Power: Architectural Evidence of Things Unseen
Lecture
Speaker: Dana Buntrock, Architecture, UC Berkeley
Moderator: John Lie, Sociology, UC Berkeley
Date: August 28, 2014 | 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Buildings express influences otherwise unseen. They are, for example, shaped by laws, subsidies or incentives, and forgotten historical events. Professor Dana Buntrock of the Department of Architecture will discuss several buildings in Japan, from a 1960s "Hawaiian" resort to contemporary prefabricated houses, demonstrating ways that seemingly odd or unusual approaches result from the political economies of energy use and exploitation.
During the 2014-2015 academic year, Buntrock will continue this investigation not only in Japan, but also in Taiwan and Korea.
The Continuing Allure of Hayao Miyazaki
Colloquium
Speakers:
• Beth Cary, Translator/Interpreter
• Frederik L. Schodt, Translator/Writer
Moderator:
• Daniel O'Neill
Date: September 15, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
If you have been thrilled by the images and touched by the heart-warming stories of Hayao Miyazaki's feature-length animated works, you may count yourself among the vast numbers of fans of this revered filmmaker. Yet Miyazaki's legions of fans include not only his viewing audience, but also many manga and animation professionals, both in Japan and around the world. Miyazaki is also one of the founders of Japan's famous Studio Ghibli, where, along with his fellow director, Isao Takahata, and long-term producer, Toshio Suzuki, he has created one hit after another. To the shock of fans, in 2013, Miyazaki announced his retirement, creating many questions about the future of not only Studio Ghibli, but of Japan's entire feature-length animation industry. Miyazaki has announced his retirement several times before, and rumors always persist of a comeback, but in Japan today the lack of an apparent successor is of great concern.
Less known outside of Japan is the fact that Miyazaki is also a prolific writer, speaker, and controversial intellectual, who boasts two giant volumes of interviews and essays. Translated into English as Starting Point: 1979-1996, and Turning Point: 1997-2008, these books total over 900 pages of text, and are both published by Viz Media in San Francisco. In an illustrated talk, Beth Cary and Frederik Schodt, the translators of the works, will explore the reasons for the appeal of Miyazaki and his films, in both Japan and the United States, and examine the role of his studio.
Frederik L. Schodt's writings on manga, and his translations of them, helped trigger the current popularity of Japanese comics in the English-speaking world. In 2009, the Japanese Government presented him with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette for his work in helping to promote Japan's popular culture in the United States. He has written widely on Japanese history, popular culture, and technology.
Beth Cary has interpreted for many Japanese artists, including Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki at their presentations in the Bay Area and beyond. As a translator she has translated Japanese fiction and nonfiction works, ranging from the social sciences to literary reflections. Recently she has translated several award-winning mystery stories for the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
Hidden Legacy: Japanese Traditional Performing Arts in the World War II Internment Camps
Speaker: Shirley Muramoto Wong, Filmmaker
Documentary Film
Date: September 18, 2014 | 6:00 p.m.
Location: Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Gund Theater
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, The Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, The Japanese American Women Alumnae of University of California, Berkeley
Hidden Legacy: Japanese Traditional Performing Arts in the World War II Internment Camps uses historical footage and interviews from artists who were interned to tell the story of how traditional Japanese cultural arts were maintained at a time when the War Relocation Authority (WRA) emphasized the importance of assimilation and Americanization. This film is the first major presentation of the existence of traditional music, dance and drama in the camps. Filmmaker Shirley Kazuyo Muramoto-Wong has been searching, researching and collecting for over 20 years information on who these artists were. Her own family's history with the camps led her to become a kotoist and teacher of the Japanese koto (13-stringed zither).
This event is being held to honor the memory of Masako Martha Suzuki, and to celebrate the new Masako Martha Suzuki Endowment in support of the activities of the Center for Japanese Studies to continue the promotion of educating students and the general public about Japanese history, culture and arts as well as the Japanese-American experience immediately before, during and after World War II.
