The South China Sea, US Pivot, and Regional Security in Northeast Asia
Lecture
Speaker: David Kang, International Relations and Business, Director of USC Korean Studies Institute and Director of USC East Asian Studies Center, University of Southern California
Moderator: Laura Nelson, Department of Gender and Women's Studies and Chair, Center for Korean Studies
Date: September 11, 2015 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Institute of International Studies
Are many East Asian nations feeling increasingly threatened, especially from China? It certainly appears so, and numerous observers see rising tensions in which war is possible and perhaps imminent. Over the last few months, North Korea has tested missiles and threatened the United States with nuclear war. China spars regularly with Japan over ownership of a group of disputed islands, and with several Southeast Asian countries over other sparsely inhabited rocks in the South China Sea. Furthermore, the US "rebalance" to Asia has been justified as being central to continued stability in the region. But at the same time, none of these rivalries have broken out into actual military conflict, the Chinese military has not fired a shot since 1988 and the Japanese have not been involved in any combat since 1945. This talk will explore the current regional security dynamics and make an argument that — despite unresolved disputes — the region is more stable than at any time in the past half-century.
David C. Kang is Professor of International Relations and Business at the University of Southern California, with appointments in both the School of International Relations and the Marshall School of Business. At USC he is also director of the Korean Studies Institute. Kang's latest book is East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute (Columbia University Press, 2010). Kang is also author of China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia (Columbia University Press, 2007); Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea and the Philippines (Cambridge University Press, 2002); and Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies (coauthored with Victor Cha). A regular consultant for U.S. government agencies, Kang has also written opinion pieces in the New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, and appears regularly in media such as CNN, BBC, and NPR. He received an A.B. with honors from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from Berkeley.
Perspectives on 70 Years of the Nuclear Age: From Berkeley, a Birthplace of the Atomic Bomb
Conference
Dates: September 30, 2015 | 10:45 a.m.–6:15 p.m. and
October 1, 2015 | 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
Location: Berkeley City Club, The Drawing Room
2315 Durant Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Asia Society of Northern California
Over the past seventy years, nuclear technologies have brought about both atomic weapons and new sources of electric energy, which are now woven deeply into the fabric of many advanced societies. This symposium brings together scientists, historians, and other experts to share their views on past, present and future in an open, cross-disciplinary exchange. Presentations will start from the political and scientific history of the nuclear industry in Japan and the US and how it influenced the ethical and scientific challenges we face today.
The clash between nuclear and non-nuclear countries, between proponents and opponents, grows greater every day. Japan is a fulcrum for passionate debate on the future, even as many new nations are considering adopting nuclear power and nuclear weapons. This symposium offers a valuable opportunity to consider the weighty philosophical and pragmatic concerns that are revealed by close study of the nuclear industry, bringing together experts from the two nations that together directly witnessed the birth of atomic energy.
DAY 1: SEPTEMBER 30
Opening session: Greetings (10:45 - 11:00 am)
Prof. Dana Buntrock, Center for Japanese Studies Chair
Prof. Masayuki Izutsu, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Prof. Joonhong Ahn, Conference Organizer
Session 1: Before Hiroshima and Nagasaki (11:00 am - 1:00 pm)
Moderated by Prof. Dana Buntrock (Department of Architecture, UCB)
Prof. Cathryn Carson (Department of History, UCB)
"Science, Politics, and Ethical Choices: Berkeley and the Opening of the Nuclear Era"
Prof. Atsushi Moriyama (University of Shizuoka)
"Why Japan Decided to Enter the War with U.S.: From the Perspective of Japan's Decision-making Process"
Session 2: Impacts on Political Powers (2:00 - 4:00 pm)
Moderated by Prof. Steven Vogel (Department of Political Science, UCB)
Prof. Jacques Hymans (University of Southern California)
"70 Years after: Explaining Nuclear War and Nuclear Peace"
Dr. Masakatsu Ota (Kyodo News)
"The Japanese Nuclear Enigma — The Secret Nuclear Pact with the U.S. and the Nuclear Shadow She Has Feared"
Session 3: Nuclear Technologies (4:15 – 6:15 pm)
Moderated by Prof. Per Peterson (Department of Nuclear Engineering, UCB)
Dr. Jay Davis (The Hertz Foundation)
"The Utility of Technology in Reducing the Nuclear Threat"
Prof. Atsuyuki Suzuki (Emeritus, The University of Tokyo)
"Nuclear Power Development in Japan"
DAY 2: OCTOBER 1
Session 4: Impacts on Humans (10:00 am - 12:20 pm)
Moderated by Prof. Kai Vetter (Department of Nuclear Engineering, UCB)
Prof. Naoko Wake (Michigan State University)
"Americans Survive the Bomb in Japan: Nuclear Destruction's Ground Zero, 1945 and Beyond"
Prof. David Hoel (Medical University of South Carolina)
"Impacts of the Atomic Bombings on Humans: What Do We Know after 70 Years?"
