Film Exhibition Culture in Osaka, 1896–1926: The Cultural Geography of Movie Theaters
Colloquium
Speaker: Keiko Sasagawa, Associate Professor, Kansai University
Date: January 10, 2014 | 3:00 p.m.
Location: East Asian Library, Art History Seminar Room
When and in what ways did film culture take shape in Osaka? In what ways did it change over time? In the Meiji and Taisho Periods, Tokyo prospered as a site of both film production and film consumption; Kyoto was active as a site of production, but had less success in terms of film consumption; and most regional cities showed little success in terms of either film production or consumption. Where does Osaka fit in? How did the geographic and historical factors of the city of Osaka shape and develop its film culture? How is a history of film depicted from the perspective of Osaka different from the traditional history of Japanese film, centered as it is on Tokyo's film culture? Using Meiji- and Taisho-Period film theaters as an example, I will trace the relationship between Osaka's urban change and film culture, and explore the process in which overlapping older and newer cultural paradigms gave birth to a new cultural diversity.
Keiko Sasagawa is an Associate Professor at Kansai University in Osaka, Japan in the Department of Film and Media Studies. She received her Master of Arts degree in Theatre and Film Arts from Waseda University.
Risks and Tensions in East Asian Security: A Japanese Perspective
Colloquium
Speaker: Yuichi Hosoya, Professor, Keio University
Date: January 28, 2014 | 5:00 p.m.
Location: 202 Barrows Hall
Today, East Asia seems to be one of the most dangerous places in terms of peace and security. The tension between China and Japan in the East China Sea can be easily escalated to a military crash, and historical issues repeatedly freeze friendly bilateral relationships. What went wrong? In this public lecture, risks and tensions in East Asian security will be discussed by a leading expert on Japan's foreign policy who is a member of two Prime Minister Abe's advisory panels.
Yuichi Hosoya, Ph.D., is professor of international politics at Keio University, Tokyo. He is also Senior Researcher at the Institute for International Policy Studies (IIPS) and Senior Fellow at The Tokyo Foundation. He is a member of Prime Minister's Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security, and a member of Prime Minister's Advisory Panel on National Security and Defense Capabilities, in which capacity he helped to draft Japan's first National Security Strategy.
Cosponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan
Biological Effects of Radiation: Atomic Bombs to Fukushima
Colloquium
Speaker: Dr. Tomoko Y. Steen, Associate Professor, Georgetown University School of Medicine
Date: January 30, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
The Fukushima nuclear power plant accident was a sad reminder for the Japanese of their experiences of the biological effects of radiation. At the end of World War II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered effects from two different types of atomic bombs. Then after the war, a group of Japanese fishermen on a boat were accidentally exposed to the ashes of the hydrogen bomb in Bikini Atoll. Japan's anti-nuclear views became very strong after this Bikini incident as the details of radiation threats became apparent to the entire Japanese nation.
It took some time for the Japanese government to convince the public that there could be a "peaceful" use of nuclear power. In the 1970s, accompanied by the energy shortage during Japan's high economic growth period, the public finally agreed to have a nuclear power plants in various parts of the country. Over the years, however, survivors of atomic bombs and others continued to warn the potential danger of nuclear power plants, while others argued that Japan's strong economy could not be maintained without nuclear power. The talk focuses on biological effects of radiation in detail using existing data while outlining the historical events up to Fukushima.
Dr. Tomoko Y. Steen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Georgetown University School of Medicine.
AKB48 and Girls' Generation: The Differential Trajectories of the Culture Industry Japan and South Korea
Lecture
Speaker: John Lie, Professor, Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Linda Neuhauser, Clinical Professor, Public Health, University of California, Berkeley
Date: February 4, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
The lecture will consider AKB48 and Girls' Generation — two leading idol groups in Japan and South Korea, respectively — and what they suggest about the contemporary cultural situation in the two Northeast Asian nation-states.
Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts
Colloquium
Speaker: Haruo Shirane, Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture, Columbia University
Date: February 6, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 3335 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley
Elegant representations of nature and the four seasons populate a wide range of Japanese genres and media — from poetry and screen painting to tea ceremonies, flower arrangements, and annual observances. In Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, Haruo Shirane shows how, when, and why this practice developed and explicates the richly encoded social, religious, and political meanings of this imagery.
Haruo Shirane is Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, at Columbia University. He writes widely on Japanese literature, visual arts, and cultural history. He is the recipient of Fulbright, Japan Foundation, SSRC, NEH grants, and has been awarded the Kadokawa Genyoshi Prize, Ishida Hakyo Prize, and the Ueno Satsuki Memorial Prize on Japanese Culture.
Embodying the Ceramic Vessel in Sixteenth-Century Japanese Tea Culture
Lecture
Speaker: Andrew Watsky, Professor, Japanese Art and Archaeology, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University
Date: February 13, 2014 | 5:30–7:00 p.m.
