A Stitch in Time: The Sewing Machine and the Modern Transformation of Japan
Andrew Gordon, History, Harvard University
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies
Study of the sewing machine offers insight into the emergence of the consumer as a central figure in society, economy and culture. The larger project explores themes of gender, class, nation and empire. It studies the sewing machine from perspectives of maker and user, as well as the negotiations between the two including the birth of the salesman, home economics and education, consumer finance and credit. The lecture will focus on the user side of the story, discussing the meanings which the sewing machine held for women in Japan, circa 1900-1950s.
The Art of the Japanese Tattoo from Kuniyoshi to Longfellow
Christine Guth, Japanese Art History
Monday, January 24, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies
In this lecture, Guth raises questions about the museum-centered understanding of nineteenth-century artistic exchanges between Japan, Europe, and America by examining the Euro-American attitudes towards and appropriation of the Japanese tattoo. The lecture expands on a chapter in her just-published Longfellow's Tattoos: Tourism, Collecting and Japan.
Democracy without Competition in Japan: Opposition Failure in a One-Party Dominant State
Ethan Scheiner, Political Science, UC Davis
Monday, January 31, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies
Why, even in the face of great dissatisfaction with the dominant party, has no opposition party been able to offer itself as a credible challenger in Japan? Understanding such failure is important for many reasons, from its effect on Japanese economic policy to its implications for what facilitates democratic responsiveness more broadly. The principal explanations for opposition party failure in Japan focus on the country's culture and electoral system, but neither can explain, in particular, continued opposition failure over the past decade. This talk argues that a more plausible explanation rests on the predominance in Japan of clientelism, combined with a centralized government structure. The talk focuses on Japan, but also applies the framework cross-nationally.
So Is Japan Changing or Not?
Robert Madsen, Asian Studies and Economics, Center for International Studies, MIT
Monday, February 7, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies
A year ago it seemed that Japan had recovered from its long stagnation and was growing robustly. Now, however, the country appears possibly to be on the brink of recession and analysts are again asking whether anything has changed. The truth is that while the short-term outlook remains unclear, tectonic shifts are occurring in the underlying demographic and financial structure of the economy which will exert a transformative influence over the country's longer-term future. Hence the Japan of 2015 will scarce resemble that of today. It will exhibit a low savings rate, consistent if moderate growth, significant inflationary tendencies, and a shrinking — or even negative — trade balance. In some regards this will be a healthier Japan, and yet such problems as the need for restructuring and the mounting national debt will have become even more daunting.
Dr. Madsen has written numerous academic and popular articles on the politics and economics of East Asian countries, international trade and capital flows, political theory, and environmental economics. He is presently working on Japan's "lost decade" of the 1990s, the outlook for the Japanese economy in the 2000s and 2010s, the implications of China's rise for the rest of East Asia, and the problems posed by North Korea's nuclear development.
From Globalization to Planetarity: The Ecological Imperative in Japanese Studies
Richard Okada, Japanese Literature, Princeton University
February 17, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies
Human life as we know faces environmental crises of monumental proportions. Examples include the complex effects of global warming, the depletion of energy sources, the degradation in air quality, the lack of safe drinking water, the extinction of animal species, the media pollution of our airways, the mass homogenization of subjectivity, and the question of future quality of life. The prospects according to many researchers are dire at best. It is high time that we who teach and do research in Japan studies incorporate ecological issues as an integral part of our daily life and labor. What might it mean to go about doing this in relation to Japanese literature and culture? That is the question central to the author's remarks, which will focus on what some have termed "mental ecology" in the context of what he wishes to call a planetary ethics.
The Economic Structural Reform and Market Opportunities in Japan
Charles Lake II, President and Representative in Japan, AFLAC Japan
February 23, 2005
Yomiuri Speaker Series
Center for Japanese Studies
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has pursued a number of significant economic structural and regulatory reform initiatives to address the problem of economic slump and declining international competitiveness of the Japanese economy, which includes his initiative to privatize the Japan Post. The Japanese Government, particularly through the Financial Services Agency (FSA), has also continued to dramatically reform the Japanese financial system in line with the big bang plan. Japan has also taken steps to address problems stemming from an aging of its population and declining birthrate, which have placed tremendous pressure on Japan's social security system. What are the implications of these economic reform measures on the citizens of Japan, the Japanese market and the companies that operate in that market? Are business opportunities increasing or declining? The speaker will present an overview of the economic structural reform in Japan and discuss the emerging business opportunities that exist today, including providing AFLAC's story as a case study. The speaker will share his perspective based on his experience as a former U.S. Government international trade negotiator, private practitioner of law, and as president of the largest foreign insurance company operating in Japan.