Nuclear Options: Behind the US-South Korea Conflict
Conference/Symposium
Featured Speaker:
• Ro-byug Park, Ambassador for Nuclear Energy Cooperation and Special
Representative for ROK-US Nuclear Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Republic of Korea
Speakers:
• Yoon Il Chang, Argonne Distinguished Fellow, Argonne National
Laboratory
• Chaim Braun, Consulting Professor, Stanford University
• Yongsoo Hwang, Director General, Korea Institute of Nuclear
Nonproliferation and Control
• Yusuke Kuno, Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Management,
University
of Tokyo/Japan Atomic Energy Agency
• Andrew Newman, Senior Program Officer, Nuclear Threat Initiative
• Michael J. Apted, Vice President, INTERA Incorporated
• In-Tae Kim, Vice President for Nuclear Fuel Cycle Technology
Development, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute
Panelist/Discussant:
• Thomas Isaacs, Visiting Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory
Moderator:
• Joonhong Ahn, Professor of Nuclear Engineering, UC Berkeley
Date: September 19, 2014 | 9:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Nuclear power turned to weaponry is a dire threat at any time, never more so than in an unstable international climate. At the same time, nuclear power is embraced by South Korea not only as a clean and relatively inexpensive option for its energy-hungry economy, but as a promising export in itself, and an avenue of lucrative technology transfer.
The threat of international proliferation has raised concern over South Korea's latest development: an improved form of pyroprocessing, a promising method for treating spent fuel for future re-use. But in reusing fuel for nuclear power, it can also potentially be used for weapons. Its efficiency makes the process the more accessible, the more tempting, and the more potentially deadly.
A complex constellation of past treaties, current imperatives, and international concerns cloud discussion. Reinvigorated anti-nuclear efforts in the post-Fukushima world protest expansion of nuclear power. International attempts to curb nuclear export have raised cries of national sovereignty. Scientists voice concern about the effects of the new method of re-processing. This symposium attempts to unpack the political, historical, economic, and scientific issues, and illuminate the larger picture of the role of nuclear power in contemporary geo-politics.
View the report for Nuclear Options: Behind the US-South Korea Conflict here.
Long-term Sustainability through Place-based, Small-scale Economies
Conference
Speakers:
• Miguel Altieri, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and
Management,UC Berkeley
• Kenneth Ames, Department of Anthropology, Portland State University
• William Balée, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University
• Fritjof Capra, Center for Ecoliteracy
• Ben Fitzhugh, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington
• Mayumi Fukunaga, School of Sustainability Systems, Osaka Prefecture
University
• Colin Grier, Department of Anthropology, Washington State University
• Junko Habu, Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley and Research
Institute for Humanity and Nature
• Satoshi Ishikawa, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature
• Nobuhiro Kaneko, Yokohama National University
• Kent Lightfoot, Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley
• Céline Pallud, Department of Environmental Science, Policy &
Management, UC Berkeley
• Tatsuhito Sekine, Faculty of Humanities, Hirosaki University
• Yuko Sugiyama, Faculty of Humanities, Hirosaki University
• Steven Weber, Department of Anthropology, Washington State
University, Vancouver
• Shingo Hamada, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature and
Department of Anthropology, Indiana University
• Leo Aoi Hosoya, The Global Human Resource Development Center,
Ochanomizu University
• Sarick Matzen, Department of Environmental Science, Policy &
Management, UC Berkeley
• Peter Nelson, Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley
• Clara Nicholls, Department of Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley
• Daniel Niles, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature
• Takanori Oishi, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature
• Anders Olson, Department of Environmental Science, Policy &
Management, UC Berkeley
Date: September 26–27, 2014 | 9 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Department of Anthropology, Archaeological Research Facility, and Berkeley Food Institute
Diversity in food production, the scale of a food production system, and long-term sustainability are profoundly interconnected. The relationship between food diversity and long-term sustainability in contemporary societies has been discussed widely in various disciplinary fields. However, most of them revolve around the cost-benefit analysis of resource use in the short-term perspective, and subsequently, little research has yet been available to help us understand the prospect of food production after 2050 or 2100. The current food production system is based on intensive production and consumption, supported by large-scale monoculture with long-distance transportation. An intensive and mechanized food production system can support a larger population for a short period, but the dependence on the current system as such has caused serious environmental costs which cannot be overlooked any longer. In addition, large-scale monocultural food production is very vulnerable against climate change and natural catastrophes like earthquakes. Meanwhile, food productivity and many other things that smallholder producers offer have been underestimated both economically and socially. United Nations' Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) has designated 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming to support and promote small-scale economies and societies. Small-scale and diversified food production contributes to global food security, revitalization of rural and regional communities, and maintenance of bio-cultural diversity with long-term sustainability.