Location: 308A Doe Library, UC Berkeley
Chanoyu has always entailed multiple overlapping activities, including the preparation and consumption of tea, the collecting and use of a repertoire of requisite objects, and the understanding and articulation of the relative quality of those objects. This paper focuses on sixteenth-century chanoyu, for which there are both extant objects and a rich trove of textual evidence, and especially on ōtsubo, "large jars," then the most highly valued of all chanoyu objects. We will consider how sixteenth-century tea men assessed and amplified the significances of treasured ōtsubo,through the formulation of aesthetic criteria, the bestowal of proper names, and an inclination for anthropomorphic embrace.
Pacific Rim or Pacific Garbage Patch?: The Ocean and Ecological Crisis in the Post‑3/11 World
Panel Discussion
Speakers:
• Wu Ming‑yi, author of Man with the Compound Eyes; professor,
National Dong Hwa University, Hualien, Taiwan;
• Eric Hartge, Senior Research Analyst, Center for Ocean Solutions;
• Harry N. Scheiber, Professor emeritus, School of Law; Director, Institute
for Legal Research; Director, Law of the Sea Institute
Moderator:
• David Roland‑Holst, Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley
Date: February 26, 2014 | 4:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
This panel discussion will focus on the health of the ocean today, from various perspectives.
Wu Ming‑yi, science fiction author and environmental activist, will speak on ocean issues in Taiwanese Oceanic Literature (in Chinese with interpretation).
Eric Hartges will talk about the impending issue of ocean acidification, the relationship to ocean health, and the role that the 03/11 Tsunami has had and will have on policy implications for achieving climate mitigation goals.
Harry Scheiber will make a presentation on the law as it relates to ocean-related disasters, both cataclysms and longer-term threats.
This event is made possible by a grant from Spotlight Taiwan, which is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan) and generously supported by Dr. Samuel Yin (尹衍樑先生).
After 3.11: New Architecture + Engineering
Panel Discussion
Panelists:
• Mary Comerio, Professor of the Graduate School, UC Berkeley
• Norio Maki, Associate Professor, Kyoto University
• Chiho Ochiai, Assistant Professor, Kyoto University
• Hitoshi Abe, Professor, UCLA
• Dana Buntrock, Professor, UC Berkeley
• Kazuhiko Kasai, Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology
• David Mar, Principal, Tipping Mar
• Susan Ubbelohde, Professor, UC Berkeley
• Hiroaki Takai, Executive Manager, Takenaka Corporation
• Masayuki Mae, Associate Professor, University of Tokyo
Moderators:
• Stefano Schiavon, Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley
• Charles Scawthorn, Principal, SPA Risk LLC
• Marcy Monroe, UC Berkeley
Speakers:|
• Makoto "Shin" Watanabe, Professor, Hosei University
• Stephen Mahin, Professor, UC Berkeley
• George Kurumado, Managing Officer, Architect, Takenaka Corporation
Date: March 8, 2014 | 10:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m.
Location: 112 Wurster Hall
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Institute of East Asian Studies, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Department of Architecture
Japan's 11 March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdowns are among a series of recent disasters affecting urban environments around the world which have created new challenges to the professions of architecture and engineering. Professionals from Japan and California will discuss the opportunities that have arisen from these events, from changes in planning practices to engineering innovations.
112 Wurster Hall
SESSION 1 — DISASTER PREPAREDNESS + RESPONSE
10:00–11:00 am — Marcy Monroe (UC Berkeley), moderator
Mary Comerio (Professor of the Graduate School, UC Berkeley)
How we understand and measure success in disaster recovery establishes policy for future events. Only in the past two decades, have we recognized that a return to pre-event conditions is often unworkable. Disaster recovery is now linked to concepts of resilience and community renewal, with social, economic, institutional, infrastructural, ecological, and community dimensions. Individual and household welfare, business and civic recovery, health, education, housing, employment and environmental conditions all affect recovery. Approaches to the recovery process after recent earthquakes in China, Italy, Haiti, Chile, and New Zealand, can be compared with recent progress in Japan to offer insight into successful policies and the challenges.
Norio Maki (Professor, Kyoto University)
Dr. Maki will discuss in more detail the impact of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami disaster and the recovery process following the disaster. He will also address the challenges for Japan in preparing for future earthquakes and tsunami of a similar scale in Western Japan or Tokyo and the lessons we can learn from the 2011 Tohoku disaster.
Chiho Ochiai (Assistant Professor, Kyoto University / Visiting Scholar, UCB)
Reconstruction or Resettlement? The example offered by one village near Kesennuma which was affected by the 3.11 earthquake and tsunami. This village was also affected by the Meiji (1896) and Showa (1933) tsunamis but experienced no deaths as due to 3.11, unlike neighboring villages. The village maintained long-standing practices that had discouraged building on lower ground near the water. Instead, residents built on the hills, in spite of added cost and some hardship. A greater proportion of residents were able to return to their homes after the tsunami, even though they lacked basic infrastructure. These land-use practices were unique in the area; even today, many people in surrounding villages are against resettlement to higher land (far from the seashore).
SESSION 2 — ARCHITECTS' RESPONSE AFTER 3.11
11:15 am–12:15 pm — Rod Henmi ((HKIT Architects), moderator
Hitoshi Abe (Professor, UCLA)
Dr. Hitoshi Abe will discuss the reconstruction efforts of Japan’s architects through ArchiAid, including a rich variety of decentralized, guerilla-style, small-scale actions across the region demonstrating the viability of alternative, diverse reconstruction strategies. While not heroic, the many reconstruction activities of these architects are flexible, and may broaden over time to include activities that transcend the standard definition of the architect’s profession.
