Centre for Japanese Studies E-Newsletter Autumn 2014 Welcome to the UEA Centre for Japanese Studies e-newsletter. Please forward this on to anyone you think may be interested and let us know about any events or news you think would be of interest to the Japanese studies community in Norwich. The deadline for the next issue is 5 January 2015). How to connect with Japan-related teaching, research and events through the Centre for Japanese Studies? It’s simple: Keep an eye on the website (www.uea.ac.uk/cjs) for full details of Japan-related teaching and research, and details of the members of CJS. Check out the CJS blog to see what the members of the CJS are up to A very warm welcome (and welcome back!) to the new academic year to everyone interested in Japan. As well as leading and coordinating Japan-related activities across the campus and the city, CJS welcomes Japanese visitors to Norwich and organises and takes part in a wide variety of activities here, elsewhere in the UK, in Europe, the US and in Japan. UEA continues to welcome good numbers of Japanese students, at programmes within the University and at INTO. And our first cohort of Japanese Language Degree students have set off for their Year Abroad in Japan. Good luck to you all over there! At the same time the Japanese Ministry of Education has announced the list of Japanese universities which are to receive substantial additional funding for internationalisation initiatives through the Super Global 13 Scheme. These include several UEA and SISJAC institutional partners – watch this space for further developments. Changes in Japanese Studies at UEA: We bid farewell to Dr Nana Sato-Rossberg who leaves UEA to take up a lectureship in Translation Studies at SOAS, and Dr Jo Lumley, who has moved to a new post at the University of Leeds. Congratulations to Mika Brown who becomes Yakult Lecturer and Head of Japanese, and who is joined by Dr Akiko Tomatsuri. The Faculty of Arts and Humanities at UEA has been restructured. The Centre for Japanese Studies continues to be located in Room 0.01 in the Arts Building, and is now part of the Faculty’s new Interdisciplinary Institute for the Humanities, along with the Foundation Year and Liberal Arts Degrees. Japanese Language degrees now form part of the Modern Language Degree programme within the Department of Language and Communication Studies in the new School of Politics, Philosophy and Language. Teaching on Japanese film and museum and cultural heritage studies is now focused in two departments within the new School of American Studies, Media and Art, Art History and World Art Studies, and Media.
Japanese Studies International Summer School: Following a very successful first Japan Orientation International Summer School, in which 14 students from central and eastern Europe participated culminating in presentations in the Council Chamber at UEA, we will be holding the second Japanese Studies Summer School from 28 June – 27 July 2015. Once again we will be able to offer a number of full bursaries to students from selected countries in eastern and central Europe, thanks to the Toshiba International Foundation. This year’s programme was also supported by the Japan Foundation, the European Association of Japanese Studies, and V4+Japan Exchange Year 2014 promoted by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Further details and a video from this year’s programme can be found shortly at http://www.uea.ac.uk/cipo/japan. University of Tokyo – Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures Summer Programme in Japanese Cultural Heritage: Dr Akira Matsuda (AMA) led the Summer Programme of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Tokyo organised in conjunction with SISJAC for two weeks from 30 July to 13 August this summer. Eight students, including one each from UEA, Cambridge, UCL and SOAS joined four undergraduates from Tokyo University. The group visited a number of museums (Tokyo National Museum, National Museum of Nature and Science, National Museum of Japanese History, University Museum of the University of Tokyo, Edo Tokyo Museum, Abashiri Prison Museum, Abashiri Municipal Museum of Folk History, Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples) and heritage sites (Asakusa, Boso no mura, Tokoro, Moyoro Shell Midden) and also engaged in various hands-on activities (processing archaeological finds, etc). This programme is expected to run again next year. International