This symposium examines the importance of place-based, small-scale and diversified economies for the long-term sustainability of human societies and explores what needs to be done for promoting alternative food systems. Experts in archaeology, ethnology, agronomy from Japan and the United States will present their research on the past and present practice of place-based smaller-scale food production systems, for reevaluating their advantages and limitations and exploring their future potential. This symposium will also aim to discuss how contributions the archaeology of the North Pacific could make to understand the mechanisms of long-term cultural and societal changes and to mitigate environmental issues at multiple scales.
The History of the Early Modern Japanese Family
Conference/Symposium
Panelist/Discussants:
• David Atherton, Assistant Professor, Department of Asian Languages
and Civilizations, University of Colorado Boulder;
• Mary Elizabeth Berry, Professor, Department of History, University
of California, Berkeley;
• Fabian Drixler, Associate Professor, Department of History, Yale
University;
• Morgan Pitelka, Associate Professor, Department of Asian Studies,
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill;
• Luke Roberts, Professor, Department of History, University of
California Santa Barbara;
• David Spafford, Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian
Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania;
• Amy Stanley, Associate Professor, Department of History, Northwestern
University;
• Anne Walthall, Professor, Department of History, University of
California Irvine;
• Marcia Yonemoto, Associate Professor, Department of History,
University of Colorado Boulder
Moderators:
• Daniel Botsman, Professor, Department of History, Yale University;
• Sungyun Lim, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University
of Colorado Boulder;
• Kären Wigen, Professor and Chair, Department of History,
Stanford University;
• Nicolas Tackett, Associate Professor, Department of History, University
of California, Berkeley
Date: October 3–4, 2014 | 9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Location: Stephens Hall, Geballe Room, Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, The Japan Foundation, New York, Townsend Center for the Humanities, The AAS Northeast Asia Council
The importance of the family and the family system in early modern Japan is incontestable, and considerable research, largely centered in the social sciences, was done on the subject between the 1970s and 1990s. But the humanistic dimensions of the family have seldom been examined in a sustained and focused way, and the subject in general has not received a great deal of scholarly attention in recent years. This conference will bring together twelve leading scholars of early modern Japanese history and literature, who will present and discuss papers on key aspects of the construction, development, maintenance, and representation of the family in general, and of specific families in particular.
Schedule
Friday, October 3
Session I | 9:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Mary Elizabeth Berry, University of California, Berkeley
Managing a Family Fortune: Value and Practice in the Expansion of the Mitsui House
Morgan Pitelka, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Material Legacies: Collecting, Displaying, and Transmitting Early Modern Family Histories
Amy Stanley, Northwestern University
Fashioning the Family: A Household Economy in Silk, Cotton, and Paper
Session II | 1:30 – 4:30 PM
David Spafford, University of Pennsylvania
Filial Vassals and Loyal Sons: The Contours of Familial Obligation in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Japan
Luke Roberts, University of California Santa Barbara
The 'Inside Story' on Samurai Households: Records of Women in 'Family-use' Lineages
David Atherton, University of Colorado, Boulder
Imagining the Family in Crisis: the Early Modern Household in Popular Vendetta Literature
Saturday, October 4
Session III | 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Marcia Yonemoto, University of Colorado Boulder
Ties that Bind: In-Marrying Husbands (muko yōshi) and the Perpetuation of Early Modern Daimyo Families
Anne Walthall, University of California, Irvine
On the Margins of Family Life: Temporary residents in Hirata Atsutane's household
Fabian Drixler, Yale University
Imagined Communities of the Dead, the Living, and the Yet to Be Born
Session IV | 1:30 – 4:30 PM
Group Discussion
Discussants: Daniel Botsman, Yale University; Sungyun Lim, University of Colorado Boulder; Kären Wigen, Stanford University
Comparative Responses to Atrocity
Colloquium
Speaker: Alan Tansman, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Andrew Jones, East Asian Languages and Cultures. UC Berkeley
Date: October 6, 2014 | 12:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
In this talk I will discuss my experience teaching a course comparing Jewish and Japanese responses to atrocity and my attempt to grapple with the pedagogical, ethical, and aesthetic issues the comparison, and the class, raise.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
International Politics in East Asia: Abe's Diplomacy – Global and Regional
Colloquium
Speaker: Akihiko Tanaka, President, Japan International Cooperation Agency
Date: October 9, 2014 | 4:30 p.m.
