Center for Japanese Studies Fall 2019 Events

December 1, 2019

Transcribing Japanese Cursive Texts from the Edo Period
September 11, 2019
Workshop
Speaker:
Ryo Akama, Art Research Center (ARC), Ritsumekan University

10:00am -12:00pm: Workshop "Transcribing Japanese Cursive Texts from the Edo Period" 
Participants in this workshop will have hands-on experience with transcribing Japanese cursive texts from the Edo period in the portal to Japanese Special Collections in the C. V. Starr East Asian Library, University of California, Berkeley https://www.arc.ritsumei.ac.jp/lib/vm/UCB/. This new tool developed in collaboration between ARC and Toppan Printing Co. applies deep learning technology in order to transcribe Japanese cursive texts and helps readers to identify characters with significant accuracy.

1:30 - 3:00pm: Research Presentations by Art Research Center (ARC) Students and Introduction to the Resources and Academic Programs Offered by the ARC, Ritsumeikan University (some presentations will be in Japanese)

Co-Sponsors:
Ritsumeikan University
Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures
C. V. Starr East Asian Library

Digital Archiving for Intangible Arts: Reproducing Past Kabuki Stages and Performances of Great Actors
September 11, 2019
Colloquium
Speaker:
Ryo Akama, Art Research Center (ARC), Ritsumekan University

Digital archives are changing the methods of studying arts and cultures. While tangible culture seems relatively easy to archive digitally, intangible culture is still difficult and it may seem impossible to reproduce the stage performances in the past. Kabuki is one of the most important of Japan's cultural heritage and is categorized as intangible art. In this lecture, I would like to introduce how to reproduce past Kabuki stages and performances of great actors using digital archives.

Co-Sponsors:
Ritsumeikan University
Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures
C. V. Starr East Asian Library

New Research Directions in Archaeology and Linguistic History of Hokkaido Ainu
September 13, 2019
Colloquium
Speaker:
Gary Crawford, University of Toronto

Over the last 30 years data related to ancestral Ainu material culture, settlement pattern, chronology, subsistence, genetics, and linguistics have provided new insight into their identity, origin, and relationships with the rest of Japan through time. In particular, palaeoethnobotany (the study of the relationships between plants and people) has been instrumental in conceptualizing the Satsumon and Ainu as populations with a complex history that included dry-field (rain-fed) agriculture rather than hunting-gathering alone or the diverse mix of wet-rice and dry-field production elsewhere in Japan. This complex history, partially revealed by the history of agriculture and the dispersion of crops to and within Northeastern Japan, involved long term, continued involvement and interactions with the rest of Japan. Furthermore, significant discontinuity marks the transition from Epi-Jomon to Satsumon so the Ainu are no longer considered an isolate of remnant Jomon (from a cultural perspective) in the Northeast.

Help (Not) Wanted: Immigration Politics in Japan
September 20, 2019
Colloquium
Speaker:
Michael Strausz, Texas Christian University

Why has Japan’s immigration policy remained so restrictive, especially in light of economic, demographic, and international political forces that are pushing Japan to admit more immigrants? In this presentation, Strausz will argue that Japan’s immigration policy has remained restrictive for two reasons. First, Japan’s labor-intensive businesses have failed to defeat anti-immigration forces within the Japanese state, particularly those in the Ministry of Justice and the Japanese Diet. Second, no influential strain of elite thought in postwar Japan exists to support the idea that significant numbers of foreign nationals have a legitimate claim to residency and citizenship.

In addition to an overview of postwar Japan’s immigration control policy, this presentation will also use the book’s framework to provide context to recent developments in Japanese immigration policy – particularly the December 2018 decision to admit more than 300,000 low skilled foreign laborers.

Delicateness in Times of Brutality
Performance
Featured Performers:
Wendy Jehlen, Founder and Artistic Director, ANIKAYA Dance Theater; DAKEI

Delicateness in Times of Brutality is a performance by Japanese butoh dancer DAKEI and American movement artist Wendy Jehlen. This piece was inspired by a performance protest of the same title (Delicadeza em Tempos da Brutalidade) that took place in Sao Paulo, Brazil in May 2015, in response to the bureaucratic coup that resulted in the dismantling of human rights and arts and cultural institutions in the country. Delicateness in Times of Brutality is a study in opposites: solitude and togetherness, silence and sound, the eternal and the ephemeral, delicateness in response to brutality.

