Late Medieval Publishing Culture in Japan During the 14th and 16th Centuries
February 1, 2018
Colloquium
Speaker: Sumiyoshi Tomohiko, Keiō University
Books printed in Japanese Zen monasteries during the medieval period are known as Gozan-ban or “Five Mountains” editions. Originally, Gozan-ban were printed for the self-education of Gozan monks who were expected to imitate the latest Chinese scholarship and act out another culture in Japan. At this time, in the 13th to 14th centuries, Chinese Zen masters visited Japan very often, while Japanese monks also went back and forth between Hakata of western Japan and Ningpo of southeastern China onboard commercial ships that frequently also carried printed Chinese books. Woodblock printing itself was already well established by the medieval period in Japan. However, Zen monks started to copy the style of Chinese Song-Yuan editions, established during 12th and 13th centuries in southern China, instead of the traditional manuscript style. This is the most important feature of the Gozan-ban, because eventually it played a part in changing the cultural environment of intellectuals.
Recently, many Chinese scholars have drawn attention to Gozan-ban which preserve rare or earlier Chinese texts lost in China. This is a very useful approach to the Gozan-ban, of course. Nevertheless, we could also consider their contribution to cultural change in medieval Japan, because they inspired the development of a premodern culture dependent on commercial book printing. The speaker contends that there are two crucial points of transformation in the history of Gozan-ban. One is the participation of immigrant craftsmen in the 14th century. Another is the embrace of practical ends to printing through localization in the 16th century. Eventually, these transformations stimulated the beginning of commercial book printing, which would integrate premodern Japanese culture.
Sumiyoshi Tomohiko is Professor at the Shidō Bunko, Keiō University, and Visiting Professor, Center for Japanese Studies, University of California, Berkeley. He has published widely on the history of printing and Chinese scholarship in Japan from the medieval period through the modern era.
Co-Sponsors:
Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures
Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)
On the Digital Archive and Its Uses for Japanese Humanities
A Collaborative Workshop by the Art Research Center of Ritsumeikan University and the University of California, Berkeley
February 13, 2018
Workshop
This workshop will examine the possibilities for new digital technologies and platforms to allow for collaboration within the humanities. Presentations will introduce collaborative projects already underway at both Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan and at the University of California, Berkeley and we will explore the promise of transnational collaboration to provide students access to immersive, research based learning.
2:10pm Introduction
"Digital Archives as a Mode of Collaborative Research"
Prof. Jonathan Zwicker (UC Berkeley)
2:20pm "The Art Research Center's Digital Archive System"
Prof. Ryo Akama (Ritsumeikan University)
3:15pm Digital Pilot Projects
"Creating an Exhibition with Web Image Databases"
Students from Ritsumeikan University
"Towards Building a Digital Archive of Modern Woodblock Frontispieces"
Tsuneki Kana (Ritsumeikan University)
"From Digitization to Digital Curation: the Edo Library Project"
Prof. Jonathan Zwicker, Ederlyn Peralta (San Francisco State University),
Jon Pitt, Ezra Toback, and Melissa Van Wyk (UC Berkeley)
Co-Sponsors:
East Asian Library
The Ito Sisters: An American Story
February 15, 2018
Film - Documentary
Speakers:
Antonia Grace Glenn, Director/Producer
Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley
Michael Omi, Associate Professor, UC Berkeley
Join us for a screening of the film "The Ito Sisters: An American Story," followed by Q&A with the Director/Producer Antonia Grace Glenn and Professor Evelyn Nakano Glenn and Michael Omi.
THE ITO SISTERS captures the rarely told stories of the earliest Japanese immigrants to the United States and their American-born children. In particular, the film focuses on the experiences of Issei (or immigrant) and Nisei (or first generation born in the US) women, whose voices have largely been excluded from American history. At the center of the film are three Nisei sisters: Natsuye (Nancy), Haruye (Lillian) and Hideko (Hedy), who were born on a farm in the Sacramento River Delta and whose lives were directly impacted by some of the most significant events of 20th-century America, from the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 to the Great Depression to World War II. The film also explores the lives of the women's parents, Yetsusaburo and Toku Ito, who came to the United States to earn money so they could return to Japan, but whose plans were repeatedly thwarted.
Featuring interviews with the three sisters — conducted in their 80s and 90s — the film is also brought to life through family and archival photographs and documents; verbatim quotes from prominent historical figures; commentary and analysis from renowned scholars; and artistic illustrations. THE ITO SISTERS reveals a little-known chapter of American history, focusing on life in what was essentially a California plantation system between the world wars, with Asian and Mexican laborers working the fields of white landowners. The film explores themes that remain timely today: the meaning of American identity and citizenship for immigrants and their children; and tensions between new Americans and anti-immigrant forces.