Dr. Sylvain Costes (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
"The DOE Low Dose Program at the Berkeley Laboratory: Where We Are and Future Directions"
Session 5: Toward a Nuclear-free world (1:15 - 3:15 pm)
Moderated by Prof. Ron Gronsky (Emeritus, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UCB)
Prof. Tatsujiro Suzuki (Director, RECNA, Nagasaki University; former AEC commissioner)
"Role of Japan toward a Nuclear-free World"
Dr. Kennette Benedict (Director and publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, retired)
"Doomsday Clockwork: Toward a Nuclear Weapons Free World"
Session 6: Panel discussion among speakers (3:30 - 5:30 pm)
Moderated by Martin Fackler (Journalist-in-Residence, the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation in Tokyo)
Closing Session (5:30 - 6:00 pm)
What Japan Teaches Us About Entrepreneurship: The New Entrepreneurial Dynamic in Japan after Institutional Reforms
Colloquium
Speaker: Robert Eberhart, Assistant Professor of Management, Santa Clara University
Discussant: Jo-Ellen Pozner, Assistant Professor, Haas Management of Organizations Group
Date: October 13, 2014 | 4:00&38211;6:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
In this talk I will examine the role that changes to the institutional environment play in the formation, exit, and performance of ventures. I discuss three natural experiments in Japan that relates to the formation, failure, and success of a venture. I examine lowering the "barriers to success" in IPO reform, lowering the "barriers to failure" in bankruptcy reform, and the lowering of "barriers to entry" that occurred in Japan's era of change. I will discuss how these reforms produced new knowledge of entrepreneurship as both intended and unintended consequences of policy. This work has important implications for scholars and policymakers in showing that policies for entrepreneurship should give more import to the quality rather than the quantity of entrepreneurs, and to the second order effects of reforms not just their direct effects.
Robert N. Eberhart is an Assistant Professor of Management at Santa Clara University and a research scholar at Stanford University where he directs the Santa Clara / Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship. He is also a visiting professor at Kobe University and research associate at Columbia University. His research interests focuses on theories of institutional change and role of institutions on new venture performance. Professor Eberhart's academic publications include topics such as new theoretical constructs on how institutional change has complex effects on new firms and entrepreneurs. He won awards for the BPS Outstanding Dissertation Award in 2014 from the Academy of Management, Best Paper Proceeding of the 2012 Academy of Management, and from the Fondation France-Japon de l'EHESS. He has been quoted in the New York Times, the Financial Times, Forbes, NPR, the Nikkei Weekly, and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Dr. Eberhart is also an academic advisor to the American Chamber of Commerce's Task Force on New Growth Strategies as well as the Japan Innovation Network. He is a member of the Academy of Management, the Institute of New Economic Theory, the International Society for New Institutional Economics, and an advisor to Japan's Board of Director's Training Institute. He lectures in classes on Japanese business and entrepreneurship at Stanford University, New York University, University of Tokyo, and Kobe University. Professor Eberhart earned his Ph.D. in Management Science from Stanford University after graduating from the University of Michigan (MA Economics) and Michigan State University (BA Finance).