This event will also feature the following artists:
Morio - guitar
Yoshiko Honda - vocals
Nobunaga Ken - percussion


This performance is supported through the Performing Arts Japan (PAJ) program.

Co-Sponsors:
The Japan Foundation New York

Curator’s Talk: Julia White on Sakaki Hyakusen
October 2, 2019
Colloquium
Speaker:
Julia White

Senior Curator for Asian Art Julia White introduces the first US exhibition focused on the art of Sakaki Hyakusen, the founding father of the Nanga school of painting in Japan. Her tour will highlight the extensive conservation of Mountain Landscape, a pair of six-fold screens considered one of Hyakusen’s masterpieces.

Co-Sponsor:
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting
October 5, 2019
Colloquium
Speakers:
Felice Fischer, Luther W. Brady Curator of Japanese Art and Senior Curator of East Asian Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Patricia Graham, Adjunct Research Associate, University of Kansas Center for East Asian Studies
Richard Pegg, Curator and Director, MacLean Collection of Asian Art and Maps in Chicago

Complementing the exhibition Hinges: Sakaki Hyakusen and the Birth of Nanga Painting, this colloquium explores the fascinating relations between Chinese art of the Ming and Qing dynasties and Japanese art of the Edo period, especially Hyakusen’s role in the transformation of painting in eighteenth-century Japan. Presenters are curators Felice Fischer and Richard Pegg and scholar Patricia Graham; BAMPFA Senior Curator of Asian Art Julia White, who organized the exhibition, will introduce the exhibition and moderate the program.

Co-Sponsor:
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Renarrating the Past: Conflict and Negotiation of Narratives along the Borders of India, Vietnam, and Japan
October 16, 2019
Panel Discussion
Speakers:
Hisashi Shimojo, University of Shizuoka
Kana Tomizawa, University of Shizuoka

Introduction
- Keiko Yamanaka, Department of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley
- Dana Buntrock, Department of Architecture, UC Berkeley
Panelists
- Kana Tomizawa, University of Shizuoka
How to Narrate Oppressed Grief: from Yasukuni to Calcutta
- Hisashi Shimojo, University of Shizuoka
Belonging and Religion in a Multi-Ethnic Society: Cross-Border Migration by Khmer Theravada Buddhist Monks in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta
Discussants
- Mark Blum, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
- Penny Edwards, South and Southeast Asian Studies, UC Berkeley

Maneuvering in a World of Great Powers
October 25, 2019
Conference

In a globalized international political economy, with increasing competition between the US, China and other large powers, medium and small powers must maneuver carefully. This workshop will specifically focus on the security and economic dimensions of strategic competition including industrial policy, strategic trade, and the financial system.
Among the issues addressed are:
-How can middle powers contribute to setting the agenda in dealing with the global commons? Can international law help middle powers constrain the actions of superpowers? How will middle powers fit into an evolving alliance network with China and the U.S.?
Given the rise of unilateral protectionism by the US and response by China, how can middle powers balance between security and economic concerns? Will the pursuit of bilateral free trade agreements and mega-FTAs help middle powers maintain open markets for their goods and services?
-How can middle powers use industrial policy to maintain their competitiveness? With pressures to promote green industries, how can middle powers avoid a protectionist backlash against their policies?
-How can middle powers influence foreign direct investment arbitration bodies and mechanisms? Can middle powers influence financial rules and regulations in a world of major powers given their position in the semi-periphery? How can middle powers affect loan conditionality terms?

Speakers include:
Vinnie Aggarwal, UC Berkeley
Daniel Balke, UC Berkeley
Ping-Kuei Chen, National Chengchi University
Gina Choi, UC Berkeley
Kristi Govella, University of Hawaii
Min Gyo Koo, Seoul National University
Seungjoo Lee, Chung-Ang University
Yeh-Chung Lu, National Chengchi University
Tim Marple, UC Berkeley
Seung-Youn Oh, Bryn Mawr College
Ishana Ratan, UC Berkeley
Andrew Reddie, UC Berkeley
Ivana Stradner, UC Berkeley
Chung Min Tsai, National Chengchi University
John Yoo, UC Berkeley

Co-Sponsors:
Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS)
Berkeley APEC Study Center (BASC)
Center for Korean Studies (CKS)
Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)

