The Politics of Privacy in Japan: Global Policy Convergence and the Personal Information Protection Act
Eiji Kawabata, Visiting Scholar, Center for Japanese Studies
January 25, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies
The protection of privacy is integral to democracy but the development of digital network technology heightens the risk of exposing citizens' private lives to the public. To deal with this problem, governments in advanced industrial democracies have been implementing privacy protection policies since the early 1970s. In contrast, the Japanese government has been slow in developing privacy regulations, until the enactment of the Personal Information Protection Act in the early 2000s which has made Japan's privacy regulation comparable to other industrial democracies'.
What explains this slow but radical transformation of Japan's privacy regulation? The talk will address this question by examining the impact of global forces, such as international rules, market competition, and neoliberal ideology, based on discussions in international political economy.
Eiji Kawabata is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Law Enforcement at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at CJS for the 2010–11 academic year.
Kodo
February 3 – 4, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies, Cal Performances
In Japan, "Kodo" can mean either "heartbeat" or "children of the drum," and while these versatile performers play a variety of instruments — some huge, some extraordinarily delicate-it is their awesome drums (the massive o-daiko weighs 900 pounds!) that mesmerize the audience. Perfectly in unison, they wield their sticks like expert swordsmen, evoking thrilling images of ancient and modern Japan. Witnessing a performance by Kodo calls up something primal-like plugging in to the pulse of the universe itself.
Tickets required: $22/$30/$38/$46/$52 Available through the Cal Performances Ticket Office at Zellerbach Hall.
Bonnie C. Wade – An Afternoon with Contemporary Music of Japan: Spring 2011 Colloquia in the Musicologies Series
February 4, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies, Department of Music
Schedule
3:00 — Colloquium in the Musicologies
Professor Bonnie C. Wade
"Agents for the creation of new music for Japanese traditional instruments"
Prof. Wade has been conducting research with Japanese composers for over a decade. This paper is a piece of a larger project on indigenization of Western music in Japanese musical modernity.
4:30 — Ko Ishikawa — A performer of traditional and contemporary music for Shô
"Shô, small organ beyond the time"
Ko Ishikawa is a composer and performer on the sho, an instrument of the ancient gagaku ensemble of Japan. He will introduce the instrument and present on contemporary composition for it by both Japanese and Non-Japanese composers.
The Activities of Technocrats under Political Party Rule in Japan (1924–32): Why the Cabinet Collapsed in 8 Years in Pre-War Japan
Tsuyoshi Wakatsuki, Postdoctoral Scholar, CJS
Panelist/Discussant: Andrew Barshay, Professor of History, UC Berkeley
February 8, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies
政党内閣期 (1924–1932年) における技術官僚
~ なぜ戦前日本の政党内閣は8年間で崩壊したのか ~
Please note that this lecture will be presented in Japanese.
Impressed Dead on Kenzaburo Oe: Short Notes on the Introduction to the Political Study of Constitutions
Jun Watanabe, Visiting Scholar, CJS
Panelist/Discussant: Andrew Barshay, Professor of History, UC Berkeley
February 15, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies
大江健三郎における死者 の刻印ー憲法の政治学序説のための覚え書き
Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Prize winner, is one of the most important intellectuals after World War II in Japan, not only because of his literature, but also because of his political thought as a leading Après-Guerre Democrat. Oe has claimed to defend the ideal of the Japanese Constitution and criticized Japanese politics from this view point since the 1950's.
The Japanese Constitution was established under the occupation of the United States and Allied powers in 1946, and the interpretation of the articles has been a serious political issue in Japanese politics. The most famous example is Article 9, which declares the renunciation of war. Oe especially defends the peace philosophy of this article.
I would like to show three points of his political thought about the Constitution in this lecture.
- His core of literature and political thought are built on the impression and interpretation of the War Dead of WWII.
- His political thought is representative of public memory about WWII in Japan.
- This type of memory and its narrative of WWII has influenced the Japanese policy making process.
Please note that this lecture will be presented in Japanese. RSVP to cjs@berkeley.edu to reserve a seat.