applicants just need to cover their own air fare: travel in Japan, food and accommodation are all provided. UEA Alumni Event in Tokyo: was held on 27 September. This event was organised by the Eastern Japan UEA Alumni Ambassador Professor Makoto Hayasaka and was joined by the West Japan Alumni Ambassador Professor Mikio Ando, along with the British Council Tokyo Office Director Mr Jeff Streeter, himself a UEA alumnus, and Professor Peter Lloyd-Sherlock (DEV). Opportunities for studying and living in Japan: In addition to opportunities for UEA students (see the Sasakawa Postgraduate Studentships below) CJS regularly receives information about a number of opportunities for studying and living in Japan, including the JET Programme, Canon Scholarships, Daiwa Scholarships and Mombusho Scholarships. Details of relevant websites are listed at the end of each CJS E-Newsletter. Sasakawa Postgraduate Studentships: The Great Britain Anglo-Japanese Foundation will again be offering postgraduate studentships for those wishing to pursue postgraduate studies relating to Japan. This year UEA was offered two studentships, each worth £10,000 per year towards tuition and living costs, although only one studentship was taken up. Full details will shortly be available via the CJS webpage. JET Programme: This year’s application deadline for the Japanese Government Japanese English Teacher Programme (JET) is Friday 28 November. A number of UEA graduates have won places on this scheme, which provides first-hand, and well-paid, experience of living and working in Japan. One UEA alumna has just taken up a post in Aomori. Simon Kaner spent two years living in Hyogo Prefecture on the precursor to the current scheme just after graduating, and can confirm it offers a wonderful opportunity to experience life in Japan. (www.jet-uk.org). UEA Career Central: is planning to hold a JET Programme Event on campus on 29 October (*Please see Dates for Your Diary below). Also see the online resources on MyCareerCentral to find
information about working in Japan. This information is suitable for both Japanese and nonJapanese students. Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JPLT): The four levels of the JPLT offer an excellent way of demonstrating your Japanese language prowess. The test takes place twice a year in the UK (July and December), in London and Edinburgh. Co-organised by the Japan Foundation and Japan Educational Exchanges and Services (http://www.jlpt.jp). Dates for your diary: THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER: ‘Buddhist Wooden Sculptures in the Early Heian Period: From a Standpoint of Sycretisation of Shinto with Buddhism’, lecture by Sarai Mai (Senior Researcher, National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo). SISJAC Third Thursday Lecture at Norwich Cathedral Hostry at 18.00. Please book: http://sainsburyinstitute.org/news-events/third-thursday-lectures/ TUESDAY 21 OCTOBER: Mugenkyo Taiko Drum Performance at OPEN in Norwich at 19.30. http://www.open247.org.uk/gigs-and-events/mugenkyo-taiko-drummers.aspx Alice Kemp-Welch from Norwich Taiko Centre has offered to arrange a concessionary rate for anyone who books through the Taiko Centre as group booking: info@taikocentre.org.uk . You can also try out taiko drumming yourself with the Taiko Centre East: http://www.taikocentre.org.uk/
WEDNESDAY 29 OCTOBER: JET Event organised by UEA Career Central (for full UK passport holders /native English speakers) at Julian Study Centre 1.02 18.00-19.00. Please book: https://mycareercentral.uea.ac.uk/ THURSDAY 6 NOVEMBER: Asian Day; please check with Japan Society later this month. ueajapansociety@gmail.com. SATURDAY 15 NOVEMBER: Experience Japan Exhibition 2014 13.00-18.00 at the Royal Society, London. An introduction to study and work opportunities in Japan. http://www.experience-japan.jp/ THURSDAY 20 NOVEMBER: ‘Applied Aesthetics: Nurturing Craft Innovation and Beauty in Edo-period Japan’, lecture by Professor Suzuki Kazuyoshi (National Science Museum, Tokyo). First in the series ‘Looking for the Roots of Modern Japanese Science and Technology in Edo-Period Japan 1615–1868’, Toshiba Lectures in Japanese Art and Science, Norwich Cathedral Hostry at 18.30 (please note the time). The final two lectures in this series will be given on November 26 (SOAS) and November 28 (British Museum) (http://sainsburyinstitute.org/news-events/toshiba-lectures-in-japanese-art-and-science/).