Makoto "Shin" Watanabe (Professor, Hosei University)
Watanabe will discuss the challenges and opportunities involved in grassroots efforts to rebuild. Large-scale residential land development involving scraping mountains seems an inevitable necessity; as noted by earlier speakers, the area is defined by a rough, jagged coastline and level ground is scarce. But while joint relocation of nearby villages was initially considered, it was rejected by residents. Each seashore community is attempting to plan its own residential development on higher ground, a problem made more difficult because the majority of the affected are elderly with less of the resources necessary for rebuilding homes; many are hoping to move into public housing. Local people also have little experience working with architects. Given these conditions, collective relocation plans in the area will pose the following two challenges: landscape design in site preparation involving large-scale engineering works, and how to preserve these fishing communities in the newly planned settings.
Dana Buntrock (Professor, UC Berkeley)
The profession's ability to respond well to disasters is influenced by already-established ties, expertise, and professional values. How can architects be effective in efforts by small communities or clients when facing limited resources and what are the risks and rewards of this work? Are the projects valued by the profession the best solutions for these communities?
SESSION 3 — BUILDING STRUCTURES
1:15 pm–2:15 pm — Moderator TBD
Stephen Mahin (Professor, UC Berkeley)
Modern building codes are intended to produce structures having a low probability of collapse during rare and unusually severe earthquakes. While modern buildings are not likely to collapse, it is increasingly understood that the the severity and types of damage that occurs during large earthquakes differs greatly from building to building, and that even moderately sized earthquakes can cause significant structural and nonstructural damage that can disrupt the use of a building and be costly to repair. Recent advances in performance-based earthquake engineering permit owners, architects, engineers and others to consider the impact that the selection of structural and nonstructural systems and design criteria have on initial construction costs, loss of post-earthquake building occupancy, and costs associated with repair of structural and nonstructural damage and business interruption. Examples are shown to illustrate differences in expected life cycle costs associated with different structural systems designed according to the minimum requirements of modern codes, as well as of the return on investment for systems designed to achieve higher levels of seismic resilience.
Kazuhiko Kasai (Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology)
Seismic base isolation systems and supplemental damping systems have been widely used in Japan since the 1995 Kobe earthquake in order to protect human lives as well as building functionality and assets. This talk highlights performance of major buildings with such protective systems during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, and discusses future scopes for new construction and retrofit employing the systems. The talk also explains a building with "green mass damper" that performed excellently. This new system utilizes an extremely heavy weight of a rooftop garden that moves and dissipates seismic energy. The weight of the garden is 3,650 ton (8,046 klb), about 10% of the building total weight, and average depth of soil is 800 mm (2.6 ft.) in order to create rich urban planting.
David Mar (Principal, Tipping Mar)
Buildings come in many shapes and sizes, and existing structures can have various seismic vulnerabilities. This talk will quickly introduce three innovative strategies for seismic resistance. Self-centering cores and walls use vertical post-tensioning to provide a controlled rocking response and resilience for new construction. Mode-shaping spines are added to existing frame buildings with weak stories. The new spine precludes the story mechanism and forces a more stable global tilting mechanism. Base absorption is the retrofit strategy to create a ductile story mechanism for weak-story buildings. It is the strategy employed by FEMA P‑807: Seismic Evaluation and Retrofit of Multi-Unit Wood-Framed Buildings with Weak First Stories.
SESSION 4 — BUILDING ENERGY DEMAND + SUPPLY
2:30 pm–3:30 pm — Stefano Schiavon (Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley), moderator
Susan Ubbelohde (Professor, UC Berkeley)
The 1973 oil embargo and the following energy crisis was perhaps the most powerful "disaster" in the US and Europe to affect energy use in contemporary architecture. In response, we had experimental buildings, university research and governmental agencies looking for ways to guide the building industry into the future with the tools, benchmarks and codes. Some efforts were more productive than others — the crazy solar houses of the 1907's taught us much about how buildings actually work, while California's Title 24 and the US Department of Energy DOE2 simulation program were each highly effective in changing the design of buildings in the years since. We now face the crisis of climate change and have turned to similar solutions — including experimental buildings and technologies, university research and governmental regulation — to transform the industry once again. Our response to this current "crisis" recognizes a broader responsibility for resource use, environmental degradation and human health as part of the building industry but is also still concentrating on the necessity of reducing energy use and increasing renewable energy generation to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in our sector.
Hiroaki Takai (Executive Manager, Takenaka Corporation)
3.11 before and after, as seen from the viewpoint of an environmental designer and researcher. My key points:
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- The changing awareness of environmental issues by users and clients, and how this is leading to changing design specifications (power saving, energy saving, renewables and mixed energy resources, business continuity planning, workplace productivity, etc.)
- Changes in actual energy consumption and indoor environments. Practices concerning energy use.