Relationship Among People (CANCELED)
October 28, 2019
Colloquium
Speaker:
Daisuke Sakai, Co-Founder, teamLab

Daisuke Sakai, a co-founder of teamLab, speaks about the theme of 'Relationships Among People', one of teamLab’s concepts which aims to explore a new relationship among people, and to make the presence of others a positive experience through digital art. Sakai will introduce such concept along with teamLab’s works.

teamLab was founded in 2001 as an interdisciplinary art collective whose expansive practice involves collaborations in the fields of art, technology and science, exploring the new relationships between people, and between people and the world in the information age. Artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, architects, web and print graphic designers and editors form teamLab. Using technology to dissolve the boundaries between the physical and conceptual, and to propose new models of perception in the digital era, their work is immersive and interactive—focused on the themes of creativity, play, exploration, immersion, life, and fluidity.

Co-Sponsor:
Dept. of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning

Rethinking Nikkô and the Tokugawa Culture of Light
November 6, 2019
Colloquium
Speaker:
Timon Screech, University of London SOAS

It is well known that Tokugawa Ieyasu died in 1616 and was deified. It was determined that he should be a kami (Shinto god) that existed as an avatar of a Buddha, the Medicine Buddha being selected. There were geomantic reasons for these steps.
Ieyasu’s body was then disinterred and relocated to Nikkô, a geomantically important site.
The modest Shinto-Buddhist precincts demolished and rebuilt on colossal scale some 20 years later.
‘Nikkô means ‘the sun’s rays’, and this talk will argued that the cult of Ieyasu constructed him, above all, as a solar ruler, and that Nikkô, became the focus of a Tokugawa culture of light.

TDPS Speaker Series | An Invitation to Kabuki: A History and Demonstration of Kabuki with Kyozo Nakamura
November 7, 2019
Performance
Performer:
Kyozo Nakamura, Kabuki Actor & Japan Cultural Envoy

Kabuki, a 400-year old Japanese form of theater, is known for its fantastically colorful stage, dramatic stories, and elaborate characters played by an all male cast. Still popular in modern day Japan, kabuki performers are specially trained from a young age to faithfully copy their predecessors’ forms and styles until they have the skills to develop their own styles. Join us for a dynamic lecture and demonstration with veteran onnagata (actor specializing in female roles), Kyozo ​Nakamura. Mr. Nakamura​ will introduce the basics of male and female acting in kabuki and talk about his own path to becoming a seasoned actor.

Co-Sponsors:
Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies
Agency of Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan

“Both Eyes Open” Chamber Opera: a Workshop Performance
November 15, 2019
Performance

BOTH EYES OPEN is an experimental chamber opera currently in development by Brooklyn-based composer Max Giteck Duykers and Bay Area playwright Philip Kan Gotanda. This work explores the scarring that interned Japanese-Americans experienced during World War II and suggests paths toward healing. Combining physical theater, interactive audio and video, contemporary music and singing, extended vocal techniques, chanting, spoken word, and modern dance, BOTH EYES OPEN revisits a pivotal moment in U.S. history and ethnic tensions that still resonate today.

Set in Stockton, CA, the story focuses on a Japanese immigrant landowner named Jinzo Matsumoto, who, with his wife Catherine, was interned in a camp in Rohwer, Arkansas in 1942. Before leaving their farm, they bury a Zen Daruma Doll on their land. According to Japanese tradition, these papier-mâché idols are given to people when they embark on a challenging endeavor or make a serious promise. At that time, only one eye is painted on the doll's face to symbolize the person's initial commitment to the challenge. If success comes, then the doll receives its second eye and is burned ceremonially to release its spirit.
During his internment, Jinzo (baritone Kelvin Chan) not only loses his land, business, and his pride, but also his wife Catherine, who dies in camp while giving birth to their first child. As Jinzo's inner life begins unraveling, our story takes a hallucinatory, nonlinear turn when the Daruma Doll, played by tenor John Duykers, comes to life as a sardonic, one-eyed guardian angel. With irreverent song, wild dance, stark narration, and Zen Buddhist teachings, the Doll, joined by the ghost of Jinzo's deceased wife (soprano Kalean Ung) propels the piece forward. Together, in song, dance and visual images, they depict metaphorical flashbacks and dreams of Jinzo and Catherine’s earlier life. Reaching a fever pitch, the drama splits violently into two alternative conclusions. In one, Jinzo ends his life by lying down on nearby railroad tracks and dies; in the other, he is rescued from an oncoming train by the Daruma Doll, who invites him to fulfill a promise made to Catherine: to return to his land, to the center of his soul. With this promise, the Daruma earns his missing eye and fades away in a vortex of ashes. The audience must then decide which story line is “true,” and in the process, come to empathize and understand more deeply the existential conflicts that interned Japanese Americans faced after returning home from the camps.