Japan Studies Working Group Presents Prof. Robert Stolz: Environmental Pollution and the Crisis of the Liberal State in Meiji Japan
Lecture
Date: October 15, 2015 | 4:30 p.m.
Location: 3335 Dwinelle Hall
Sponsors: Department of History, Center for Japanese Studies, Townsend Center for the Humanities
Robert Stolz is the author of Bad Water, a sophisticated theoretical analysis of Japanese thinkers and activists' efforts to reintegrate the natural environment into Japan's social and political thought in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth. The need to incorporate nature into politics was revealed by a series of large-scale industrial disasters in the 1890s. The Ashio Copper Mine unleashed massive amounts of copper, arsenic, mercury, and other pollutants into surrounding watersheds. Robert Stolz argues that by forcefully demonstrating the mutual penetration of humans and nature, industrial pollution biologically and politically compromised the autonomous liberal subject underlying the political philosophy of the modernizing Meiji state. In the following decades, socialism, anarchism, fascism, and Confucian benevolence and moral economy were marshaled in the search for new theories of a modern political subject and a social organization adequate to the environmental crisis. With detailed considerations of several key environmental activists, including Tanaka Shozo, Bad Water is a nuanced account of Japan's environmental turn, a historical moment when, for the first time, Japanese thinkers and activists experienced nature as alienated from themselves and were forced to rebuild the connections.
Dismantling Developmentalism: Japan, Korea, Taiwan
Conference
Organizer: T.J. Pempel, Political Science, UC Berkeley
Date: October 23–24, 2015 | 9:00 a.m.–5:15 p.m.
Locations: 180 Doe Library and
1995 University Avenue — Suite 510
This conference will examine the issues surrounding how Japan, Korea and Taiwan have adjusted their political and economic institutions as well as their public policies ‘after developmentalism.' The intellectual starting point is the recognition that these three governments enjoyed highly successful political economies for several decades as each followed its own specific iteration of "developmentalism.' Past practices were challenged by the end of security bipolarity in East Asia, as well as the increased penetration of East Asian economies by global capital. These external challenges meant that some past institutions and policies were dismantled; others were adjusted; some were retained intact.
The workshop has three key targets. First we hope to identify and highlight the most significant post-developmental approaches taken within each of these three political economies. Second, we will assess the relative successes and weaknesses of post-developmental moves, politically and economically. Third and finally, we will explore how domestic changes play out in across the region—in the form of both security and economic activities. To what extent do national grand strategies change? To what extent are domestic changes reflected within regional institutions? When and how do domestic shifts result in security cooperation or contestation?
October 23, 9 am to 5 pm will take place in 180 Doe Library. October 24, 9 am to 1 pm, will take place at 1995 University Avenue, Suite 510.
The Transpacific Imagination
Colloquium
Speakers:
• TATSUMI Takayuki, Keio University
• SHIMOKOBE Michiko, Seikei University
• Joseph Lavery, Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley
Moderator:
• Miryam Sas, Professor, UC Berkeley
Date: November 4, 2015 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: Stephens Hall, Townsend Center, Geballe Room Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Department of English, Department of Comparative Literature
As area studies and the framework of "national literatures" comes under fire, we ask: what are the possibilities and limitations of literary and artistic reading when mobilized beyond the temporal-spatial boundaries of the nation-state?
This panel opens alternative approaches to literary and artistic works produced in East Asia, Polynesia and the Americas in order to account for the coterminous life of regional, inter-regional and transnational voices in the formation of the transpacific as a literary/artistic topography. What aesthetic and political aspirations underwrote the production of these texts in their various localized settings? What scales of experience can be perceived by reading them through a transpacific lens?