The Work of A Lifetime: History and Religion in Japan and East Asia. A Symposium in Honor of Professor Emeritus Delmer Brown
February 25, 2005
Symposium
Center for Japanese Studies, University of San Francisco
Schedule
Program
1:15 — Welcome and opening remarks
Andrew Barshay, Department of History, U.C. Berkeley
John Nelson, Theology and Religious Studies, University of San Francisco
1:30-2:30 — Panel I: The Religious Dynamic in Japan and East Asia
John Nelson, Chair
Robert N. Bellah, Elliott Professor of Sociology Emeritus, U.C. Berkeley — Japanese Cultural History in Comparative Perspective
Allan Grapard, International Shinto Foundation Professor of Shinto Studies, East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, U.C. Santa Barbara — The Combinatory World of the Medieval Period
2:30-3:30 — Panel II: Centers and Contexts of Japanese History
Andrew Barshay, Chair
Mary Elizabeth Berry, Professor, Dept. of History, U.C. Berkeley — Historians Writing About Historians
Irwin Scheiner, Professor, Dept. of History, U.C. Berkeley — Conversations with Delmer
3:45-5:00 — Panel III: The Japan Historical Text Initiative: an Introduction and Demonstration
Lewis Lancaster, Professor Emeritus, East Asian Languages and Cultures, U.C. Berkeley — The Japan Historical Text Initiative: Strategies of Research for the Future
Delmer Brown, Professor Emeritus, History, U.C. Berekeley — The Unity of Religion and Politics in Early Japanese History
Commentary
Oketani Ikuo, Professor, Osaka International University
Japan's Foreign Policy Challenges in East Asia: Responding to New Realities
Makoto Yamanaka, Consulate General of Japan, San Francisco
March 2, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies, Yomiuri Simbun, Graduate School of Journalism
Is an East Asian Community finally emerging? What would be a viable security arrangement for East Asia? What is the role of free trade agreements (FTA) in this region? What role is the United States playing? Is Japan competing with China for regional leadership? Is North Korea coming to terms with Japan over the abduction and security issues? What is the right mix of dialogue and pressure vis-a-vis North Korea? Can the six-party talks produce good results? What is the future of relations between Beijing and Taipei? These are some of the questions Makoto Yamanaka, Consul General of Japan in San Francisco, will discuss on the day.
Consul General Makoto Yamanaka graduated from Keio University and joined Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1974. In 1977, he was posted to the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C. after graduating from Amherst College in Massachusetts.
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters in Tokyo, Mr. Yamanaka has worked in the Asian Affairs Bureau, European Affairs Bureau, Treaties Bureau, and Intelligence and Analysis Bureau. His overseas assignments have included the Embassies of Japan in Bangkok and London, as well as the Permanent Mission of Japan in Vienna. Mr. Yamanaka has also served as the Head of the OECD Tokyo Centre. He began his tenure as the Consul General of Japan in San Francisco in March 2004.
Changing Geographies of War Memory in Postwar Japan
Franziska Seraphim, History, Boston College
March 3, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies
As the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II nears, perennial questions about Japan's relationship to its wartime past move into the public limelight once again-not only in the context of commemoration events, but also in current debates about constitutional reform, Japanese participation in international military ventures, war victims' compensation lawsuits in Japanese and American courts, even in movies and other popular entertainment. At stake is not so much the war itself, but the ways in which the legacies of war, defeat, and foreign occupation became embedded in postwar public life in the decades after 1945, and how they may be re-negotiated to meet the demands facing Japan today. Against the background of competing interpretations of the war through the articulation of specific interests, this talk focuses on struggles over the "parameters" of memory in Japanese public life from the 1950s to the 1990s and speculates on further changes today.
Knowledge Value Society and Japanese Economy
Taichi Sakaiya, Author and Former Minister of State for Economic Planning
March 10, 2005
Yomiuri Speaker Series
Center for Japanese Studies
The "Knowledge Value Revolution" has been accomplished in the world during the past 20 years, and our global society has been fundamentally changing. While the Standoff of the East-West Cold War has disappeared, the globalization of the economy under the hegemony of the United States progresses as the subjectification of value prevails.
"Production Process-division" is increasingly common worldwide. Project planning, technology development, design creation, parts manufacturing, product assembly, distribution and shipping, advertisement strategy, and financing—these processes of making a product are now done in different countries and economies. Most notable is the fact that while capital-intensive processes transfer into China and East European countries where wages are low, labor-intensive processes grow in the developed industrialized countries.