Co-Sponsor:
Department of Ethnic Studies
The Merit of Words and Letters
Sutra Recitation in Japanese Zen
February 15, 2018
Lecture
Speaker:
Erez Joskovich, UC Berkeley
Classical Chan/Zen literature is famous for its disparagement of scriptural authority, ranging from the well-known slogan “separate transmission outside the scriptures...,” attributed to Bodhidharma, to stories of renowned Zen masters abusing Buddhist scriptures. Nevertheless, similar to other Buddhist schools, incantations of sutras and invocation of dhāranī have been a significant component of Zen monastic life throughout history. Not only do Zen monks not burn sutras, but in fact daily and monthly sutra-recitation services, including different offerings and prayers, take up more of the monks' time and effort than does any other activity, including zazen.
This talk examines the liturgical function of Buddhist scriptures within the Japanese Rinzai Zen School. Specifically, it aims to better understand how Zen practitioners interpret the meaning and purpose of sutra recitation, and how they bridge the apparent gap between the disparagement of scriptural authority and the pervasiveness of Buddhist scriptures in their monastic life. To achieve this goal, we will explore the Kankinbō 看経榜 (“Reading Sutra Placard”) chapter of Goke sanshō yōromon 五家參詳要路門 (“An Examination of the Essential Teaching of the Five Houses”; T 2576), written by the eminent eighteenth-century Japanese Rinzai monk Tōrei Enji (東嶺圓慈, 1721–1792).
Tōrei discussion combines various mental and physical benefits of sutra recitation, as well as its power to positively affect natural and supernatural environments. Thus, this work highlights the multifaceted understanding of texts as ritual objects, one that challenges any strict distinctions between worldly benefits and spiritual cultivation. Moreover, Tōrei exegetical efforts to explain the function and to justify the legitimacy of sutra recitation clearly indicate that the tension between antinomian rhetoric and worship was a major concern for pre-modern Zen masters, and not, as some scholars have argued, merely the result of projecting Western categories on traditional Zen practice. Accordingly, I contend that the Kankinbō can advance our understanding of the relations between the orthodox view of rituals within the Rinzai Zen tradition and its modern interpretations in Japan and elsewhere.
East Side Sushi
February 26, 2018
Film - Documentary
Speakers:
Anthony Lucero, Director
Tomoharu Nakamura, Chef
Join us for a screening of the a film East Side Sushi, followed by a Q&A with the Director Anthony Lucero and Chef Tomoharu Nakamura of Wako Japanese Restaurant.
East Side Sushi introduces us to Juana, a working-class Latina single mother who strives to become a sushi chef.
Years of working in the food industry have made Juana's hands fast—very fast. She can slice and dice anything you throw at her with great speed and precision. Forced to give up her fruit-vending cart in order to find a more secure job, Juana lands a position as a kitchen assistant at a local Japanese restaurant. It is there she discovers a new friendship and a whole new world of cuisine and culture, far-removed from everything she has ever known.
While working in the restaurant's kitchen, Juana secretly observes the sushi chefs and eventually teaches herself to make a multitude of sushi. Her creativity sparked, Juana's re-ignited passion for food drives her to want more from her job and her life.
Eventually she attempts to become a sushi chef, but is unable to because she is the “wrong” race and gender. Against all odds, she embarks on a journey of self-discovery, determined to not let anyone stop her from achieving her dream.
Co- Sponsors:
Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco
The Japan Foundation
Consulate General of Mexico in San Francisco
Buddhism and Social Discrimination in Japan
March 1, 2018
Colloquium
Speakers:
Hank Glassman, Associate Professor, Haverford College
Jessica Main, Associate Professor, University of British Columbia
Jessica Starling, Assistant Professor, Lewis & Clark College
This meeting will focus on how Japanese Buddhist culture has responded in premodern and modern times to the needs of individuals traditionally branded by social custom as hinin 非人 (outcastes) by reason of profession, medical condition, family background, or poverty.
Hank Glassman (Associate Professor, Haverford College)
“Kegawarashii: Discrimination against Funeral Workers in Japan, Medieval and Modern”
Jessica Main (Associate Professor, University of British Columbia)
“Public Health and Propaganda: Shin Buddhism and the Campaign to Eradicate Leprosy in the 1930s”
Jessica Starling (Assistant Professor, Lewis & Clark College)
“Practicing Ethics in Contemporary Shin Buddhism: Deconstructing Stigma at a Former Leprosarium”
Co-Sponsors:
Center for Buddhist Studies
Camp and Campus
March 1, 2018
Lecture
Speaker:
Joyce Nao Takahashi
Cal alumna Joyce Nao Takahashi ('55) was born in Berkeley, California, the second daughter of alumni, Henry ('26) and Barbara ('30) Takahashi. She grew up in Berkeley, with the exception of the “war years”, which she spent in Tanforan, California, Topaz, Utah and Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from Berkeley High School, and the University of California, Berkeley and received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles. In retirement, she is an Emerita Adjunct Professor of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, California, and a volunteer with the Time of Remembrance program at the California Museum, Sacramento, California. As a board member of the Japanese American Women Alumnae of the University of California, Berkeley she participated in the club's oral history project, which is the basis for the monograph, Japanese American Alumnae of the University of California, Berkeley: Lives and Legacy.