Location: Faculty Club, Seaborg Room
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has visited more countries than any previous prime minister of Japan. On the other hand, one could point out conspicuous omission in his itinerary: China and South Korea. How do we explain Abe's active global diplomacy and strained relations between Japan and its immediate neighbors? History issues and differences over territories are obviously relevant to explain the current international relations in Northeast Asia. But Abe's "globe-trotting diplomacy" cannot be reduced to reactive responses to the increasing influence of China globally. Tanaka will discuss more fundamental, long-term interests of Japan that can explain Mr. Abe's diplomacy.
Akihiko Tanaka is President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Before assuming the present post, he was Professor of International Politics at the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies and at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo. Most recently he was Vice President of the University of Tokyo (2011-2012), Executive Vice President of the University of Tokyo (2009-2011), and Director of the Division of International Affairs of the University of Tokyo (2008-2010).
He obtained his B.A. in International Relations at the University of Tokyo in 1977 and his Ph.D. in Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981.
Mr. Tanaka's specialties include theories of international politics, contemporary international relations in East Asia, and Japan's foreign policy. He has numerous books and articles in Japanese and English including the New Middle Ages: The World System in the 21st Century (Tokyo: The International House of Japan, 2002).
He received the Medal with Purple Ribbon for his academic achievements in 2012.
Monkey Business: Contemporary Fiction and Poetry from Japan and the US
Colloquium
Panelist: Tomoka Shibasaki; Hiromi Itoh; Roland Kelts; Ted Goossen
Moderator: John Wallace, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Date: October 23, 2014 | 2:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Japan Foundation, The Nippon Foundation, A Public Space, Japan Society of Northern California
Monkey Business is a Tokyo- and Brooklyn-based annual literary journal which showcases Japanese fiction & poetry newly translated into English. The magazine draws a large part of its materials from the Japanese quarterlies Monkey Business (2008-2011) and Monkey (2013- ), but it also publishes new works by contemporary American and British writers popular in Japan, providing a literary space where new voices from both sides of the Pacific meet. Since 2011 there have been four issues, in which short stories, poems and essays by such noted writers as Paul Auster, Hideo Furukawa, Haruki Murakami, and Richard Powers have been featured.
Two award-winning Japanese authors visit the Bay Area to discuss their writing, contemporary Japanese culture, and what it feels like to live in post-disaster Japan. They will be joined by Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica, and professor Ted Goossen, co-editor of Monkey Business, the only English-language journal focused on Japanese literature, culture and visual art. There will be readings, discussions and a lively Q&A.
Tomoka SHIBASAKI is known for novels and stories that capture the sensibilities of young women living in cities. Winners of the Oda Sakunosuke Prize and the Noma New Writers' Award among others, she is the recipient of the 2014 Akutagawa Prize, the most prestigious literary award in Japan. Her books include Asleep or Awake (2010), Viridian (2011), and In the City Where I Was Not (2012). Translations in English include "The Seaside Road" and "The Glasses Thief," which appeared respectively in Issues 2 and 3 of Monkey Business.
Hiromi ITOH is a poet, novelist, essayist, and translator, and one of the most important female voices to come out in Japanese poetry of the late twentieth century. She is author of numerous books, including La Niña (1999), Supernatural Stories from Japan (2004), and Wild Grass on a Riverbank (2005). English translations include Killing Kanoko: Selected Poems by Hiromi Itoh,translated by Jeffrey Angles (Action Books, 2009). She is recipient of numerous awards, including the Hagiwara Sakutaro Award and Murasaki Shikibu Literary Award.
Roland KELTS is the author of the critically acclaimed and best-selling Japanamerica (2007), and his articles, essays and stories are published in The New Yorker, Time, Zoetrope: All Story, The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal, A Public Space, Newsweek Japan, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, The Yomiuri and The Japan Times among others. He is also a regular contributor to CNN, The BBC, NPR and NHK. He is a visiting scholar at Keio University and contributing editor to Monkey Business who divides his time between Tokyo and New York City.
