1972)"

Dr. Amanda Mayer Stinchecum, an independent scholar, talks about Yanagi Soetsu, founder of Japan’s Folk Craft (Mingei) Movement, and bashofu (cloth made from the fiber-banana), which Yanagi promoted as emblematic of an essentialized, idyllic and homogeneous Okinawan culture.

Date: March 31 (Monday), 2008
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"Insights on the Academic Job Search"

Dr. Kyle Ikeda, a recent PhD in Japanese (literature) from UHM, and, Dr. Wayne Farris, Soshitsu Sen XV Distinguished Chair of Traditional Japanese Culture and History, will provide helpful information on the academic job search. Dr. Ikeda, who will be starting a tenure-track position at the University of Vermont in the fall, will give his top ten suggestions for applicants in the job search. Dr. Farris, who is currently serving on a search committee, will explain what committees look for in applicants. Their presentations will be followed by a question and answer period.

Date: March 20 (Thursday), 2008
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"Japanese Traditional Medicine (Nihon Kanpo Igaku) in Cosmic Harmony: Influence of Chinese Medicine and its Individuality"

Dr. Masami Tateno (Nihon University, Japan) discusses the philosophy of the Chinese traditional medicine and its impact on the Japanese traditional medicine. He also explores the Japanese traditional medicine's own development. Dr. Tateno received his B.A. and M.A. at Nihon University, and Ph.D. in Medicine at Juntendo University. He teaches Japanese/Chinese philosophy and medicine at Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan.

Date: March 19 (Wednesday), 2008
Time: 12:00 - 1:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"Okinawan Language Revitalization"

Arthur Lynn Andrews’ Chair, Professor Shinsho Miyara (University of the Ryukyus) will give a lecture titled “Okinawan Language Revitalization.” This lecture is presented by the Center for Japanese Studies and co-sponsored by the School of Pacific & Asian Studies.

Uchinaguchi (Okinawan) is a native language spoken on the main island of Okinawa and neighboring off-shore islands. Okinawan has been treated as a dialect in Japanese dialectology and simultaneously as a deviation bound to vanish together with the Ainu language owing to the measures of promoting the national language (kokugo) or so-called “standard” Japanese taken by the Japanese government.

In April 2006, the Okinawan Prefectural Government began to tackle this language problem by issuing an ordinance of local language revitalization. A key player in the ordinance’s enactment was the Society of Okinawan Language Revitalization (SOLR). Professor Miyara has been deeply involved in language revitalization activities as secretary general of SOLR for almost six years and vice-president later.

Now that a long-standing academic society Kokugogakkai changed its name to Nihongogakkai, Professor Miyara believes it should be an appropriate time to free Okinawan from the spell of the national language (kokugo) and to define it as a language in its own right. In his talk, he will first sketch some unique linguistic properties of Okinawan and then define it as a legitimate language in terms of sociolinguistic criteria of language and dialect. For the second half of the talk, he will discuss the steps that are being taken to revitalize the Okinawan language.

Date: March 17 (Monday), 2008
Time: 2:30 - 4:00 pm
Place: Center for Korean Studies Auditorium

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"The Last 10 Years in Hiroshima: An Observation of Change"

Professor Joy Jarman-Walsh (Yasuda Women’s University, Hiroshima, Japan) shares her observations on the many changes occurring in Hiroshima over the past ten years. Her presentation will cover business and urban planning, the role of women, and Hiroshima’s role as a focal point for peace and how foreigners in Hiroshima are participating in this endeavor.

Part I Business & Urban Planning-The Changing and Combining of Old and New
Businesses are adapting western ideas, styles and practices, but also retaining traditional Japanese practices in a new way- showing it in a new light. This trend has been successful and is reinterpreting the Japanese standards, but is it worth losing valuable businesspeople who have long been the heart of the city?

Part II The Role of Women in Hiroshima
How have the changes for women working at Hiroshima’s biggest employer, Mazda, had an effect on Hiroshima’s working women? And how have female university student’s attitudes to work and family changed over the years.

Part III Peace and Foreign Influences in Hiroshima
Hiroshima’s legacy will always make it a focal point of peace, but what does that mean for this modern city? Professor Jarman-Walsh will discuss how the perspective and influence of the many foreign residents and visitors to Hiroshima play a strong supporting role in the process.

Date: March 6 (Thursday), 2008
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"The Problem of Loudspeakers in Japan"

Dr. Daniel Dolan (Professor of Business Communication at Tohoku University, Japan) talks about the problems of unwanted noise in Japan.

What do pachinko parlors, political extremists and potato vendors in Japan have in common? They all use loudspeakers in public.

Although many people unfamiliar with Japan imagine quiet city streets and meditative tea ceremonies, the daily use of high-volume loudspeakers hand-held or mounted on vehicles by anybody with something to say creates city soundscapes in Japan that threatens the physical and mental health of citizens and raises critical freedom of speech issues.