Jun Watanabe, Ph. D is an Associate Professor of Japanese Politics at Mejigakuin University in Tokyo, Japan. He has written two books on Japanese politics. One is an empirical case study of Japanese political system, The Logic of Entrepreneurs and the Structure of the System; Organization and Mobilization as seen in the Process of the Taxation System (Tokyo, Bokutaku-sha, 2000). Another is a theoretical study about Masao Maruyama, the most important Japanese political scientist and political theorist after WW II: Friction and Resonance between Two Paradigms of Political Studies: Masao Maruyama and History of Japanese Political Science since 1945 (Tokyo, Keiso-shobo, 2010).
Education, Work, and Marriage among Japanese Youth
Hiroshi Ishida, Professor of Sociology, University of Tokyo
February 24, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies
This presentation will provide a macro picture of changes and continuities in three domains affecting the life chances of Japanese youth: education, work, and marriage. In particular, it focuses on two critical transitions experienced by the young people: the transition from school to work and the transition from single to married life.
By examining the process of job search and of partner search, the presentation highlights that Japanese youth do not possess equal chances of access to entry into prestigious jobs and solid marriage prospects. The unequal access to resources and rewards at earlier life stages tends to affect their later life chances, and this presentation examines how the cumulative effects of unequal access shape opportunities for Japanese over the longer life course.
Hiroshi Ishida is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University. After conducting post-doctoral research at Nuffield College and St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, he held teaching positions at Columbia University before joining the University of Tokyo. He was also a Visiting Professor of Sociology and a Visiting Research Scientist at the University of Michigan.
His research interests include comparative social stratification, school-to-work transition, and health inequality. He is the author of Social Mobility in Contemporary Japan (Macmillan Press and Stanford University Press) and the co-editor of Social Class in Contemporary Japan (Routledge). He served as the editor-in-chief of Social Science Japan Journal, published by Oxford University Press, and is the president-elect of the Japanese Association for Mathematical Sociology. He currently directs the Japanese Life Course Panel Survey funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and examines the life-course transition among the Japanese youth.
Formation and Reformation of War Memory Inside and Outside Japan: Reconsidering "Memory" as a Critical Tool
Mitsuhiro Fujimaki, Center for Global Studies, University of Shizuoka
Takahito Sawada, Center for Global Studies, University of Shizuoka
Charles Burress, Journalist
Kerry Shannon, Asian Studies, UC Berkeley
Keiko Yamanaka, Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies, Center for Global Studies, University of Shizuoka
Memory has been a critical term for criticism and cultural studies/postcolonialism the past twenty years. Some memory has transgressed borders inciting controversy between nations and peoples, while others remain insulated in their places of origin. Why has this happened?
These days, history is often conflated with memory, though these two related phenomena are far from synonymous. At centers of memory, such as museums and monuments, personal memoirs and other documents inform the production of history. This trend is as if history almost takes over memory in the name of history.
Further, the construction of popular memory often results from the selective amalgamation of a number of diverse histories. In this context, this workshop pays attention to the ongoing trend at places of memory and reconsiders possibilities of "memory" as a recalcitrant agency to seamless historical orchestration.
American Economic Policy toward Japan After the 1990s: Its Influence on Japanese Society
1990年代以降におけるアメリカの対日政策―その日本社会への影響―
Mitsuyoshi Arai, Visiting Scholar, CJS
Steve Vogel, Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley
March 8, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies
Most observers consider Japan-U.S. economic friction to have been settled after the middle of the 1990's. But this is because the U.S. has deliberately changed its economic strategy toward Japan from hard-line policies to smart effective policies.
Due to the swelling trade deficit and falling into debtor nation status, the U.S. changed its target from voluntary export restraint on individual items to market liberalization, currency strategy and internal structural reforms. Japan changed its social economic structure drastically under pressure from the U.S. As a result, Japan, in addition to economic decline, has fallen into a crisis where it might lose even finance, insurance, health care (universal health insurance), and its unique culture. Accordingly, I reexamine influences and meanings of the U.S. strategy toward Japan.