Ted GOOSEN teaches Japanese literature and film at York University in Toronto. He is the general editor of The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories and has published translations of stories and essays by Hiromi Kawakami, Haruki Murakami, Yōko Ogawa, Sachiko Kishimoto, and Naoya Shiga, among others. He is the co-founder and co-editor of Monkey Business.
Mega-FTAs and the Global Economy
Conference
Date: October 24, 2014 | 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Berkeley APEC Study Center, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Institute of International Studies, EU Center of Excellence, Clausen Center for International Business & Policy
Scholars from the U.S., Asia, and Europe explore the dynamics of mega-FTAs (Free Trade Agreements), with a primary focus on the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Since 1995 we have witnessed a rapid rise in the negotiation of bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), both by major powers such as the US, EU, China, and Japan, as well as by smaller and medium-sized economies such as Korea, Chile, Mexico, and Singapore. Over the last five years, we have seen initiatives to create so-called mega FTAs, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
Among the questions they plan to address: What are the economic and political goals of countries that decide to participate in mega-FTA negotiations? How do negotiation processes evolve in different political systems? What are the implications of regional mega-FTAs for the regional security and political order?
This conference continues beginning 9 am on Saturday October 25, at the Institute of East Asian Studies, Fifth Floor, 1995 University Avenue, Berkeley.
Participants:
• Vinod Aggarwal, UC Berkeley
• Mignonne Chan, National Cheng Chi University, Taiwan
• Deborah Elms, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
• Simon Evenett, St. Gallen University, Switzerland
• Stephen Krasner, Stanford University
• Seung-Joo Lee, Chung-Ang University, Korea
• To-Hai Liou, National Cheng Chi University, Taiwan
• Charles Morrison, East-West Center
• Seung Youn Oh, Bryn Mawr College
• Bora Park, UC Berkeley
• TJ Pempel, UC Berkeley
• Cai Penghong, Shanghai Institutes For International Studies
• Michael Plummer, Johns Hopkins SAIS Bologna Center
• John Ravenhill, University of Waterloo
• Yi-feng Tao, National Taiwan University
• Hans Tung, National Taiwan University
• Shujiro Urata, Waseda University, Japan
• Yu-Shan Wu, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
The Sarashina Diary: A new collaborative translation and study
Colloquium
Speaker: Sonja Arntzen, Professor Emerita, University of Toronto
Date: October 31, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 3335 Dwinelle Hall
Sonja Arntzen, Professor Emerita, University of Toronto will present on this new translation of Sarashina nikki, produced with Professor Moriyuki Itō of Gakushūin Women's University. The Sarashina Diary: A Woman's Life in Eleventh-Century Japan (Columbia University Press, 2014) recounts the life of Japanese noblewoman over a forty-year period, offers a portrait of the writer as reader, and explores the power of reading to shape one's expectations and aspirations. This talk will discuss the diary itself and the process of collaboration that produced this new translation and study.
Corporations, Junk, and the Wind: Three Women Artists after 3.11
Colloquium
Speaker: Miryam Sas, Comparative Literature and Film, UC Berkeley
Moderator: An Jinsoo, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Date: November 10, 2014 | 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
As part of a larger project on "Transcultural Media Practices and Contemporary Japan," this talk focuses on the work of three younger women artists who respond directly or indirectly to the changing perceptions of media art and the natural and built environments after 3.11. Sas places these artists in the context of recent and transnationally "Japanese" emergent artists from the 2014 exhibition "Roppongi Crossings: For a Landscape to Come" (Mori Art Museum), and takes a close look at their reinscription of the conceptual terms of woodblock printing/painting, installation art, and photography as articulated in the 1950s-1970s. No longer precisely asking what it means to make art "after disaster," these women instead restructure an existing artistic vocabulary: their work provokes insights that have less to do with one particular set of events than with what comes to be perceptible through the affective environment and from within the underlying social and political realities of its aftermath.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
Arising Wind 風立ちぬ: Kaze Tachinu
Exhibit — Painting
Speakers: Yoko Nishina, Calligrapher; Liza Dalby, Mounter
Date: November 12, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
An illustrated talk on the Asian hanging scroll, its history, aesthetic, and social meanings
The title comes from a line in Paul Valery's 1920 poem Graveyard by the Sea
A rising wind! We must try to live!