- Environmental assessment tools for Japan's property market
- How these points are seen in Takenaka's environmental concept
Masayuki Mae (Associate Professor, University of Tokyo)
After 3.11, many believed that ideas about energy supply and the design of architecture would change. Unfortunately, to date there has been limited change, especially in education. Most professionals and students seem to be committed to the survival of established practices. The outlook for more sustainable residential design is very poor, in truth. In this presentation, the current energy situation in Japan will be introduced. Examples of a few experimental "green" houses will be shown, including some produced with "Archi+Aid" in Tohoku and "Eco Town," sponsored by YKK. I will also include the "Energy Management Houses" exhibited in early 2014, involving five universities. We won!
SESSION 5 — LARGE-SCALE IMPACTS FROM A LARGE EVENT: EFFECTS ON LARGE CORPORATIONS AND TALL BUILDINGS SPREAD OUT ACROSS ASIA
4:00 pm–5:00 pm — Keynote
George Kurumado (Architect, Managing Officer, Takenaka Corporation)
What happened in construction after 3.11? Here were some competing responses: an increased awareness regarding energy performance; strong demands to be "economical; greater awareness of the limits of technology. Disaster simulations throughout Japan searched for other unseen dangers and resulted in frustrations and new discussion regarding resiliency.
How did 3.11 change our clients' thinking? We've seen a slow but concrete change toward sustainability and building safety. But market conditions also impact our clients' choices.
Are we headed in the right direction? The disasters of 3.11 were always possible. The reason for our poor preparation was that people did not accept idea of a catastrophe. Change may need to happen not only in our built environment, but in our minds and the minds of our clients.
Screening of "Campaign 2" and Q&A with filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda
Documentary Film
Speaker: Kazuhiro Soda, Filmmaker
Date: March 11, 2014 | 6:00–9:30 p.m.
Location: Sutardja Dai Hall, 310 Banatao Auditorium Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
In response to the Fukushima disaster, Yama‑san is running an election campaign with an anti-nuclear message. But unlike last time, he has no money, no machine, no nothing.
In his previous 2005 by‑election depicted in "Campaign", Kazuhiko "Yama‑san" Yamauchi was the official candidate of the LDP, headed by then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. He won the vacant seat, fully backed by the LDP's political machine. However, for the election in 2007, the LDP did not endorse Yama‑san, and backed a different candidate. For the past 4 years, Yama‑san has stayed away from politics, living as a "house husband" to raise his newborn son Yuki.
So, this election in 2011 is a come-back attempt by Yama‑san after 4 quiet years. But the situation is not so forgiving. The total budget for his campaign is now only 84,720 Japanese Yen (about $850) — all for printing posters and postcards.
Does he even stand a chance?
Filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda debuted with "Campaign" in 2007 at the Berlinale, and has been winning international awards with his observational film series such as "Mental" (2008), "Peace" (2010), and "Theatre 1 & 2" (2012). "Campaign 2" candidly captures the mechanical lives of the Japanese people, firmly adhered to even in the midst of a disaster where radioactive material is falling from the sky. Soda's camera, which had maintained an outsider's position in "Campaign," gradually gets ensnared in the situation. Conflict between the filmmaker and the subjects eventually escalates and finally comes to a head.
Visit the Official film website here.
Disability Rights and Information Accessibility: Dialogue Between Japan and U.S.
Conference/Symposium
Panelist/Discussants:
• Jun Ishikawa, Professor, University of Shizuoka
• Peter Blanck, Professor, Syracuse University
• Jim Fruchterman, Social Entrepreneur, Founder and CEO, Benetech
Date: March 14, 2014 | 1:00–3:00 p.m.
Location: International House, Golub Home Room
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Center for University of Shizuoka Global Studies, Ritsumeikan University, Research Center for Ars Vivendi and Global Innovation Research Organization IRIS project
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), adopted by U.N. in 2006, has brought disability rights into the global agenda. U.S.A. and Japan have been taking different paths to the implementation and ratification of the CRPD. While Japan ratified the CRPD in January 2014 after the passage of the Act on Elimination of Disability Discrimination in June 2013, the CRPD ratification remains a political issue in U.S.A, which has a number of civil rights achievements, including the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
This open forum, organized by Center for Japanese Studies (UCB), Center for Global Studies (University of Shizuoka), Research Center for Ars Vivendi (Ritsumeikan University) and IRIS, has three distinguished speakers from Japan and U.S.
Professor Ishikawa Jun of University of Shizuoka will discuss the overall harmonization efforts of Japan towards the implementation of the CRPD, giving particular attention to information accessibility. In addition to being the chair of Disability Policy Committee of the government of Japan, Dr. Ishikawa is a developer of Assistive technologies for blind users and used to chair a non‑profit organization working for information accessibility for the blind.
Professor Peter Blanck, University Professor & Chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University, will talk about U.S. and transnational disability policy and law in regard to Web accessibility for persons across the spectrum of disability. Dr. Blanck's forthcoming book, entitled "eQuality: The Struggle for Access to the Web" (Cambridge Press, 2014), examines the future of Web Equality under the ADA, the CRPD and other states' domestic laws.