Co-Sponsors:
Asian American & Asian Diaspora Studies 122
Japanese American Women Alumnae of UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley Japanese American Studies Advisory Committee
Workshop on Tannishō Commentarial Materials
March 2–4, 2018
Workshop
The Centers for Japanese Studies and Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, together with Ōtani University and Ryūkoku University in Kyoto announce a workshop under the supervision of Mark Blum that will focus on critically examining premodern and modern hermeneutics of the Tannishō, a core text of the Shin sect of Buddhism, and arguably the most well-read religious text in postwar Japan. 2018 will be the second year in this five-year project that meets twice each year: we will meet in Berkeley from March 2 to 4 and in Kyoto at Ryūkoku University from June 22 to 24. Organized around close readings of the most influential materials produced in early modern, modern, and postmodern Japan, the workshop aims at producing a critical, annotated translation detailing the salient ways in which this text has been both inspirational and controversial, as well as a series of essays analyzing a wide spectrum of voices in Japanese scholarship and preaching that have spoken on this work. For the early modern or Edo period, the commentaries by Enchi (1662), Jukoku (1740), Jinrei (1808), and Ryōshō (1841) will be examined. For the modern period, works by Andō Shūichi (1909), Chikazumi Jōkan (1930), and Soga Ryōjin (1947) will be the major concern. And for the postwar/postmodern period, due to the sheer volume of publications (over 300 titles), reading choices will be selected at a later date in consultation with participants.
Format: The language of instruction will be primarily English with only minimal Japanese spoken as needed, and while the texts will be primarily in Classical Japanese and Modern Japanese, with some outside materials in kanbunand English. Participants will be expected to prepare the assigned readings, and on occasion make relevant presentations in English about content.
Dates: Exact dates will vary from year to year based on academic calendars, but for 2018 the meeting hosted by U.C. Berkeley will take place from the 2nd to the 4th of March at the Jōdo Shinshū Center in Berkeley, and in Kyoto the seminar will be hosted by Ryūkoku University from the 22nd to the 24th of June.
Cost: There is no participation fee, but in recognition of the distance some will have to travel to attend, a limited number of travel fellowships will be provided to qualified graduate students, based on preparedness, need, and commitment to the project.
Participation Requirements: Although any qualified applicant will be welcome to register, graduate students will be particularly welcome and the only recipients of financial assistance in the form of travel fellowships. Affiliation with one of the three hosting universities is not required. We welcome the participation of graduate students outside of Japan with some reading ability in Modern and Classical Japanese and familiarity with Buddhist thought and culture as well as native-speaking Japanese graduate students with a scholarly interest in Buddhism. Although we welcome students attending both meetings each year, participation in only one is acceptable.
Application Procedure: Applications must be sent for each year that one wants to participate. To apply to register for either or both of the workshops for 2018, send C.V. and short letter explaining your qualifications, motivations, and objectives to Kumi Hadler at cjs@berkeley.edu by the end of January, 2018. Applications are by email only, and application deadlines will remain as end-January in subsequent years as well. Requests for a travel fellowship money should be included in this letter with specifics of where you will be traveling from and if you plan to attend one or both meetings that year. Questions about the content of the workshop may be sent to Professor Blum at mblum@berkeley.edu. Communication regarding the Kyoto meeting may be sent to Karasawa Taisuke at karasawa-taisuke@ad.ryukoku.ac.jp.
Co-Sponsors:
Center for Buddhist Studies
Ōtani University
Ryūkoku University
BCA Center for Buddhist Education
Institute of Buddhist Studies
Antidotal
March 24, 2018
Exhibit - Multimedia
Speaker/Performer:
Masako Takahashi, Artist
The University of California, Berkeley C. V. Starr East Asian Library and the Center for Japanese Studies are proud to present an installation of work by Masako Takahashi, Class of ‘74, which will run from March 24 through May 1. The opening reception will be on Saturday, March 24, from 3:00-5:00PM at the C. V. Starr East Asian Library.
"Antidotal" is in two parts. Playful, vibrantly colorful wool pompoms will be suspended throughout the library. Their confident colors and comforting textures offer an antidote to the toxic stresses of contemporary life. Additionally, a selection of "Hair Text" pieces, Takahashi's own hair embroidered onto silk in an enigmatic text, will be included in display cases and on the walls of the first floor. Takahashi, an American of Japanese ancestry, lives and works in San Francisco and has maintained a studio in Mexico since 1984. She has been widely exhibited in North America and Europe.