Japanese Social Science and Bureau-pluralism under Globalization
Yasuo Goto, Political Economy, Fukushima University, CJS Visiting Scholar
Kaoru Ishiguro, Economics, Kobe University, CJS Visiting Scholar
March 14, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies
"The Net's New World and General Intellect — with reference to A.E. Barshay The Social Sciences in Modern Japan"
Yasuo Goto, Political Economy, Fukushima University, CJS Visiting Scholar
The transformation from 'Japan as No.1' through the 'lost decade' of the 1990's to 'Japan as nothing' and images of Japan's 'second defeat' has been striking. With the end of cold-war system, and the beginning of the 'Internet New World' information revolution, Japanese society as a whole has become increasingly 'old world'. Why? What's the significance of this 'third, real reform'? We will discuss the prospects of post cold-war stage of world history and ways of overcoming the 'ancient substrate' ( Maruyama Masao's koso) at the base of the traditions of Japanese social sciences.
"Trade Liberalization and Bureau-pluralism"
Kaoru Ishiguro, Economics, Kobe University, CJS Visiting Scholar
Free trade agreement (FTA) and regional trade liberalization attract much interest under globalization, while the multilateral trade negotiations in WTO have difficulty. In this seminar, we take up the trade liberalization negotiations in Japan and discuss what kind of effects the bureau-pluralism characterizing Japanese domestic politics has on these negotiation results. Here, we consider the APEC trade liberalization negotiations as an example and discuss the preferences and bargaining power of Japanese ministries and some of the results of trade liberalization negotiations.
The "Globalization" of Japanese Studies: Southeast Asian Perspectives
March 18, 2005
Joint Colloquium
Japan Society for Promotion of Science, Center for Japanese Studies
Schedule
9:00 am — Opening Remarks
Seishi Takeda, Director, Japan Society for Promotion of Science, San Francisco Office
Andrew Barshay, Chair, Center for Japanese Studies
9:10 am — Session 1: The Political, Economic, and Diplomatic Context
Introductory Remarks by T.J. Pempel, Director, Institute of East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley
9:20 am
Nobuhiro Hiwatari, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo — After the Capitalist Developmental State: What Can Be Gained by Casting a New Light on the Japanese Political Economy
10:00 am
Takashi Terada, Department of Japanese Studies, National University of Singapore — Power Struggles Between Japan and China in Southeast Asia: Hard and Soft Dimensions in the Creation of an East Asian Community
10:50 am
Naohiro Kitano, Department of Economics, Kyoto University — Japanese Contribution in Supporting China’s Reforms: A Study Based on ODA Loans
11:30 am
Annette Clear, Politics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz — Indonesian Responses to Japanese Foreign Aid and Investment
12:10 pm — Questions from the audience and discussion
1:30 pm — Session 2: Intellectual and Cultural Dimensions
Introductory Remarks by Andrew Barshay, Chair, Center for Japanese Studies
1:40 pm
Kitti Prasirtsuk, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University, Bangkok — Japan-Thai Trade and Cultural Relations
2:20 pm
Lydia N. Yu Jose, Director, Japanese Studies Program, Ateneo de Manila University — The Future of Japanese Studies in the Philippines
3:20 pm
Simon Avenell, Department of Japanese Studies, National University of Singapore — The Institutional and Cultural Context of Japanese Studies in Singapore
4:00 pm
Akio Igarashi, Department of Law, Rikkyo University — The Influence of Japanese Popular Culture in Southeast Asia
4:40 pm — Questions from the audience, wrap-up discussion
Blue Train by Ryohei Hirose and Other Japanese Modern Music
Nagoya Flute Ensemble Academy (NFEA), Akira Aoki, Conductor
March 19, 2005
Concert in celebration of International House's 75th and the Japan Society of Northern California's 100th anniversaries, followed by reception
International House, Japan Society of Northern California, Center for Japanese Studies
Program
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- Divertiment D Major, K136 by Mozart for Flute Orchestra
- Medley of Japanese songs of Four Seasons
Spring-Summer-Autumn-Winter for Flute and Piano - Blue Train by R.Hirose for Flute Orchestra
- Matinee by K.Hirao for Flute and Piano
- Le Petit Âne Blanc by J.Ibert
- Ave Maria D. 839 by F. Schubert
Professor Aoki of Nagoya University for Arts and Music formed the NFEA especially for this event. The NFEA ensemble consists of various flutes from the piccolo to the contrabass flute and also includes the piano. The first flute ensemble, the Tokyo Flute Ensemble Academy (TFEA), was formed in Tokyo in 1974 and has performed in various countries such as Italy, France and Australia. Professor Aoki has been the Executive Director of the Japan Flute Association since its inception in 1966.