In Japanese the phrase kaze tachinu calls to mind the refreshing wind of autumn.
In a Japanese or Chinese hanging scroll, paintings are attached to pieced- and backed- paper or silk, fashioned to unroll for display but re-roll for storage and safekeeping. In this manner of presentation, the mounting is what enables paintings to be fashioned into objects of appreciation according to culturally determined aesthetic rules.
Visually analogous to framing in Western art, the mounting of a scroll presents the image of the artwork to the viewer's eye so that it becomes an integrated aesthetic object. Although Western framing and East Asian mounting are similar in function — they protect and preserve artwork — the aesthetic principles behind these two modes of art presentation are actually quite different.
The technical difficulty of making a hanging scroll requires balancing the antithetical qualities of strength vs. rolling flexibility. A scroll must have both — whereas a western frame can rely nearly exclusively on rigidity, like a piece of furniture that happens to hang on a wall. Perhaps more than any other art form, a scroll resembles a living creature. It must be continuously cared for, and often given surgery when it ages.
While the art of East Asian scroll mounting originated in China, other principles developed in Japan, such as the use of a wider array of fabrics, different paper and tools, altered proportions, and a different architectural context of display. In this presentation we will explore the theme and variations of this overlooked but essential complement to artistic expression.
Yoko Nishina has been practicing calligraphy since age five. A graduate of Doshisha University, she has done advanced study at Nara Kyōiku Daigaku, and taught the art of calligraphy in numerous venues including abroad in Germany, Spain, and Canada. She began her career as an exhibiting calligrapher in 1996, and in 2007 her works were chosen for exhibition in the prestigious All Japan Art Exhibition Association (Nitten) for which she has since exhibited several times since. She currently teaches calligraphy to groups in Kyoto and Nara, and does collaborative artwork with traditional dyers and mounters.
Liza Dalby is an anthropologist and writer known for her books on geisha, kimono, and Murasaki Shikibu. For the past five years she has been learning the art of making hanging scrolls. She studied with the master mounter Akira Okazaki in Kyoto, and now maintains a studio in Berkeley where she experiments with the form of the hanging scroll, doing traditional and innovative mountings. The exhibition Arising Wind (Kaze Tachinu) is her second collaboration with the calligrapher Yoko Nishina.
The Forest in the Words, or Rewildering the Classical Canon
Colloquium
Speaker: David T. Bialock, Associate Professor of Japanese Literature, East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Southern California
Date: November 13, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 3401 Dwinelle Hall
This talk will look at some of the ways that the notion of wildness might productively complicate our understanding of nature-culture relations in Japanese literature. The talk will focus mainly on classical Japanese literature, including the Man'yōshū, The Tale of Genji, and garden treatises among other works, but there will also be some comparisons to modern writers such as Kawabata Yasunari and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke.
David T. Bialock is Associate Professor of Japanese Literature in the department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Eccentric Spaces, Hidden Histories: Narrative, Ritual, and Royal Authority from The Chronicles of Japan to The Tale of the Heike(Stanford University Press, 2007). His recent publications include several essays on music in medieval Japanese literature and a special issue of the journal Poetica on Japan and Ecocriticism, co-edited with Ursula Heise.
The Great European War and the Rise of Radical Shinto Ultranationalism in Japan
Colloquium
Speaker: Walter Skya, Associate Professor, History Department; Director, Asian Studies, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Date: November 13, 2014 | 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Location: 2538 Channing (Institute for the Study of Societal Issues), Wildavsky Conference Room
Sponsors: Center for Right-Wing Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Department of History, Institute of European Studies
Few students of history are aware of the ideological linkages between Shintō nationalism in Japan and the new nationalists of early twentieth-century Europe, especially Italian Fascists and German Nazis — a linkage that began prior to the First World War and continued throughout the 1920s and 1930s. There is much historical evidence to show that Italian Fascists and German Nazis were inspired by, and in some cases in awe of, Japanese völkisch Shintō nationalists. Still more, the First World War gave momentum to a surge of vicious forms of radical Shintō ultranationalism that resulted in a wave of assassinations of Japanese politicians and mobilized the Japanese masses for war against the Western democracies in the 1940s.