一般に日米経済摩擦は1990年代半ば以降には沈静化したと見なされている。しかし、それはアメリカが対日経済戦略を強硬な政策から巧妙で効果的な政策に変更するに至ったからである。貿易赤字の膨張と債務国への転落によって、米国の対日経済戦略は個別品目の輸出自主規制から市場開放、通貨戦略、日本社会の構造改革を駆使したものへと洗練されていった。日本は米国のなすがままにその社会経済構造を破壊することになった。その結果、経済的衰退に加えて、日本は金融、保険、医療(皆保険)や固有の文化さえも失いかねない危機に陥っている。そこで、私は米国の対日戦略の影響と意味を再検討したい。
Ryukoku Symposium — Buddhism and Culture in Japan
March 11–12, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies, Ryukoku University
Schedule
March 11, 2011
1pm 開会の言葉 桂 紹隆 (龍谷大学アジア仏教文化センター長)
[研究発表]
1:15pm 那須英勝 (龍谷大学)「藤原信実編『今物語』に語られる日本中世の僧侶の暮らし」
2:15pm 平田厚志 (龍谷大学)「近世仏教史研究の現状と課題」
March 12, 2011
10am 日下幸男「説教と釈教和歌集」(龍谷大学)
11am Michael Como 「夢と聖徳太子信仰」 (コロンビア大学)
12–2pm Lunch Break
2pm 日野拓也「密教儀礼と本覚思想」(コロンビア大学)
3pm Regan Murphy 「近世仏教と国学の関係を見直す」 (CJS)
- 閉会の言葉
*Please note that this conference will be in Japanese.
The Rise and fall of Japan's LDP
Ellis S. Krauss, International Relations and Pacific Studies, UC San Diego
March 16, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies
After holding power continuously from its inception in 1955 (with the exception of a ten-month hiatus in 1993–1994), Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost control of the national government decisively in September 2009. Despite its defeat, the LDP remains the most successful political party in a democracy in the post–World War II period. In The Rise and Fall of Japan's LDP, Ellis S. Krauss and Robert J. Pekkanen pursue questions about institutional change in party politics. What incentives do different electoral systems provide? How do politicians adapt to new incentives? How much does structure determine behavior, and how much opportunity does structure give politicians to influence outcomes? How adaptable are established political organizations? Their findings shed light on the puzzle of the LDP's long dominance and abrupt defeat.
Introduced by Steven Vogel, Political Science, UC Berkeley.
This event is part of the IEAS Book Series "New Perspectives on Asia."
Japan's Aftermath: An Initial Assessment of the Nuclear Disaster in Japan
Bozidar Stojadinovic, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Jasmina Vujic, Professor and former chair, Department of Nuclear Engineering
Shinya Nagasaki, Nuclear Professional School, University of Tokyo
Peter Hosemann, Assistant professor, Department of Nuclear Engineering
Dana Buntrock, Associate professor of Architecture
Joonhong Ahn, Professor, Department of Nuclear Engineering
Cathryn Carson, Professor of History and Associate Dean of Social Sciences
March 16, 2011
Institute of East Asian Studies, Science, Technology, and Society Center (STSC), Nuclear Engineering (NE), Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), Architecture, Center for Japanese Studies, Institute of International Studies
A roundtable of experts discuss the recent events in Japan, provide context, and assessments at this point in time.
Hapa Japan Conference
Friday-Saturday, April 8–9, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies
Hapa is a Hawaiian term that is now widely used to describe someone of mixed racial or ethnic heritage. A New York Times article cites that just within the United States, one in seven marriages are now between people from different racial/ethnic backgrounds.
The Center for Japanese Studies, along with the Hapa Japan Database Project and All Nippon Airways, will host the Hapa Japan Conference on April 8th and 9th, featuring specialists in the study of mixed-race Japanese history, identity, and representation. Topics range from the history of mixed-race Japanese in the 1500s, part-Japanese communities in Australia, to the exploration of identity and representation through story-telling, films, and a photo-exhibit.