Takeuchi Yoshimi: Inheriting the Past
Richard Calichman, Asian Studies, The City College of New York
April 7, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies
The author's presentation will focus on the Japanese postwar sinologist and literary and social critic Takeuchi Yoshimi (1910-1977). He will examine Takeuchi's understanding of the past through the notion of "inheritance" so as to bring to light his forceful thinking of historicity. This thinking seeks to challenge more conventional notions of history, through which the past comes to be posited as an object, thereby domesticating its otherwise disturbing relation both to the present and to the historian. Reference will be made to the 1942 "Overcoming Modernity" symposium, whose nationalism Takeuchi both critiques and inherits.
Good Science, Bad Science, and Taste Cultures: A Short History of MSG
Jordan Sand, Japanese History and Culture, Georgetown University
April 11, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies
MSG: ubiquitous, invisible, and a part of our modern sensorium. Where did this much-maligned food additive come from? How did it make its way into the world food system? Why is it particularly associated with Chinese restaurants? The historical trajectory of MSG from its early twentieth-century origins in Japan through East Asia to the United States reveals the intertwined relationships between science and culture, marketing and imperialism in the globalization of food industries.
This event is free and open to the public. The lecture will be accompanied by a blind tasting.
Interest Group Politics and the Battle for Structural Reform in Japan: The Case of the Post Office
Patricia Maclachlan, Asian Studies and Government, University of Texas at Austin
April 28, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies
Prime Minister Koizumi has long regarded the privatization of postal services as the fundamental prerequisite for the reinvigoration of Japan's financial system and the elimination of structural corruption in the political sphere. But as events in 2002 and 2005 attest, the process of reforming the postal system has met with considerable resistance from those who benefit most from the status quo: the postmasters and their allies in the Liberal Democratic Party. Patricia Maclachlan will explore the sources and repercussions of political resistance to postal reform, showing how the battle over the post office represents a much deeper conflict over the structure of the political economy.
How Did the Gakkyuu Hookai Happen? An Ethnography of Japanese Junior High School Girls' Linguistic and Spatial Resistance at the Crossroad of Japanese Education
Ayumi Miyazaki, Education, CJS Visiting Scholar
May 2, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies
Based on an ethnographic study of a Japanese junior high school, the author analyzes how Japanese girls, through their non-traditional linguistic and social practices, negotiate and resist the norms of gender, language, and the body enacted through daily practices of gakkyuu, the fundamental unit of Japanese schools. Since the late 1990's, the gakkyuu — composed of up to forty students who undertake many group activities together throughout the day — is under siege, as students' resistance to the system of group-centered gakkyuu has intensified all over Japan, a phenomenon widely reported in the media as gakkyuu hookai (classroom breakdown). Japanese gendered language norms have also faced increasing challenges from the younger generations. Within this changing configuration of power, girls at a research site, through tactically shifting their masculine, neutral, and feminine speech and behavior, opposed various norms in gakkyuu. In her presentation, she examines actual negotiations between teachers and girls in a gakkyuu where gakkyuu hookai took place, and documents how these negotiations shifted moment-to-moment according to space and context. By analyzing these complex negotiations, the author explores shifting grounds of gender, language and identity at the crossroad of Japanese education.
2nd Aobakai "Japan" Conference
May 6, 2005
Conference
Center for Japanese Studies
Schedule
1:10-1:15 — Opening Remarks: Stephanie Skiles
1:15-2:15 — Panel I
"Social Aspects of Enka Songs"
Chiara Puppo, Ca Foscari University, Venice, Italy, recent graduate, Japanese Music
"Japanese Buddhist Symbolism: Shingon Esoteric Mandalas"
Natalie Vail, UC Berkeley, senior, Anthropology
Professor Steven Nelson, Music 139A - Buddhist Music
"Maki Ishii (1936-2003), Japan and the West: Musical Encounters"
Kristian Ireland, Stanford, graduate student, Music
Professor Brian Ferneyhough (advisor)
Discussant: Professor M. E. Berry, UC Berkeley, professor, Japanese History
2:15-3:00 — Panel II
"The Japanese in Okinawa"
Yoshie Oya, UC Davis, senior, International Relations, and Japanese
Professor Kyu Hyun Kim (advisor)
"Invention of Okinawa through Our "Traditional" Healing Power: Development of Our Own Industry"
Kensuke Sumii, UC Berkeley, Ph.D. Candidate, Medical Anthropology
Professor Christie Kiefer and Prof. Nelson Graburn (advisors)
Discussant: Luke Franks, UC Berkeley, PhD candidate, Japanese History
3:20-4:35 — Panel III
"Committed Fiction: Noguchi Hiroshi and the Aesthetics of Proletariat Literature in Japan in 1927"
Orna Shaughnessy, UC Berkeley, graduate student, Modern Japanese Literature
Professor Alan Tansman (advisor)
"Translating Dialect in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
Tom Gaubatz, Stanford, junior, Mathematics
Professor Yuri Shimizu, Japanese Language and Cultures, Kyushu University
"A Human, Retrofit: Cybernetics and the City, 2029 A.D."
