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Spring 2005
Street Fashion and National Identity in Japan
Dr. Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit
Professor of Japanese Literature, Free University BerlinDate: Thursday, January 6, 2005
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319) [Click here to view map.]What are we talking about when we say "Japaneseness"? And how does it manifest itself in everyday culture? In the increasingly overlapping areas of art, advertisement and street fashion, and in an era with blurred boundaries among museum, subculture, product placement, and trendy products, we may discover new forms of expressing a sense of belonging. How are we to interpret these new manifestations of (national) identity? Dr. Hijiya-Kirschnereit's observations are placed within the context of a joint project analyzing discourses of cultural uniqueness in East Asia.
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Shedding the Unwanted: Japan's Emigration Policy Towards Latin America (Asian Studies Occasional Forum in cooperation with the Center for Japanese Studies)
Dr. Toake Endoh
Assistant Professor, Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New YorkDate: Friday, January 21, 2005
Time: 3:00 - 5:00 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319) [Click here to view map.]This lecture examines political implications of Japan's emigration policy towards Latin America from a historical perspective. During the period of the 1890s to the 1960s, Japan exported as many as 300,000 people to the region. The historical migration phenomenon, which continued during the turbulent periods of imperialism, two world wars, and post-war renaissance, is full of paradoxes and abnormality by a standard of liberal international migration regime. It is little know that the Latin American Emigration (LAE) was a national undertaking directed by the developmentalist state of Japan. "Shedding the Unwanted" identifies and describes the complexity, contradictions, and elusiveness of the trans-Pacific migration to Latin America, and then argues that the Japanese state powerfully and willfully shaped the mode and volume of the Latin American emigration into a national movement through various institutional arrangements. The state's endeavor to advance LAE persisted, independent of structural (both international and domestic) conditions and predicaments. The goal, rationales, and ideology of state emigration promoters who insisted upon the controversial policy (often criticized as kimin or "dumping people") are focal in understanding the LAE's essence.
For more information, please contact Dr. Ricardo D. Trimillos, Asian Studies at (808) 956-6085 or Teri Skillman-Kashyap at (808) 841-5011.
MODERN ARCHIVAL MATERIALS IN JAPAN
Mr. Shohei Muta
Senior Researcher, Japan Center for Asian Historical Records, National Archives of JapanDate: Tuesday, February 8, 2005
Time: 3:00 - 5:00 pm
Place: PC Lab (Moore 153)
Date: Wednesday, February 9, 2005
Time: 10:30 am - 12:20 pm
Place: PC Lab (Moore 153)
Date: Wednesday, February 9, 2005
Time: 3:00 - 5:00 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319)
[Click here to view map.]Mr. Muta will introduce the online digital archives of the Japan Center for Asian Historical Records. The archives include primary documents of the Imperial Japanese government from the early Meiji to 1945, and can be accessed through the Internet with a free application available from the site. The archives may interest not only those who study modern Japanese history but also Chinese, Korean, American, and Hawaiian history (for example, included are materials related to the Japanese government's study of the US annexation of Hawai'i). The archives can be browsed in Japanese and English, however, most of the historical documents are written in Japanese. Mr. Muta will offer several sessions -- one is a demonstration and general introduction in English to the archives. During this session, Mr. Muta will talk about historiographical problems surrounding the study of modern history in Japan. The other two, held in the PC labs in Moore Hall, will be hands-on demonstrations of the site's capabilities for Japan specialists.
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Community Capacity Building in Japan: Finding Solutions for a Rapidly Aging Society in Oshima
Dr. Cullen T. Hayashida
UH Center on AgingDate: Thursday, February 24, 2005
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319) [Click here to view map.]The rapid aging of Japan is and will continue to have a profound impact on the structure of Japanese society during the first half of the 21st Century. Already, Japan has prepared with the creation of its National Long-term Care Insurance program in April 2000. Nevertheless, there is reason to believe that demand will continue to outstrip supply and resources for services. New innovative attempts at finding solutions are clearly necessary. "Community capacity building" efforts currently under way in southern Japan provide an example of a grass roots level initiative aimed at meeting the needs of Japan's aging society.
This presentation reports on the community capacity building project currently being implemented on the island of Oshima in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Like numerous communities in rural Japan, Oshima has experienced drastic depopulation in recent decades that has resulted in a population decrease from 60,000 in the 1950s to about 23,000 today, about 50 percent of which are seniors. This has confronted the local governments with the task of providing for dramatically increased care for the elderly within the context of an eroding tax base and shrinking labor force. Efforts in Oshima to create an "elder-friendly community" are described and assessed. These efforts are then compared with those in a comparable project in Mie Prefecture. Implications for Hawai'i's aging population are also highlighted in the concluding remarks.