Schedule
Session I — Global History and Mixed-Race Japanese
Gary Leupp: Part-Japanese in Japan and the World, 1543–1859
Velina Hasu Houston: Japanese Hybridity and Meiji/Showa Influence
Yuriko Yamanouchi: "I Identify All the Cultures Equally": Japanese-Indigenous and Other Mixed Heritage Australians in Northern Australia
Discussant: Duncan Ryûken Williams
Session II — The Celtic Samurai: Storytelling of a Transnational/Transracial Family Life
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
Discussant: Keiko Yamanaka
Session III — World War Two, Occupation-Period Japan, and Racial Mixing
Walter Hamilton: Enemies in Miniature: Recovering the Lives of the Mixed-Race Children of Occupied Japan
Lily Anne Yumi Welty: Multiraciality and Migration: Mixed Race American Japanese in Okinawa 1945–1972
Annmaria Shimabuku: Kant, Miscegenation, and the Biopolitics of the US-Japan Transpacific: Through an Intellectual History of Okinawa's 'All Island Struggle'
Discussant: Paul Spickard
Session IV — Okinawa and Racial Spaces
Ariko Ikehara: Black-Okinawa: Historical Development and Expression of Mixed Space/Race
Mitzi Uehara Carter: Nappy Routes and Tangled Tales of Blackness in Militarized Okinawa
Discussant: Wei Ming Dariotis
Session V — A Changing Japanese-American Community
Teresa Williams-León: Re-imagining Multiple Identities: Race, Culture, Language among Japanese-descent Multiracials
Cynthia Nakashima: The New Nikkei: Towards a Modern Meaning of 'Japanese American'
Christine Iijima Hall: We Are No Longer Forced to 'Please Choose One'...Or Are We?
Discussant: Michael Omi
Session VI — "Representing" and "Representations" of Mixed-Race Japanese in the U.S. and Japan
Rebecca Chiyoko King O'Riain: Cherry Blossom Dreams: Racial Eligibility Rules, Hapas and Japanese American Beauty Pageants
Screening of the Trailer for the Documentary Film Hafu: A Film about the Experiences of Mixed-Japanese Living in Japan
Marcia Yumi Lise
Natalie Maya Willer
Participants:
Gary Leupp, Professor of History, Tufts University
Velina Hasu Houston, Professor and Associate Dean of Faculty, School of Theater, USC
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, Consulting Professor, School of Medicine, Stanford University
Conference/Symposium: Center for Japanese Studies
Walter Hamilton, Author of Lest We Beget: The Mixed-Race Legacy of Occupied Japan
Lily Anne Yumi Welty, Ph.D. Candidate, UC Santa Barbara
Annmaria Shimabuku, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages, UC Riverside
Ariko Ikehara, Ph.D. Student, UC Berkeley
Mitzi Uehara Carter, Ph.D. Candidate, UC Berkeley
Teresa Williams-Leon, Professor of Asian American Studies, Cal State Northridge
Cynthia Nakashima, Ph.D. Candidate, UC Berkeley
Christine Iijima Hall, Office of Equity, Opportunity and Engagement, Maricopa Community College
Rebecca Chiyoko King O'Riain, Faculty of Sociology, National University of Ireland
Marcia Yumi Lise, Social Researcher, Hafu Project
Natalie Maya Willer, Photographer, Hafu Project
Jeff Chiba Stearns, Film Director, Meditating Bunny Studio
Duncan Ryuken Williams, UC Berkeley, Center for Japanese Studies
Keiko Yamanaka, Lecturer, Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley
Paul Spickard, Professor of History, UC Santa Barbara
Wei Ming Dariotis, Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University
Michael Omi, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley
John Lie, Professor of Sociology, UC Berkeley
Kip Fulbeck, Professor of Art, UC Santa Barbara
Discussant: John Lie
Registration required. Registration opens March 1. Register by calling 510‑642‑3415, or by emailing cjs-events@berkeley.edu.
See here for the full conference agenda.
JERO, A Conversation and Mini-Concert: Berkeley Japan New Vision Award
April 8, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies
The Berkeley Japan New Vision Award is a prize the Center for Japanese Studies awards to an individual who has, in recent times, dramatically transformed our vision of Japan.
Part Japanese and part African American, Jero (born Jerome Charles White) is enka's rising star ever since his hit single Umiyuki burst onto the charts in 2008. His albums, Yakusoku (2009), Covers (2008), Covers 2 (2009), and Covers 3 (2010) have been widely acclaimed as he has revived interest in this music genre.
Winner of the 2008 Best New Artist Award at the Japan Record Awards and the 2011 Berkeley Japan New Vision Award, he has also regularly appeared on Japanese TV and commercials as well as performing at the prestigious New Year's Eve Kôhaku Utagassen concert twice.
Jero will be performing on-campus after receiving the Berkeley Japan New Vision Award at a private ceremony. Tickets to the concert are free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Tickets are general admission.