Andrew McKeon, UC Berkeley, senior, Integrative Biology
Professor Dan O'Neill, Japanese 180
"Japanese New Wave Cinema; Matsumoto Toshio and Oshima Nagisa"
Suzanne Manneh, UC Berkeley, senior, Film Studies
Professor Miryam Sas (advisor)
Discussant: Professor Miryam Sas, UC Berkeley, professor, Compartive Literature and Film Studies
Bushido, Masculinities and Foreign Policymaking in Japan
Yumiko Mikanagi, Politics, International Christian University, CJS Visiting Scholar
May 9, 2005
Center for Japanese Studies
Since the Japanese government decided to send its Self Defense Force troops to Iraq in July 2003, the images of samurai have been numerously quoted by policymakers and other leaders, and widely discussed by journalists and scholars. The sudden rise of public interest in the way of samurai warriors is apparent from the fact that Nitobe Inazo's classic "Bushido" has become a national best seller. Why this sudden rise in the interest? The author will try to connect the construction and reconstruction of mainstream masculinities in post-WWII Japan and analyze how that may have been affected by and affected Japan's foreign policymaking. The author will first demonstrate how the construction of masculinities in Japan during the post-WWII evolved from demilitarized masculinities between 1945 and 1970s to remilitarized masculinities since the 1980s. Then, focusing on more recent events, she will contend that the Japanese policymakers and the public felt emasculated when Japanese monetary contribution ("check book diplomacy") during the Gulf War was not taken seriously by the U.S. and its allies. The experience has become a "trauma" for policymakers since then and thus they had struggled hard in the reconstruction of Japan's identity in relation to the rest of the world. Within such context, images of samurai served as a guiding principle for identity re-formation for policymakers.
Stanford-Berkeley Japanese Politics Workshop
May 13, 2005
Workshop
Center for Japanese Studies
Schedule
10:00 — Opening Remarks
10:15-11:15
Japan's foreign policy towards North Korea
Celeste Powell, UC Berkeley
Faculty Discussant: Yumiko Mikanagi
Student Discussant: Ken Haig
Q&A
11:15-11:30 — Coffee Break
11:30-12:30
The evolving role of development banks in East Asia
Jennifer Amyx, Stanford, Visiting Scholar
Faculty Discussant: T.J. Pempel
Student Discussant: Kay Shimizu
Q&A
12:30-1:45 — Lunch Break
1:45-2:45
The politics behind Japan's "lost decade"
T.J. Pempel UC Berkeley
Faculty Discussant: Laurie Freeman
Student Discussant: Kenneth McElwain
Q&A
2:45-3:45
Dissertation chapter on bureaucratic reforms in Japan
Jooyoun Jung, Stanford
Faculty Discussant: Steve Vogel
Student Discussant: Jon Marshall
Q&A
3:45-4:00 — Coffee Break
4:00-5:00
"Gaiatsu" from within? Effects of FDI on politics and institutional change"
Kenji Kushida, UC Berkeley
Discussant: Jennifer Amyx
Student Discussant: Myung-koo Kang
Q&A
5:15 — Closing Remarks
Lecture-demonstration by Nakamura Ganjiro III of Japan's Grand Kabuki Chikamatsu-za
June 15, 2005
Lecture / Demonstration
Institute of East Asian Studies, Cal Performances, The Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco, Department of Music
Organized in conjuction with the performances of Japan's Shochiku Grand Kabuki Chikamatsu-za, Friday-Saturday, June 17-18, 2005 at Zellerbach Hall.
Kabuki, the art of theatrical exploration into human passions and flaws, has been performed exclusively by men for more than 300 years. Male actors play all roles, including women characters, or onnagata.
Grand Master of the kamigata style of Kabuki, Nakamura Ganjiro III, who has played the female lead in Sonezaku Shinju ("Love Suicides at Sonezaki") for over 50 years and who has been designated a Living National Treasure, will talk about the history and forms of Kabuki Theatre. The lecture will be illustrated on stage by his apprentice, Nakamura Gankyo, who will be transformed into a beautiful woman through the application of full traditional make-up and costume, and will then demonstrate the theatrical conventions of the Kabuki female character role.