Jim Fruchterman, social entrepreneur, is founder and CEO of Benetech, a non‑profit organization, serving over 250,000 people with print disabilities, will share his insights on information technology and policy development. He has participated in three U.S. federal advisory committees on disability issues, as well as having actively participated in the drafting and negotiations for the Treaty of Marrakesh benefiting people who are blind or print disabled, which was signed by 51 countries in June 2013.
Expanding Networks of Cooperation in East Asia
Lecture
Speaker: T. J. Pempel, Professor, Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Taeku Lee, Professor, Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Date: March 17, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
It may seem bizarre to talk of "expanding networks of cooperation in East Asia" at a time when Japanese Prime Minister Abe is telling the Davos World Forum that relations between China and Japan are analogous to those between Britain and Germany in 1914 — the outbreak of World War I. Certainly, in recent years, unresolved and increasingly tense maritime; expanding defense budgets; contrasting "historical memories;" and the American "repositioning" in East Asia are but a few of the headline grabbers suggesting that East Asia is "ripe for rivalry."
Yet, financial, trade and regional production linkages across East Asia have never been deeper, nor expanding more quickly. Equally, formal regional organizations such as the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN plus Three, are exploding in number and influence.
This talk will examaine this apparent disjuncture. Much of the explanation, Pempel will argue, lies in how countries answer the question "who is my enemy?" In Northeast Asia particularly, on issues of hard security and military matters, the leaders of China, Japan and both Koreas uniformly point fingers are one another. That is far less true in Southeast Asia. And on matters of finance and economics, most East Asian leaders are less skeptical of one another and more likely to identify external finance and bodies such as the International Monetary Fund as their largest threat, leading them to greater cooperation with one another.
Who Controls the Japanese Corporation?: Current Challenges and Future Prospects for Corporate Governance
Panel Discussion
Panelists:
• Zen Shishido, Hitotsubashi University
• Tetsuyuki Kagaya, Hitotsubashi University
• David Makman, Makman & Matz LLP
• Steven Vogel, UC Berkeley
Moderator:
• Anthony Zaloom, Haas School of Business
Date: March 19, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: Haas School of Business, Wells Fargo Room
This workshop will review recent trends in Japanese corporate governance, including policy reforms and market developments. A panel of experts will review the latest developments in corporate law, financial regulation, and accounting rules; analyze the distinctive features of Japanese corporate governance; and discuss emerging trends in corporate performance, board reform, shareholder relations, and mergers and acquisitions. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Japanese corporate governance? Who really controls Japanese companies? Are Japanese managers becoming more responsive to shareholders? Will outside directors improve governance? And will Japan develop a market for corporate control? The panelists include Zen Shishido, an expert on corporate law from Hitotsubashi University and a visiting professor at Berkeley Law (Boalt); Tetsuyuki Kagaya, an expert on accounting from Hitotsubashi University and a visiting scholar at the Center for Japanese Studies; David Makman, a Bay Area attorney with particular expertise on the Japanese market; and Steven Vogel of the Political Science Department and the Center for Japanese Studies. Anthony Zaloom of the Haas School will moderate the panel.
Reframing 3.11: Cinema, Literature, and Media after Fukushima
Conference
Speakers:
• Atsushi Funahashi, Film Director
• Akira Lippit, University of Southern California
Panelists:
• Marilyn Ivy, Columbia University
• David Slater, Sophia University
• Lisette Gebhardt, Goethe University
• Masami Yuki, Kanazawa University
• Jonathan Abel, Penn State University
• Aaron Kerner, San Francisco State University
• Mary Knighton, College of William and Mary
• Ryan Cook, Harvard University
Moderators:
• Daniel O'Neill, UC Berkeley
• Pat Noonan, UC Berkeley
• Alan Tansman, UC Berkeley
• Miryam Sas, UC Berkeley
• Angela Yiu, Sophia University
• David Slater, Sophia University
Dates: April 4–5, 2014
Locations: PFA Theater and 143 Dwinelle Hall
Since March 11, 2011, images of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident served as markers that generated massive media attention and transformed our understanding of "disaster." The symposium will explore how the cinema, literature and media of post‑3/11 Japan reframe the images of disaster in order to create a new type of literacy about survival and precarity. What new vulnerabilities are made legible by the transpositions of historical trauma into the post‑3/11 environment? What becomes of communities and individuals in times of catastrophe? What are the framing effects of media on the impact of the 3.11 disasters within and beyond Japan?
As part of the symposium, the Pacific Film Archive (PFA) will be screening the documentary NUCLEAR NATION (2012) on Friday April 4th at 7pm followed by a post-screening discussion with the director Funahashi Atsushi.
On Saturday April 5th (from 9:30am–6:00pm) the symposium will commence with panel presentations examining the roles of cinema, literature, and media in organizing information and collective agency, and of the arts, in general, in raising awareness of 3.11 issues related to nuclear energy, survival and sustainability.