The larger conversation of which this panel is a part brings together scholars of English, American, Japanese, Japanese-American literature and theory working in Japan alongside scholars of English, European and Japanese literatures and cultures working in the U.S. The November 4th panel will feature papers by cultural critic Tatsumi Takayuki (Keio University), feminist and literary theorist Shimokobe Michiko (Seikei University), and UC Berkeley English professor Joseph Lavery, with response by Miryam Sas, Professor and Chair of Comparative Literature.
Michiko Shimokobe is a professor of English and American literature at Seikei University, Tokyo. Currently she serves as chief editor on the Editorial Board of the American Studies Society of Japan. Her major area of research lies in 19th-century American literature, American studies, and psychoanalytic criticism. Her major books are: History and Trauma: Mechanism of Memory and Oblivion (2000), Inaudible Voices of Trauma: Collective Memory & Perspectives on History (2006), and Globalization and the Imagination of Planetarity (2015). She is also coeditor of American Terror: Enemy Inside and Fear Infectious (2009), American Violence: Visible /Invisible Violence (2013). She is the translator of Cathy Caruth's Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History.
Takayuki Tatsumi is professor of American Literature at Keio University, Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1987. He is currently president of the American Literary Society of Japan and vice president of the Melville Society of Japan, as well as a member of the editorial board of Journal of Transnational American Studies. His major books are: Cyberpunk America (1988), the winner of the Japan-US Friendship Commission's American Studies Book Prize; New Americanist Poetics (1995), winner of the Yukichi Fukuzawa Award;. Full Metal Apache: Transactions between Cyberpunk Japan and Avant-Pop America (2006, 2010 IAFA Distinguished Scholarship Award). Co-editor of the New Japanese Fiction issue of Review of Contemporary Fiction (Summer 2002), he has also published a variety of essays such as: "Literary History on the Road: Transatlantic Crossings and Transpacific Crossovers" (PMLA [January 2004]);"Planet of the Frogs: Thoreau, Anderson and Murakami" (Narrative 21.3[October 2013]).
Buddhist Ritual Music
Symposium and Performances
Dates: November 6–7, 2015 | 9:30 a.m.-10:15 p.m.
Location: Alumni House, Toll Room
Sponsors: Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Center for Buddhist Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Townsend Center for the Humanities, Letters & Science Division of Arts & Humanities, Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai
Buddhist Ritual Music
This symposium is focused on traditional Buddhist ritual music to consider its importance for studying the evolution of Buddhist culture as well as the interaction between Buddhist music and traditional musical culture outside the monastery in Japan, Nepal, Tibet, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, Korea and China.
It will include presentations by scholars in the field of ethnomusicology, Buddhist studies and/or religious studies and performances by Buddhist monastics, renowned in their home countries for their musicality in ritual chanting.
PROGRAM
Friday, November 6, 2015
12:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Symposium, Alumni House
12:30 pm – 12:45 pm
Welcoming Remarks
Mark Blum, UC Berkeley
12:45 pm – 1:25 pm
Reciting, Chanting, and Singing: Codifying Music in Buddhist Canon Law
Cuilan Liu, McGill University
1:25 pm – 2:05 pm
The Sound of Vultures' Wings: Tibetan Buddhist Ritual as Performing Art
Jeffrey Cupchik, St. John Fisher College
2:10 pm – 2:50 pm
Use of Dance as a Ritual Tool in the Tantric Tradition of Nepalese Buddhism