Is it Possible to Achieve Work-Family Balance in Japan?: Culture, Institutions, and Personal Agency
Panel Discussion
Panelists:
• Dr. Masako Ishii-Kuntz, Professor, Department of Social Sciences and Family Studies, Ochanomizu University, Tokyo
• Dr. Kumiko Nemoto, Professor, Department of Global Affairs, Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Kyoto
• Dr. Yuko Onozaka, Associate Professor, UiS Business School, University of Stavanger, Norway
Moderator:Dr. Susan Holloway, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley
Date: November 13, 2014 | 4:30 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
For the last several decades, an unstable economy and shifts in women's opportunity to participate in the labor force have significantly altered the rhythm of Japanese family life. What tensions occur when changes in the macro sphere collide with personal and collective desires regarding marriage, parenting, and work? Which institutional and ideological forces enable some men and women to attain their career goals and achieve a satisfying family life while others appear resigned to focusing exclusively on work or family? This panel brings together leading scholars on the issues of work, family, and gender to present their research and discuss its application to family-relevant policy in Japan.
Presentations:
Work-Family Balance from Gender-Sensitive Perspectives: Fathers' Child Care Involvement and Mothers' Labor Force Participation in Japan
Masako Ishii-Kuntz, Ph.D.
In my presentation, I will discuss how work-family balance can be achieved in contemporary Japan by focusing on fathers' involvement in child care and mothers' participation in labor force. Frist, I will briefly present the current situations concerning gender equality in Japan. I will also explain gender-sensitive approach to study work-family balance. Second, findings of both quantitative and qualitative data collected in collaborative 5-year project in Japan will be presented to identify factors facilitating paternal involvement at home and mothers' continued employment and career building. Finally, policy implications of our research findings will be discussed in light of the recent governmental efforts to increase women's contribution to economy and men's sharing housework and child care in Japan.
Long Work Hours and Gendered Consequences in Japanese Companies
Kumiko Nemoto, Ph.D.
Based on interview data from five large Japanese companies, this talk addresses the custom of long working hours in Japan and explores how it exacerbates gender inequality in Japanese companies. Research reveals that the long working hour custom reinforces management's masculine work norms and stereotypes, contributes to women's low aspirations and the likelihood that they will opt out, and disadvantages women who are mothers while also exempting workers who are fathers from these same disadvantages. Working long hours also costs some male managers their mental and physical health and has a negative impact on their family lives. The combination of the ideology of the separate spheres and the corporate use of long working hours as a cost-saving custom has legitimized workplace gender divisions and unequal consequences for men and women in Japanese companies.
Why are Housewives the Happiest People in Japan?
Yuko Onozaka, Ph.D.
The Japanese government has set improved female labor force participation as one of the major policy goals. In this research, we argue that there exists a strong economic incentive for couples to specialize in a traditional way (breadwinner husband and home-making wife) due to men's overwhelming comparative advantage in labor market. Specialized couples are associated with better and more efficient earnings, and they report higher level of life satisfaction even after controlling for income. The results suggest the importance of altering current labor market structure that incentivizes traditional division of household labor, both economically and felicitously, to achieve a better utilization of high quality female workers and improve work-life balance in Japan.
Speaker Bios::
Masako Ishii-Kuntz is Professor of Social Sciences and Family Studies at Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, Japan. She is an author of many books and articles on fathers' involvement in child care and housework in Japan and the U.S. Her most recent research projects include examining the use of internet technologies and social media services in fathering and mothering practices in Japan, Korea, U.S. and Sweden. In recognition of her contribution to the international research and teaching of family sociology, she received the 2012 Jan Trost Award from the National Council on Family Relations.
Kumiko Nemoto earned a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin after finishing her BA and MA at Hitotsubashi University in Japan. She has been completing a book on sex segregation and organizational changes in Japanese companies.
Yuko Onozaka is an Associate Professor at UiS Business School, University of Stavanger, Norway. Dr. Onozaka is trained as an applied micro-economist (Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from University of California, Davis), and her research area consists of consumer behavior with environmental, social, and health implications. Inspired by her own multicultural experience (Japan native, U.S. educated working mother in Norway), her recent work focuses on various life-course choices (e.g., marriage and employment), how these choices are influenced by social and political forces, and how they altogether affect people's well-being (happiness).