FRIDAY, APRIL 4
Location: Pacific Film Archive
7:30pm–9:00pm: Film Screening — Nuclear Nation
9:00pm –10:00pm: Interview and Q&A with Director
• Atsushi Funahashi (Film Director)
• David Slater (Professor, Sophia University)
SATURDAY, APRIL 5
Location: 143 Dwinelle Hall
9:30am: Introductory Remarks — Alan Tansman
10:00am–11:20am: Panel 1 — Literature
• Japanese Literature after Fukushima: Between Protest and "Healing"
Lisette Gebhardt (Goethe University, Germany)
• Ecocriticism and Literature after Fukushima
Yuki Masami (Kanazawa University)
Moderator: Angela Yiu (Sophia University)
11:30am–12:50pm: Panel 2 — Performance and Media
• Letters, Quake, Media: Comparing 1923 with 2011
Jonathan Abel (Penn State University)
• The Daigo Fukuryu Maru as a Touchstone: From Gojira to Chim Pom
Aaron Kerner (San Francisco State University)
Moderator: Paul Roquet (Stanford University)
2:00pm–3:20pm: Panel 3 — Visual Culture I
• Disaster's Comic Affects: The Respresentational Crisis of 3.11
Mary Knighton (College of William and Mary)
• Fiction Film after Fukushima
Ryan Cook (Harvard University)
Moderator: Pat Noonan
3:30pm–4:50pm: Panel 4 — Visual Culture II
• The Work of the Visual in Mourning the Dead in Post-Tsunami Japan
David Slater (Sophia University)
• Photography's Catastrophe 3.11.11
Marilyn Ivy (Columbia University)
Moderator: Miryam Sas
5:00pm–6:30pm: Lecture
• The Place of Disaster: Fukushima and "3.11"
Akira Lippit (University of Southern California)
Monitoring Occupant Comfort and Energy Consumption of Refugee Housing in Tsuanami-Stricken Japan
Lecture
Speaker: Susan Ubbelohde, Professor, Architecture, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Lan‑chih Po, Associate Adjunct Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Berkeley
Date: April 8, 2014 | 5:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Government-sponsored housing is often dogged by the need to provide shelter to those most in need for the least amount of money. The result is often sub-standard, or at least minimum standard, buildings that perform poorly. This project is to field-monitor the thermal performance and energy use of a prototype house inthe Oishi Village of Kamaishi for a year. The results are intended inform the design and construction of 250 subsequent houses in the Tohoku region. My team has spent the summer and fall of 2013 working with the architecture firm responsible for the design (ADH Architects in Tokyo) to fine-tune the thermal performance in both winter and summer seasons. These design changes were at first rejected by the local government authority for being "too good" for public housing. Dr. Mae and his colleagues at Tokyo University assisted the project by explaining to the local government authorities that these changes were consistent with upcoming changes in the Japanese energy code and were a good thing to do to provide better comfort for the elderly refugees who would be living in the houses. The houses were constructed the better way and occupied in winter 2014. During construction, Dr. Mae's lab researchers conducted a blower door test to see ilf the house was losing heat. It was. They used infrared images to explain to the carpenters where the leaks were and the house was substantially improved before construction was completed. In May 2014 we will install sensors and dataloggers in ne house, lived in by a 75 year old fisherman who is highly supportive of the project. We expect to start receiving data on the energy use and comfort conditions in the house by June and continue to collect the data for a year.
Japanese "Village Studies": Occupation-Era Anthropology and the Problem of Modernity
Colloquium
Speaker: Amy Borovoy, Princeton University
Date: April 10, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 370 Dwinelle Hall
World War II flooded American universities with government and foundation funds for area studies. The war had served as a wake-up call to American parochialism; there was a pervasive sense that universities, mired in euro-centrism, had failed the U.S. government with a dearth of knowledge about world cultures and languages. The Cold War created a strong imperative to support economic growth throughout the newly decolonized, developing world. American foundations and research councils committed themselves to in-depth study of specific areas and languages in American higher education.
In part because of the American occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952, Japan was imagined as a real-world laboratory for studying the process of modernization. In this paper I explore American occupation-era "village studies" as a moment in which social scientists, in the immediate aftermath of the war, were confronting difficult on-the-ground questions about what modern institutions might look like. These local villages were meant to serve as laboratories for studying the process of democratization and "modernization." In practice, however, the studies offered a somewhat more complex take on the processes of modernization.
Japanese village and kinship organizations were integral to supporting the authoritarian social structure leading up to World War II. In coming to terms with the historical antecedents and prewar institutions that formed the foundations of postwar development, the writers emphasized the everyday functionality of practices such as shrine worship and primogenitural inheritance, divorcing these from nationalism and authoritarianism. This led to later work which saw these institutions as possible foundations for new forms of capitalism.
My focus is on the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies Okayama Field Site, the only site through which researchers could gain access to Japan during the postwar occupation (1945–1952). This research culminated in a comprehensive volume, Village Japan (1959). Later I analyze Ezra and Suzanne Vogel's 1963 ethnography, Japan's New Middle Class, an early ethnography of a postwar urban community.
By the early 1970s, Japan anthropology was becoming the site of an important thought experiment: a case study of modernity in which society continued to be undergirded by traditional forms of community. Even as contemporary Japanese scholars derided feudalism as illiberal and backwards, American scholars described hierarchy, shared ideology, and kin-based paternalism as compatible with modernity, democracy, and capitalism. Interestingly, Vogel's later study, Canton Under Communism, blamed the absence of a feudal regime for the failure of China to modernize in the early 20th century.