Coping with the Crisis: Implications for Japan's Future
April 20, 2011
Panel Discussion
Steven Vogel, Political Science, UC Berkeley
Dana Buntrock, Architecure, UC Berkeley
Duncan Williams, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
Peter Hayes, Nautilus Institute, USF
T.J. Pempel, Political Science, UC Berkeley
Joonhong Ahn, Nuclear Engineering, UC Berkeley
Mary Comerio, Architecture, UC Berkeley
Cathryn Carson, Professor, History and Associate Dean of Social Sciences
Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society, Center for Japanese Studies, Department of Architecture, Department of Political Science, Department of Nuclear Engineering
Observers' attention has been riveted by Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami of March 11 and the ensuing events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. How should we analyze the disaster? What do the continuing crisis and Japan's responses reveal? What are the possible social and political consequences? A panel of experts offer their assessments.
Open to all audiences.
Japanese Women Settlers and the Civilization of Empire in Taiwan During the 1910s
Evan Dawley, History and Humanities, Reed College
April 21, 2011
Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies
As Japanese women began to settle in Taiwan in greater numbers, they contributed in significant ways to the changing face of Japanese colonialism. Through one organization in particular, the Taiwan branch of the Patriotic Ladies Association (Aikoku fujinkai), they both supported the military suppression of Taiwan's aborigines and promoted cultural and social reform programs that marked the turn toward civilian rule in Taiwan. This presentation will explore the organization's activities, and the experience of Japanese women in colonial Taiwan.
Beyond Kokugaku: Buddhist Thoughts on Time, Writing and the Ancient in 18th Century Japan
Regan Murphy, Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Japanese Studies
April 25, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies
The issue of whether writing functioned as vehicle for ideas despite vast spans of time between the writer and the reader was central to 18th century Buddhist and non-Buddhist philological studies of ancient texts. This presentation will explore Buddhist ideas of temporal passing and the recording of human acts, providing a fresh look at one answer to this question in the late 18th century.
It examines in particular at one piece written by a 18th century nun that envisions the act of recording historical events as a way of both transmitting ideas over time and as pointing toward an exit from temporal cycles. The Juzenkai Hogo no Engi provides a history of the text, the Sermons on the Ten Precepts, by the esoteric Buddhist monk, Jiun Sonja (1718–1804). A close examination of this Engi sheds light not only on early modern Buddhist conceptions of time and historical writing, but also gives an unusual glimpse into the role of the imperial women at a time of crisis.
Digital Research and Japanese History Symposium
April 29, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies
Presentation I: "Another Heian, The City in Fujiwara Akihira's Shinsarugakuki
Speaker: Joan Piggott, Professor, Department of History, University of Southern California
In the 1050s or 1060s a scholar-official at the court of Go-Reizei Tennô (r. 1045–68) named Fujiwara no Akihira (989?-1066) brushed a lively description of street carnival that he called, "the new monkey music" (shinsarugaku). Perhaps he intended to distinguish what he witnessed in the city streets of his day from the more refined singing and dancing formerly performed at court (sangaku, sarugaku). Written in several hundreds of lines of four or six Chinese characters and modeled on the so-called "rhyme-prose" works (fu) anthologized in the sixth-century Chinese encyclopedic anthology Wen Hsuan (J. Monsen), Akihira's text is known today simply as "An Account of the New Monkey Music," Shinsarugakuki. In previous work on Monkey Music I have discussed issues of mid-Heian marriage and family life suggested by this richly revealing text. Recently however I have been focusing on Fujiwara Akihira's life and times, including issues of urban development in the 11th-century city of Heiankyô as reflected in Shinsarugakuki. I am also trying to suggest an answer for the inevitable and confounding question, why did Akihira write this unusual piece? Today I will consider the cityscape of Monkey Music while reflecting on Akihira's possible objectives in composing this important text.