Discussion of this important public policy question, which involves a difficult tension between free speech rights and the right to personal privacy from unwanted noise in public, will include audiovisual examples.

This seminar is co-sponsored by the William S. Richardson School of Law and the Department of Speech.

Date: February 7 (Thursday), 2008
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

fall 2007

"Classifying Kokugaku: Nativism and Exceptionalism in Tokugawa Japan"

Dr. Mark McNally (Associate Professor in History, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa) talks about the reclassification of Kokugaku from nativism to exceptionalism.

Scholars of Tokugawa Japan usually associate the word nativism with Kokugaku. While there are some legitimate reasons for doing this, ultimately the term nativism impedes rather than facilitates a better understanding of what Kokugaku was. Instead, the term exceptionalism accommodates the salient aspects of Kokugaku more effectively. Both nativism and exceptionalism are categories originating in American history. Exceptionalism, if it is applied at all to Japan, is usually associated with the postwar phenomenon of Nihonjinron; however, many of the fundamental assumptions of Nihonjinron predate the 20th century.

The reclassification of Kokugaku indicates a basic connection between the concepts of nativism and exceptionalism. Such a connection is almost unknown among scholars of American history, who treat the two separately. A comparative study of Kokugaku can, therefore, suggest a new approach to American history that examines nativism and exceptionalism in an intellectual continuum.

Date: November 16 (Friday), 2007
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Center for Korean Studies Auditorium

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"Pumping for the Friends, Fueling the Debate: Japan in the Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF)"

Dr. Yoichiro Sato (Associate Professor, Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies) talks about the on-going debate on Japan's participation of the international naval operation for US-led Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, simultaneous terror attacks on the U.S. targets by the Al Quaeda, Japan responded by sending its naval assets to the Indian Ocean to assist the coalition patrol operation. With the expiration of the enabling law on 1 November 2007, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's effort to extend the operation has faced a strong opposition from the Democratic Party, which controlled a majority in the Upper House of the Diet. This talk will focus on analyzing key factors involving the fate of this operation at both international and domestic levels and discussing the issue's relevance to Japan's debate on collective defense.

Date: November 8 (Thursday), 2007
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"The Crossing of Boundaries between the Religious and Social Constructions of Gender in Medieval Japanese Buddhist Narratives: The Case Study of Chujohime."

Dr. Monika Dix (Visiting Assistant Professor, EALL, UHM) talks about Chujohime, one of the extensive body of late medieval short stories – collectively called otogi zoshi. She focuses on the significance of Chujohime’s transcendent journey to Hibariyama and explores how it constitutes a crossing of boundaries between the religious and social constructions of gender in this Buddhist tale of female salvation, presenting Chujohime as religious outcast – not being able to attain enlightenment in her female body due to her sex – and as social outcast – transgressing the bounds of her role of filial daughter vis-à-vis her father.

Date: October 25 (Thursday), 2007
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"Genji and the Will of Sumiyoshi "

Dr. Royall Tyler (Former Professor at Australian National University) argues that The Tale of Genji is, among other things, an enormously complex development of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki’s myth of Hikohohodemi and Honosuseri, the two brother deities. In other words, the underlying theme, or dynamic, of the entire tale is the rivalry between Genji, the younger brother, and Suzaku, the elder. Professor Tyler's highly-acclaimed translation of Genji came out in 2002.

Date: October 15 (Monday), 2007
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"Women Executives in Corporate Japan: Navigating the Tensions between Family and Fortune"

Professor Glenda S. Roberts (Waseda University, Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, CJS Visiting Scholar and EWC Visiting Fellow) will talk about how Japanese women executives manage their careers and lives with spauses and children. The vast majority of married Japanese women quit their jobs by the time their first baby is born. But what of those who don’t? How do they and their spouses manage two careers with baby? Is there a “life” after work is over and the baby is in bed? Her interview research at two large firms in Tokyo, one a multinational US firm and the other, a Japanese multinational firm, gives us some clues to the lifestyles of 30 and 40-something married, well-educated, female executives with children, and to an extent, the lives of their spouses and children as well.

Date: September 10 (Monday), 2007
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

"talk story session on issues of okinawan identity"

Dr. Koji Taira (Professor Emeritus of Labor Economics and Industrial Relations, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) will talk about issues on Okinawan identities. For the past twenty years, Dr. Taira has been the Editor and Publisher of The Ryukyuanist, a newsletter which has connected and informed scholars and researchers of Okinawa Studies of developments in the field. He has written extensively on the quest of Okinawans for self-determination.

Date: September 5 (Wednesday), 2007
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Center for Korean Studies Auditorium (the room has been changed from Tokioka)

Please see the attached flyer for more details.

 

For past seminar series, please click here

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Center for Japanese Studies·School of Pacific and Asian Studies·University of Hawai'i at Manoa·1890 East-West Road, Moore 216·Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822·Tel: 808-956-2665·Fax: 808-956-2666·E-mail: cjs@hawaii.edu
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