Travel Writing and Japanese Modernism
Lecture
Speaker: Dan O'Neill, Associate Professor, East Asian Language and Culture, University of California, Berkeley
Moderator: Susan Ubbelohde, Professor, Architecture, University of California, Berkeley
Date: April 15, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
This talk will revisit the diverse ways in which Japanese modernism has been critically disseminated and theorized and expands upon these critical models by focusing on how the modernist fascination with questions of aesthetic form was carried over to and existed in the travel writings and colonial reportage written during the 1920s and 1930s.
By offering some introductory remarks on Akutagawa's travelogue, I hope to think through the political and epistemological basis for constituting a subject of inquiry (what was "Japanese modernism") as well as to recover the different ways in which writers, such as Akutagawa Ryûnosuke or Yokomitsu Riichi, imagined themselves to be at home and not at home in the world.
Modern Japanese Zen Flirts with the Nenbutsu: The Controversial Teaching of Invoking the Name of the Buddha in Early Meiji Sōtō
Colloquium
Speaker: Dominick Scarangello, Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Japanese Studies, UC Berkeley
Date: April 16, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
Today, the Sōtō sect of Zen Buddhism is synonymous with the practice of sitting meditation, or zazen 坐禪, and moreover a particular variety of zazen known as "just sitting" or shikantaza 只管打坐. However, this association was not ineluctable. In fact, during tumultuous years of organizational unification, doctrinal systemization and ritual standardization following the Meiji restoration, the Sōtō sect institutionalized a very different practice for its lay followers: invoking the name of the Buddha.
In this talk I will begin by providing an overview of the establishment and eventual demise of this unlikely and seemingly unbefitting practice. Next, I will sharpen the focus by examining the place of this practice in the teachings of two prominent monks: the iconoclast Sugawa Kōgan 栖川興巌 (1822–89), its greatest defender, and Nishiari Bokuzan 西有穆山 (1821–1910), one of the most eminent clerics in modern Sōtō. In conclusion, I will place developments in Sōtō Zen Buddhism within the broader debates over spiritual assurance (anjinritsume 安心立命) and peace of mind (anshin 安心) in early modernizing Japan.
"Householders and those of lesser religious capacities should devote themselves to rebirth in Pure Lands through cultivating a single mind of faith in Other Power."
— Preamble to "Intent of the Sōtō Sect"
Sōtō General Affiars Bureau, 1885
Inquiry into the growth and decline of the very poor in Japan
Colloquium
Speaker: David‑Antoine Malinas, Université Paris Diderot — Paris 7
Date: April 23, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: IEAS Conference Room — 2223 Fulton, 6th Floor
Sponsor: Center for Japanese Studies
Japan is still often described as a relatively egalitarian society with a strong and well-developed middle-class. However, in recent decades, poverty and inequality have become major issues. From a comparative perspective, Japan is far from the only country concerned with a rise in the number of poor and very poor, as many other countries have witnessed a worsening of their social situation especially since the great recession started at the end of 2008.
However, the situation in Japan stands out for one major reason. Though the number of poor people is on the rise (for instance, the unemployed or social welfare receivers), there has actually been a decrease in the number of homeless people. Looking back to the beginning of the Japanese phenomenon of homelessness in the early 90s, this is not the first time that these two figures are not moving simultaneously.
As this paradox contradicts well-established knowledge of social stratification and structure, this presentation will inquire why these two figures have such a distinct relationship. I will examine the origin, evolution and methodology used to count the homeless population in Japan in order to explain this apparent contradiction : more poor, fewer homeless people.
David‑Antoine Malinas — PhD in Social Sciences (2005, Hitotsubashi University) and in Political Sciences (2007, Panthéon-Sorbonne University); Postdoctoral researcher at the French Japanese Houses Research Center from 2007 to 2009; Research fellow at the Center of Excellence "Social Stratification and Inequality" of Tohoku University from 2009 to 2011; Associate professor at Paris Diderot — Paris 7 at the Faculty of Languages and Civilizations of East Asia since 2011.
His main themes of research are poverty and civil society in Japan, studying the mobilization process of the very poor, its socio-political roots, meaning and consequences. He is the author of Homeless Struggle in Japan — the rebirth of civil society, L'Harmattan, 2011 (in French) and several other articles related to this theme.
Berkeley Japan Studies 2014 Graduate Conference on Ecology and Space
Conference/Symposium
Dates: May 2–3, 2014
Location: International House, Ida/Robert Sproul Room
Sponsors: Center for Japanese Studies, Japan Foundation
UC Berkeley's Center for Japanese Studies, with support from the Japan Foundation, is pleased to announce its first annual graduate student conference. This conference brings together prominent scholars and graduate students from all disciplines in the field of Japanese Studies to discuss the concepts of ecology and space from pre-modern times to the present. Space here not only connotes the physical, but also how one views one's position relative to others and to objects in the world. Resisting the objectification of nature as mere symbol or metaphor, the concept of ecology insists on new modes of reading, writing, and thinking about the material environment that connects the human to the organic world. The international dimensions of ecological questions are particularly suited to considering Japan within the broader fabric of the global environment. Within this general thematic area, we encourage submissions from a variety of disciplines that address diverse substantive topics, including comparative or cross-disciplinary studies on issues such as: natural disaster, geopolitics, human geography, agriculture, urban space and ecology, architecture and the environment, film and visual art, literary ecocriticism, environmental aesthetics, environmental history and soundscape and affect studies.