Presentation II: "Seppuku: A Methodological Problem"
Speaker: Hitomi Tonomura, Professor, Department of History, University of Michigan
In 1868, after witnessing seppuku, Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, or Lord Redesdale, of the British Foreign Service legation was "filled with admiration of the firm and manly bearing of the sufferer." M. Petit Thouras, a French captain, who had ordered punishment of twenty Japanese on a separate occasion, sked that the "ceremony" be halted after eleven had disemboweled themselves, claiming his anxiety over the possible glorification of these anti-Western criminals. Doubtless, he understood that seppuku, unlike the medieval English form of execution in cases of treason, "hanged, drawn, and quartered," was considered a style of self-execution that raised the samurai's own and possibly his descendants' self-worth and dignity. Thereafter, the Japanese strove to raise the country's international status by promoting "civilization and enlightenment," a program that also embraced the reconstituted notion of bushido, with seppuku serving as its visible core value. Today, the iconic image of seppuku perpetuates and boosts the so-called legacy of "uniquely Japanese and enduring samurai traditions." A powerful nationalistic trope, this reductionist view is an ideological roadblock to reconstructing the history of premodern fighting men and their place in the larger social order. As medievalists, how do we historicize the practice of seppuku and reveal the complex and changing meanings that underlie it? How do we peal away its many layers and folds, and demystify this supposedly "quintessentially Japanese" act? I suggest that we identify the imaginary and distinguish it from the real by reexamining literary and visual representations of seppuku not only in medieval sources but also in later recalls. A good place to start is the ironically titled text, The Record of Grand Peace (Taiheiki), which challenges the reader with its rich panoply of metaphors and allusions.
"Hospitalité," Koji Fukada (Japan, 2010)
San Francisco International Film Festival 2011
April 30, 2011
Center for Japanese Studies, Pacific Film Archive
(Kantai). Home invasion was never so droll as in this black comedy from writer/director Koji Fukada, which pokes a stick in the eye of xenophobia. Into the lives of a too-mild-mannered Tokyo printer, his very young wife, and their family comes a man with a story—actually a couple of stories, take your pick. With one foot in the door, the stranger is hired on as a live-in printer. The ancestral family home is tiny and crowded, tucked away behind the printing machines, so when this man of admittedly bizarre affect moves in with his Brazilian wife, the strain is on. Still, the polite printer and his wife say nothing. Meanwhile, the unofficial neighborhood watch committee can't help noticing that the Brazilian likes to stand in the window naked—as if playing on their fears of the homeless, criminals, and foreigners, she seems to be all three. If the strange couple are pulling a scam, however, their motive is unclear; if they are liars, it turns out that their hosts have much to hide as well. Through the strangers' machinations, all that is inside comes out, and all that is outside comes in, like so many Gullivers into this Lilliputian home. A fine ensemble cast plays brilliantly to an everyday tension in Japanese life, between a culture of hospitality and the fear of intruders.
—Judy Bloch
Written by Fukada. Photographed by Kenichi Negishi. With Kiki Sugino, Kenji Yamauchi, Kanji Furutachi. (95 mins)
Fluid Spaces, Mobile Media: Visions of the Ocean on Japanese Maps, 1600‑1900
Kären Wigen, History Department, Stanford University
June 22, 2011
Center for Chinese Studies, Center for Korean Studies, Center for Japanese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, Research Institute of Korean Studies, Korea University
Japanese maritime maps testify eloquently to the inter-cultural exchange that marked the first age of globalization. While highlighting the ships and sea-lanes that were the prime vectors of mobility in the early modern era, these diverse maps also gestured toward cultural exchange through hybrid iconography, translated toponyms, and stylistic pastiche. The talk will probe the colorful cartography of the Edo period for evidence of how trans-national influences were assimilated to produce a range of depictions of the sea.
Professor Wigen's lecture is the Keynote Speech for the 2011 Forum co-sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies (UC Berkeley) and the Research Institute of Korean Studies (Korea University). In keeping with the mission of "Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review," the new IEAS-RIKS online and print journal, the Forum brings East Asia scholars from around the world together to explore the potential breadth and depth of "cross-currents" as a metaphor for the multi-directional flow of people, goods, and ideas across time and space in East Asia.
Kären Wigen is Professor of History and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University, where she teaches courses on early modernity in Japan and the history of cartography. Co-author with Martin Lewis of The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Meta-Geography (1997), she recently edited a collection of essays on the theme of Seascapes: Maritime Histories, Littoral Cultures, and Trans-Oceanic Exchanges (2007). Her latest book is A Malleable Map: Geographies of Restoration in Central Japan, 1600–1912 (2010).