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The Visual Culture of 1960s Japan
Dr. Vera Mackie
Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow in the History Department at the University of MelbourneDate: Friday, February 25, 2005
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319) [Click here to view map.]In this presentation Dr. Mackie will consider the use of visual materials as a source for historical research, with particular reference to 1960s Japan. She will discuss how the history of 1960s Japan might look if approached through its visual culture: art photography, news photography, posters from the underground theatre movement and other popular cultural forms.
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Interpreting and Translating (Presented by East Asian Council)
Dr. David Ashworth
Associate Professor of Japanese (EALL) and Dirctor of the Center for Interpretation and Translation Studies (CITS)Ms. Hong-ja Harrison
CITS Instructor and Conference Interpreter (Korean Language)Ms. Se Rah Lee
Owner of Se Rah Lee Translations (Korean language)Ms. Yumiko Tateyama
Japanese Language Instructor (EALL) and CITS InstructorMs. Suzanne Zeng
Chinese Language Instructor (EALL) and CITS InstructorDate: Thursday, March 3, 2005
Time: 3:00 pm -
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319) [Click here to view map.]Please come and hear about the career of interpreting and translating (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) from faculty who teach in the Center for Interpretation and Translation and from working professionals in the field. You will learn about educational/career opportunities and receive advice on how to reach your goals.
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Dr. Edward Seidensticker
Professor Emeritus of Japanese, Columbia University, Scholar and Translator of Japanese LiteratureDate: Friday, March 4, 2005
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319) [Click here to view map.]A little later than usual, Professor Seidensticker is back to share experiences (and opinions!) about his stay in Japan last year.
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Shinto and Buddhism: Intermixture of Rituals and Deities without Conflict: Shimbutsu Konko in Mizusawa, Japan
Dr. Keith Brown
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of PittsburghDate: Thursday, March 10, 2005
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319) [Click here to view map.]On August 16 every year the large neighborhood association of Azuma-cho in the center of the town of Mizusawa in Northeastern Japan holds a large and energetic festival to honor, acknowledge, thank and ask for the continued protection and assistance of the Shinto deities of the Hakusan Jinja. A religious ceremony at 2:00 in the afternoon is followed by a performance of kagura, a dance to the early gods of Japanese genesis, a beer garden with yakitori and other festival delicacies, and the traditional mid-summer Obon dances in which most of the participants are women and children. This is the kind of ritual that occurs annually in virtually all Japanese communities as people honor their patron deities and have a good time.
The only thing remarkable about this particular festival is that the priest who conducts the religious ceremony is a Buddhist temple priest and not a Shinto shrine priest. The ritual to the Shinto gods is thoroughly Buddhist, complete with incense, okyo rather than norito, and no flesh foods among the abundant offerings to the gods.
This mixture of two major religious traditions, Buddhism and Shintoism, is of no concern to the local people. To them it seemed reasonable. For the Iowa farm boy, however, used to seeing religious sects, institutions and traditions as being mutually exclusive, where a person must be committed to one, but not two or more religions at the same time, this particular festival was instructive and interesting.
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Dr. Dr. Elizabeth Van Wie Davis
Professor, College of Security Studies, Department of Regional Studies at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security StudiesDate: Thursday, April 7, 2005
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319) [Click here to view map.]There are more Muslims in China than in the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Libya or Syria. China borders on Muslim countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. What is the impact of Islam in this seemingly non-Muslim country? How is the spread of political Islam and its radical message effecting Chinese Muslims?
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Are Minka Unique to Japan?: The Roles of Environment and Culture in Shaping Traditional Housing in Japan Japan
Dr. Susan Hanley
Professor Emeritus of History, University of WashingtonDate: Thursday, April 14, 2005
Time: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Place: Tokioka Room (Moore 319) [Click here to view map.]Click here to see flyer.
Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama
President of the California Institute of Human ScienceDate: Monday, April 25, 2005
Time: 3:30 - 5:00 pm
Place: Center for Korean Studies Auditorium [Click here to view map.]Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama will discuss the phenomenon of terrorism through a comparative examination of world religions. Evaluating key features of the Western and Asian religious traditions, he describes how terrorism is an inevitable offshoot of the cultural conditions that gave birth to the "desert" religions of the Middle East. He points toward a new model of world religion that transcends the limitations of each tradition.
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