Alexander von Rospatt, UC Berkeley
3:05 pm – 3:45 pm
Chanting with the Dragon's Voice: Music and Musical Notation in Japanese Sōtō Zen
Michaela Mross, Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Berkeley
3:45 pm – 4:25 pm
Music and Liturgy in Japanese Esoteric Buddhism: The Rishu Zanmai Rite
Steven Nelson, Hosei University, Japan
4:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Group Discussion
7:00 pm – 10:30 pm
Performances, Zellerbach Playhouse
7:00 pm – 7:55 pm
Rishu Zanmai, Japanese Esoteric Buddhist Chant (Japan)
Performance by Karyōbinga Shōmyō Kenkyūkai Ensemble: Arai Kōjun, Kawashiro, Kōdō, Numajiri Kenshō, Tanaka Kōkan, Tobe Kenkai
8:15 pm – 9:10 pm
Charya Nritya — Nepalese Sacred Art (Dance Mandal, Portland, Oregon)
Performers: Prajwal Vajracharya, Uppa Sakya, Corinne Nakamura-Rybak
9:30 pm – 10:25 pm
Tibetan Ritual Music and Dance (Drikung Kagyu Nuns, Dehradun, India)
Performers: Konchok Gamtso, Konchok Tsechik, Meena Kumari, Sonam
Choenzin, Tandup Angmo, and Tsewang Dolma Sherpa (Samtenling Nunnery)
Saturday, November 7, 2015
9:30 am – 11:00 am
Symposium, Alumni House
9:30 am – 10:10 am
The Dhamma as Sonic Praxis: Perspectives on Chant in Burmese and Khmer Buddhism
Paul Greene, Penn State Brandywine
10:20 am – 11:00 am
Taxonomies of Chant in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand
Trent Walker, UC Berkeley
12:15 pm – 2:40 pm
Performances, Zellerbach Playhouse
12:15 pm – 1:00 pm
Khmer 'Smot' Melodic Chant (Phnom Penh, Cambodia)
Performer: Pheoun Sreypov
1:05 pm – 1:45 pm
Lao 'Doen Sieng' and 'Lae' Sermon Chant (Santa Rosa, California)
Performer: Ven. Phetsamone Keomixay
2:00 pm – 2:40 pm
Sri Lankan 'Paritta/Pirit' Protective Chant (Rosemead, California)
Performer: Ven. Sumitta Thero
3:00 pm – 4:45 pm
Symposium, Alumni House
3:00 pm – 3:40 pm
History and Practice of 'Wuhui Nianfo'
Beth Szczepanski, Lewis and Clark College
3:40 pm – 4:20 pm
Elasticity of Korean Buddhist Rituals: Socioeconomic Conformance of the 'Pomp'ae' Chant Performances
Byong Won Lee, University of Hawai'i, Manoa
4:30 pm – 4:45 pm
Group Discussion
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Performances, Zellerbach Playhouse
6:00 pm – 6:55 pm
Yongsanje Buddhist Ritual (Seoul, Korea)
Performers: Ven. Pophyon, Han Sungyul, Kim Beop Ki, Kwaon Rihwan, Lee Chang Won
7:05 pm – 8:00 pm
Ven. Shi Guangquan (Hangzhou, China)
Performers: Monks from the Lingyin Temple and the Buddhist Academy of Hangzhou
Belonging: Immigrant incorporation in Japan, migrant cultural identity, and how transnational communities bridge the divide
Panel Discussion
Date: November 23, 2015 | 5:30–7:00 p.m.
Location: 180 Doe Library
An Intimate Panel Discussion with Presenters Jordan Cisneros (Political Science), Benny Corona(Anthropology), Craig Dermody(Political Science), Rachel Ng(undeclared), and Jai Lei Yee (Gender & Women's / Asian American & Diaspora Studies).
Japan confronts a crossroads of identity and immigration. What will tomorrow’s Japan look like? At the heart of the question is the essence of belonging: how does Japan incorporate migrants into Japanese society? This panel takes a special focus on the migrant experience as part of a transnational community. Five undergraduate Berkeley students share their experiences pursuing research through the Project-Based Learning fellowship, a unique educational approach that helps students acquire an interdisciplinary array of skills through fieldwork, data analysis, and problem solving challenges. With funding from the Japanese government, and with academic support from the Center for Japanese Studies and the program's partners at Akita International University, this enriching opportunity is once again available for students interested in doing research on international migration and transnationalism in Japan and the Bay Area over Summer 2016.