Japanese Silent Cinema and the Art of the Benshi
Midori Sawato
September 16, 2002
Center for Japanese Studies
Stone Tools and Cognitive Patterns in Japanese Palaeolithic Assemblages
Peter Bleed, Professor, Japanese Palaeolithic Archaeology, University Nebraska-Lincoln
September 23, 2002
Joint Colloquium
Center for Japanese Studies, Department of Anthropology
Atmospherics
Jun Aoki, Architecture, Aoki & Associates, Tokyo, Japan
October 2, 2002
Joint Colloquium
Center for Japanese Studies, Department of Architecture
After the Bubbles: Linking the Recoveries of America and Asia
Barry Eichengreen, Director of Institute for European Studies, UC Berkeley
Shijuro Ogata, Former Deputy Governor for International Relations, the Bank of Japan
Chantale Wong, Former U.S. Acting Executive Director, Asian Development Bank
T.J. Pempel, IEAS Director, UC Berkeley, moderator
October 7, 2002
Bubbles in the Japanese banking, stock and land markets burst in 1990-91 and the country has yet to recover. Rapid growth across Asia's developing economies collapsed in 1997-98 and recovery there has been uneven at best. China did well in 1997-98 but now faces a massive non-performing loan problem that many are warning is about to explode into a full scale banking crisis. Americans riding the wave of the most spectacular stock market boom in their nation's history may have felt a wave of temporary triumph until the recent puncturing of the Dot.Com and NASDAQ bubbles. Meanwhile, Enron, Imclone and World Com make it clear that Asian economies are hardly alone in the need to confront "crony capitalism."
The time is right to address a number of questions that grow out of the economic difficulties that have hit both sides of the Pacific and to search for solutions sensitive to the interconnections between these economies rather than for unilateralist approaches that attempt to ignore them. What are the dangers to Asia of America's technology slowdown? What's the latest on financial deregulation, liquidity shortage and deflation? What are the virtues of creating a new region-wide Asian financial architecture? Who will serve as the engine of trans-Pacific recovery — Japan, China, ASEAN or the U.S.? Please join Shijuro Ogata, former Deputy Governor for International Relations of the Bank of Japan, and former Deputy Governor of the Japan Development Bank, for a luncheon discussion.
Co-sponsored by the Japan Society of Northern California, UC Berkeley Institute of East Asian Studies, the Commonwealth Club of California, the Asia Society, the Asia Foundation, Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Northern California.
Becoming Ukifune: Sarashina Nikki and a Performance of Self
Sudeshna Sen, Postdoctoral Fellow, Classic Japanese Literature, University of Oregon
October 10, 2002
Center for Japanese Studies
In Sarashina nikki the narrator articulates her desire for monogatari and her fascination for Ukifune emphasizing her own rusticity and failure to achieve goals of worldly and romantic success. Garnering evidence from the narrator's descriptions of her marriage, her love affair, and her experiences at court, Dr. Sen argues that the narrator's identification with Ukifune, assertions of marginality, and social ineptitude successfully locate her as a vulnerable heroine in her reenactment of her own life.
Those Naughty Teenage Girls: Assessments of the Kogal Identity
Laura Miller, Associate Professor, Anthropology/Sociology, Loyola University of Chicago
October 16, 2002
Center for Japanese Studies
Among the many styles which contemporary youth may adopt, perhaps none has become the focus of such mass media anxiety and voyeuristic interest as the so-called Kogals, young women with bleached hair, dark tans and extreme make-up who create dramatically different hybrid looks. Drawing from popular culture sources, this presentation will examine critiques and displays of schoolgirl subculture, with a particular focus on the way their use of language challenges longstanding norms about gendered speech.
On Recent Work
Waro Kishi, Professor, Architecture, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto
October 21, 2002
Joint Colloquium
Center for Japanese Studies, Department of Architecture
Waro Kishi's work offers unusually rich sectional and spatial variations which are studied and admired around the world. He is known for crisp, elegantly detailed Modern buildings, often unbelievably tiny, but with a sense of great openness and light. Externally, his buildings are cool compositions of steel and glass, but he nonetheless takes full advantage of the crafts of the Kansai area of Japan, and his interiors incorporate tatami, wood, and even stone, and are frequently interwoven with elegant gardens of a traditional style. He struggles in his work to reconcile tradition and today, and makes an effort to be responsible to heritage but aware of the new materials and economic forces that have led to change.
The 10th Annual Bakai バークレー大学研究大会
October 28, 2002
Center for Japanese Studies
Agenda
2:10 — Welcome / Announcements
2:15 - Panel 1
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- "Performative Memories: On Postwar Japanese Theatre and Culture" — Miryam Sas, Assistant Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures/Comparative Literature
- "Fractured Memory, Split Memoir: Containing the Past in Tamakiwaru, a 13th-Century Court Memoir" — Miki Wheeler, Graduate Student, East Asian Languages and Cultures
- "Contextualizing Heian Screen Poetry" — Joseph Sorensen, Graduate Student, East Asian Languages and Cultures
- "New Elementary Japanese Textbook" — Yoko Hasegawa, Associate Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures
- "Opposition Disappearance in Japan: Post-Realignment Evidence Supports Theoretical Pessimism" — Robert Weiner, Graduate Student, Political Science
- "Japanese Labor Relations in Transition" — Steven Vogel, Associate Professor, Political Science
4:00 - Panel 2
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- "Gender, Community Activism and Grassroots Transnationalization in Japan" — Keiko Yamanaka, Lecturer, Ethnic Studies
- "Crime Situation after a Natural Disaster: Do Crimes Increase or Decrease after a Disaster?" — Hideyo Matsubara, Visiting Scholar, Law School
- "Japan's Provincial Tourism Market" — John Ertl, Graduate Student, Anthropology
- "Kudara no Sato" — Nelson Graburn, Professor, Anthropology "On Digital Map Project" — Yuki Ishimatsu, Head Librarian in Japanese Selections, East Asian Library
5:15 — Further Questions / Closing Comments
Cherry Blossoms and the Tokkôtai: Aesthetics and Totalitarian Ideologies
Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Professor, Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison
November 6, 2002
Center for Japanese Studies
How did the Japanese military state come to use the master trope of falling cherry blossoms in order to aestheticize its soldiers' sacrifice to the emperor? In what ways did the Tokkôtai pilots, 85% of whom were university students, reproduce this "totalitarian" ideology in action or perhaps even in their thoughts? This paper assesses the impact of the state's use of education and popular culture through a close examination of these pilots' diaries. The queries it poses are placed in broader comparative perspectives on the role of aesthetics in totalitarian/authoritarian/fascist ideologies.
Religious Systems in Prehistoric Japan: Clay Figurines in Jomon and Yayoi Periods
Hiromi Shitara, Archaeology, National Museum of History in Sakura
November 14, 2002
Center for Japanese Studies
Clay figurines appeared around 12,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the Incipient Jomon and simultaneously with the appearance of Jomon pottery. This presentation will discuss three themes: First, the role of clay figurines and their symbolic meaning in the male and female principle; second, the change of meanings of clay figurines and tattoo custom from the Jomon to Yayoi period, and the cultural transformation from the one of hunter-gatherer to the agricultural; third, the possibility of using clay figurines to concretely reconstruct the clothes and customs of the people of those days.
The Impact of International Law on Japan: Comparing Trade and Human Rights
Keisuke Iida, Professor, International Politics and Economics, Aoyama Gakuin University
November 21, 2002
Center for Japanese Studies