Co- Sponsor:
C. V. Starr East Asian Library
G Yamazawa: Performance and Q/A
April 12, 2018
Performance
Performer:
G YAMAZAWA
Born in Durham, NC and raised by Japanese immigrants, poet and musical artist George "G" Masao Yamazawa, Jr. is widely considered to be one of the top spoken word artists in the U.S.
Nominated for Best New Hip Hop Artist by the 2016 Carolina Music Awards, G continues to challenge American perspective on race & culture, poetry & rap, and the phenomena of the human condition through his poetry and music.
Rethinking Labor: Work and Livelihood in Japan
April 13-14, 2018
Conference/Symposium
Please join us on April 13th and 14th for the UC Berkeley Center for Japanese Studies Fifth Annual Graduate Student Conference: Rethinking Labor: Work and Livelihood in Japan. Labor has and continues to be an important analytic in Japanese Studies as it illuminates diverse phenomena such as macro-economic change, state-society relations, and industrial development. Yet, drawing upon recent approaches in anthropology, sociology, and material culture, this conference seeks to invoke the concepts of work and livelihood, which can emphasize subjectivity, sociality and the material conditions to sustaining life in ways that complement and complicate previous studies focusing on traditional concepts of labor. With the goal of reframing what constitutes “labor,” graduate student panels will invoke “work” and “livelihood” as a means of addressing such categories as domestic structures, underemployment, immaterial production, transnational labor, among other topics.
Schedule
[Friday, April 13]
02:00-02:10 Opening Remarks
02:10-03:40 PANEL 1 | Political Messaging of Labor
Discussant: Steve Vogel, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Benjamin Bartlett, UC Berkeley
Frank Mondelli, Stanford University | Quotidian Labor: Narrative Political Framing in Japanese Politics and Twitter
Shelby Oxenford, UC Berkeley | The Labor of Advertising and the Work of Memory post-3.11
Jun Hee Lee, University of Chicago | In Chorus with Japanese Laborers: Celebrating the Miike Strike and the Laborer-Composer Ideal in the Utagoe Movement
04:00-05:30 Keynote Lecture: “Matter of Death in Solitary Times” by Prof. Anne Allison, Duke University
With a high aging/low birthrate population and the rate of marriage and even coupling on the decline in Japan, the primary social unit is moving from the family to the individual. As more and more Japanese live alone, they also face the prospect of death without those who once assumed the responsibility of caring for the dead. Seeing this as a limit case for sociality, the talk engages new practices in Japan that cater to mortuary self-care by the to-be-deceased themselves. When grievability itself becomes a matter assigned the individual for a future when already dead, what precisely happens to the form of the social?
[Saturday, April 14]
10:00-11:30 PANEL 2 | Dysfunctions of Labor
Discussant: Anne Allison, Duke University
Moderator: Justus Watt, UC Berkeley
Ramsey Ismail, UC San Diego | Not Working, Working from Home: The Work of Hikikomori
Felix Jawinski, Leipzig University | Continuities and Struggles of Nuclear Laborers in Japan
Gao Ming, National University of Singapore | Chinese Migrant Workers, Prostitution, and Opium in Japanese Manchukuo
11:45-01:15 PANEL 3 | Representational Work and the Mediation of Labor
Discussant: Daniel O'Neill, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Shoufu Yin, UC Berkeley
Justus Watt, UC Berkeley | From Livelihood to Labor: Ie no Hikari and Economic Rationalization in Rural Japan, 1925-1935
Hannah Airriess, UC Berkeley | Staging the Bright Life: White-Collar Cinema in Japan's Era of High Economic Growth
Drew Korschun, University of Colorado | Reading Nakajima Atsushi and Robert Louis Stevenson Through the Lens of Colonial Economy in the Pacific Islands
02:00-03:30 PANEL 4 | Labor's Production Beyond the Material
Discussant: Jonathan Zwicker, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Joel Thielen, UC Berkeley
Thomas Gimbel, University of Chicago | Philosophy, Sweat, and Flowers: Thought and Labor at Sengan-en
Xiaoyi Yang, Bard Graduate Center | Appropriating Zhangzhou Blue-and-White Ceramics in Japan
Thiam Huat Kam, Rutgers University | The Immaterial Labor of Materialization: Fans’ Dōjin Activity in Contemporary Japan
03:50-05:00 ROUNDTABLE: Labor in Medieval & Early Modern Japan
Lead Discussant: Brendan Morley, UC Berkeley
Moderator: Hannah Airriess, UC Berkeley
Kaitlin Forgash, UC Berkeley
Joel Thielen, UC Berkeley
Shoufu Yin, UC Berkeley
05:00-05:10 Closing Remarks