Friday, May 2
3335 Dwinelle Hall
4:20-4:30 Opening remarks
Professor Steve Vogel, Chair, Center for Japanese Studies
4:30-6:00 PM Keynote Speech
Professor Christine Marran, Department of Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Minnesota, "Literature Without Us: Theorizing the Human in Contemporary Japanese Fiction"
Saturday, May 3
International House (Ida/Robert Sproul Room)
9:30-10:40 Panel One
Brian Hurley, UC Berkeley, “Racialized Ecologies: Envisioning Race Politics Through the Works of Novelist Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, Photographer Ken Gonzales-Day and Poet Bob Dylan”
Rika Hiro, USC, “Space for the Wounded: Tezuka Osamu’s Ode to Kirihito and Japan’s Ecological Crisis”
Shelby Oxenford, UC Berkeley, “Responding to 3.11: Trauma, Home, and Body in Selected Works of the Tôhoku Earthquake”
Panel Discussant: Professor Alan Tansman, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
10:50-12:10 Panel Two
Deirdre Martin, UC Berkeley, “Explaining Intelligence Trajectories: The Japanese Case”
Dustin Wright, UC Santa Cruz, “Dispossession and Anti-Base Struggle in Cold War Tachikawa”
Brad Holland and Chika Ogawa, Harvard, “Order, Inter-Regional Mobility, and Legalized Vengeance Killing in Tokugawa Japan”
Panel Discussant: Professor Steven Vogel, Political Science, UC Berkeley
1:20-2:40 Panel Three
Michael Craig, UC Berkeley, “Something Between Geometry and Ecology: Ballistic Spatiality in Japanese ‘Bullet Hell’ (Danmaku) Shooting Games”
Xindi Qin, Yale, “The Super-Feminine and the Feminine-Masculine Mixture: An Examination of Pleasure and Desire of Male Anime Consumer in Japan”
Aaron Jasny, Washington University, “A Folklore of the Feminine: Nature, Folklore, and Community in Ohba Minako and Tsushima Yūko”
Panel Discussant: Paul Roquet, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University
2:50-3:50 Panel Four
John Leisure, UCLA, “Vertical Resilience: High-Rise Structures and Resource Network Interaction at Nishi-Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan”
Bonnie McClure, University of Washington, “Religious Cosmologies in Heian and Medieval Waka”
Panel Discussants: Professor Dana Buntrock, Architecture, UC Berkeley / Brendan Morley, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
4:00-5:20 Panel Five
Justus Watt, UC Berkeley, “Woodblock Prints and Spatial Imagination: Meiji Popular Culture and the Re-imagination of East Asian Geo-Political Conceptions”
Jooyeon Hahm, University of Pennsylvania, “Pleasure Quarters: Creation of the Ambiguous Colonial Frontier in Korea, 1876—1945”
Michael Thornton, Harvard University, “A Capitol Orchard: Botanical Networks and the Production of Urban Space in Meiji Sapporo”
Panel Discussant: Professor Dan O’Neill, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UC Berkeley
5:30 Conclusion
Homeland in the Borderland: 異郷の中の故郷 (Ikyō no naka no kokyō)
Documentary Film
Speakers: Keiko Okawa, Filmmaker; Keijiro Suga, Producer, Meiji University
Date: May 22, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.
Location: 142 Dwinelle Hall
Homeland in the Borderland is a powerful and moving portrait of modern-day Taiwan as seen through the eyes of an unlikely "native son": Hideo Levy, an American writer who spent part of his childhood in Taiwan and who now lives in Japan and writes literature in Japanese. The film follows Levy as he returns to Taiwan for the first time in 52 years and goes on an emotional search for his childhood home, which now exists only in his memories. Levy is accompanied by his protégée, Yūjū On (Youren Wen), a Taiwanese writer who also lives in Japan and writes literature in Japanese. The film thus traces Levy's and On's double journey "home" to Taiwan, a place that is both hauntingly familiar and yet strangely foreign to them. It is an "imaginary homeland," as Salman Rushdie has put it. Following in the footsteps of other recent Japanese documentaries such as Shinji Aoyama's Roji e: Nakagami Kenji no nokoshita firumu (To the Alley: The Film Nakagami Kenji Left Behind, 2000) and Makoto Satō's Out of Place: Memories of Edward Said (2005), Ōkawa's film is an attempt to retrace the roots of Levy's writing and recover a lost identity or a forgotten history. Interweaving interviews, photographs, and passages from Levy's works, it creates a vivid memoryscape of Taiwan in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Of course, that Taiwan is now largely a thing of the past, but it is precisely this gap between Levy's memories of Taiwan and what he actually finds (or does not find) there that makes Ōkawa's film so interesting and evocative. Like the paradoxical "model village" (mofanxiang) where Levy used to live in Taichung, this film is more about longing for a lost home or an ideal home than about finding a real home. In this sense, it brilliantly captures the dilemma of being a diasporic subject, of always being "home away from home."