Safety Countermeasure of Onagawa NPS after the Great East-Japan Earthquake, and the current situation of nuclear power in Japan
Colloquium
Speaker: Akiyoshi Obonai, Chief Nuclear Reactor Engineer and Chief Electrical Engineer, Tohuko Electric Power Company
Date: November 14, 2014 | 10:00 a.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Nuclear Engineering
On, March 11, a massive earthquake occurred at 2:46 p.m. Japan standard time, and the epicenter was about 130km off the Pacific Ocean from the Oshika peninsula where Onagawa NPS is located.
This talk will first address what happened at Onagawa Nuclear Power Station (NPS), and how the plant was managed in order to reach a cold shut down.
Next Obonai will go over the safety countermeasure after 3/11, learning the lesson from Onagawa and Fukushima. He conducted the detailed evaluation of 3/11/11 earthquakes and tsunamis. Based on this evaluation, further seismic reinforcement has been conducted and a high levee (about 29m above sea level) was constructed. In addition, safety upgrades were made for severe accidents, i.e. Filtered Containment Vessel System, and alternative decay heat removable system.
Finally, Obonai will talk about the current situation of nuclear power in Japan. For example, government policy, people's attitude toward nuclear power, and the circumstance for restarting nuclear power station.
Akiyoshi Obonai received his masters in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1994. He currently works for the Tohuko Electric Power Company in reactor operation, reactor safety analysis and nuclear fuel management. He is certified by the Japanese government as a Chief Nuclear Reactor Engineer and Chief Electrical Engineer
Greeting the Dead: Managing Solitary Existence in Japan
Colloquium
Speaker: Anne Allison, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University
Date: November 17, 2014 | 2:00–4:00 p.m.
Location: Kroeber Hall, Room 221, Gifford Room
Sponsors: Department of Anthropology, Center for Japanese Studies
Anne Allison, the Robert O. Keohane Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Women's Studies at Duke University, will be speaking on the topic "Greeting the Dead: Managing Solitary Existence in Japan."
Professor Allison is the author of Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club; Permitted and Prohibed Desries: Mothers, Comics, and Censorship in Japan; Milennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination; and many other works.
This lecture is part of the University of California, Berkeley Department of Anthropology 290 Series lectures.
Family life and Parenting in Contemporary Japan
Colloquium
Speaker: Susan Holloway, Education, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Laura C. Nelson, Gender & Women's Studies, UC Berkeley
Date: November 17, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
In the mid to late 20th century, Japanese women developed a reputation among Western scholars as exceedingly competent parents, whereas fathers were viewed as dependable wage earners but marginal participants in family life. Recent challenges in Japan have undermined these images of stability and competence, leaving some observers with a sense that Japanese parents have lost their way.
In this talk, I will discuss ongoing changes in the contemporary Japanese family, with a focus on the policy and institutional contexts that support or undermine men and women's competence in the parenting role.
This talk is part of the IEAS Residential Research Fellows series.
The Tokyo Model: Lessons in Slum Non-clearance from the World's First "Megacity"
Colloquium
Speaker/Performer: Jordan Sand, Georgetown University
Date: November 20, 2014 | 5:00 p.m.
Location: 106 Wurster Hall
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Global Urban Humanities
Jordan Sand will present his research on the activities of a Tokyo slumlord at the turn of the 20th century. Sand is Professor of Japanese History and Culture at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He teaches modern Japanese history and other topics in East Asian history, as well as urban history and the world history of food. He has a doctorate in history from Columbia University and an MA in architecture history from the University of Tokyo. His research and writing has focused on architecture, urbanism, material culture and the history of everyday life.
House and Home in Modern Japan (Harvard, 2004) explores the ways that westernizing reformers reinvented Japanese domestic space and family life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His most recent book, Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects (University of California Press, 2013), analyzes problems of history and memory in the postindustrial city. He has also examined the comparative history of urban fires and firefighting, the modernization and globalization of Japanese food (including sushi, miso, and MSG), and the history of furniture and interiors, and topics in the study of heritage and museums. He is presently working on a study of manifestations of colonialism in physical forms ranging from bodily comportment to urban planning.
Working Words: New Approaches to Japanese Studies, by Jordan Sand, Alan Tansman, and Dennis Washburn