Joining our three singers will be four members of the Paul Dresher Ensemble playing violin, clarinet, piano, and Buchla's Marimba Lumina, but they will also be deeply integrated into the action on stage. Director Melissa Weaver and video artist Kwame Braun will use projected images, simple scenic elements, and lighting to create the performance environment. Choreographer Katie Faulker will give physical embodiment to the Jinzo's struggle, through stylized dance and abstract movement. Conductor Ben Makino will lead the ensemble. In his libretto Philip Gotanda examines institutionalized vocabulary about race and ethnic difference, exposing scapegoating, fear of betrayal, and xenophobia. His story is not a naturalistic tale of social realism but instead uses abstraction and satire to embrace divergent perspectives.

BOTH EYES OPEN has had several workshops performances including one in January 2016 at U.C. Berkeley, sponsored by the Center for the Japanese Studies and the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. In September 2016 the University of Nevada also produced a workshop performance through the N.E.O.N festival. A short residency and presentation at U.C. Berkeley is forthcoming in the fall of 2019. The project has also just been awarded a generous grant from the National Parks Service to give performances at confinement sites throughout the U.S, as well as grants from The Brooklyn Arts Council, New Music USA, and the JFunds Commission.

Co-Sponsors:
Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies
Japanese American Studies Advisory Council

Boy Soldiers: The Secret War in Okinawa
November 19, 2019
Film
Speaker:
Hanayo Oya, Filmmaker
Renee Pastel, Film & Media, UCB
Katherine Mezur, Comparative Literature, UCB

Heralding the downfall of the Japanese military regime in 1945, the Battle of Okinawa has already been the topic of various documentary and fiction films. However, the history of the guerilla war, fought by Okinawan child soldiers under the command of Japanese officers, is still regarded as taboo. With an acute sense of urgency, this documentary depicts the inhumanity of militaristic ideologies.

Townsend Book Chat with Grace Lavery: Quaint, Exquisite: Victorian Aesthetics and the Idea of Japan
December 4, 2019
Colloquium
Speaker:
Grace Lavery, Department of English

From the opening of trade with Britain in the 1850s, Japan occupied a unique and contradictory place in the Victorian imagination, regarded as both a rival empire and a cradle of exquisite beauty. Quaint, Exquisite (Princeton, 2019) explores the enduring impact of this dramatic encounter, showing how the rise of Japan led to a major transformation of Western aesthetics at the dawn of globalization. Through an analysis of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado, English derivations of the haiku, and retellings of the Madame Butterfly story, and drawing on a range of philosophical and theoretical texts, Grace Lavery (English) argues that the global popularity of Japanese art in the late nineteenth century reflected an imagined universal standard of taste.

Co-Sponsor:
Townsend Center for the Humanities

Immigration Policy in Japan and South Korea and the Development of their Sending Countries: An Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP) Presentaion
December 12, 2019
Panel Discussion
Speakers:
Annabelle Baker, UC Berkeley
Amanda Wong, UC Berkeley
Ishani Ghosh, UC Berkeley
Sophia Quach, UC Berkeley

Low birth rates, an aging population, and rapid economic development in Japan and South Korea have put great pressures on an increased need for immigration, threatening the historical emphasis of ethnic homogeneity in both countries. On the other hand, in Nepal and Vietnam, the lack of opportunities and rampant inequality have caused citizens to view emigration as a source of hope for advancement. Over the course of this semester, Keiko Yamanaka has led students Annabelle Baker, Amanda Wong, Sophia Quach, and Ishani Ghosh to investigate this topic. Annabelle has mainly focused on South Korea’s Employment Permit System and its implications and impact on South Korean society. Amanda and Ishani have investigated the case of Nepalese emigration and its impact on Nepalese society and economy. Lastly, Sophia has investigated Vietnamese emigration to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.

Introduced by Professor Keiko Yamanaka.

Co-Sponsor:
Institute of Research on Labor & Employment