WEDNESDAY 26 NOVEMBER: SISJAC Friends’ event at the Embassy of Japan in London at 15.30. A special gallery talk of an exhibition curated by the speaker of this year’s Toshiba Lectures in Japanese Art and Science, Professor Suzuki Kazuyoshi. What else are CJS members up to? Simon Kaner spent six weeks over the summer as a Visiting Professor at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto, associated with a project exploring the importance of small-scale economies in the north Pacific area. As well as giving a number of talks, Simon’s research took him to Nagano, Niigata, Tokyo and Fukuoka. As soon as he was back in Europe than he was off to attend the 14th tri-annual conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies which convened in Ljubljana in Slovenia. Over 900 delegates took part, with academic strands and sessions including language and linguistics, arts and cultures, politics and economics. On 19 September Simon convened a special symposium at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation in London on ‘Public Archaeology in England and Japan’, with contributions from a number of leading Japanese archaeologists and colleagues from English Heritage, followed by a public seminar on ‘Excavating Cultural Heritage: The Archaeological Implications of the Great East Japan Disaster Three Years On’. (http://sainsbury-institute.org/news-events/daiwa-anglo-japanese-foundation-seminar/ and YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_C95jM4ogc). Also in September Simon hosted visits by Professor Hideya Sakai (Nara University) and Dr John Ertl (Kanazawa University). This autumn Simon is back in Japan to deliver the 2nd Ishibashi Foundation Lectures at the Tokyo National Museum on 25 October, along with Dr Oliver Craig (University of York) with whom we are working on a new AHRC-funded research project investigating the remains of food attached to prehistoric Jomon pottery. Ulrich Heinze delivered a course at Kyushu University on Mangamania in Japan for their Summer Programme. Full details at http://www.isc.kyushu-u.ac.jp/atw/courses.htm. Ulrich will be back in Norwich from January 2015. BCLT (British Centre for Literary Translation): In September 2014, as part of our Nippon Foundation programme to translate and promote contemporary writing from Japan, BCLT held Japanese-English translation masterclasses in NYC, London and Tokyo. The masterclasses, led by acclaimed editors David Karashima and Susan Harris and focusing on editing translations in progress, were linked to a Japan edition of Words Without Borders, to be published in March 2015. An anthology of Japanese short stories, The Book of Tokyo, edited by Masashi Matsuie, Michael Emmerich and Jim Hinks, will be published by Comma Press in October 2014, with support from BCLT and the Nippon Foundation. (http://www.bclt.org.uk/events/). Natsue Hayward has had a busy summer. In September she assisted with a collaborative art project between Tsukuba University and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (NNUH). The Hospital Arts Team from Tsukuba, lead by Dr Herb Fondevilla, including Professor Yasuyoshi Saito, Professor Hiroya Ichikawa, Professor Yuko Ono, and Dr Daichi Konaka and 3 students, worked with Emma Jarvis, Hospital Arts Co-ordinator, NNUH, to create an exhibition entitled the ‘Supernatural Garden’ complemented by a range of activities
and workshops across the hospital for staff, patients and members of the local community including art college students. It was to explore the differences in how the two cultures use art in hospitals. Emma and Natsue are now promoting a local illustrator John Shelley who has been active in Japan and the U.S. John’s art works now have been exhibited in the NNUH. http://www.nnuh.nhs.uk/arts/info/news.asp. At the end of September Natsue and four UEA Japanese students helped Hiroko Matsuka and the Scouts from Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge and Hertfordshire make Japanese curry at a weekend camp with 40 youths. They have been selected from four counties to participate in the 23rd Scouts International Jamboree on Kirahama Beach (Yamaguchi) next summer with 40,000 scouts from over 120 countries. They will then visit the Hiroshima Peace Park on 6 August for the 60th Anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb. In October Natsue will meet up with some of ‘CJS Alumni’ in Tokyo later this month. CJS is also developing connections in the world of school education in Norfolk and beyond. At Sheringham High School, UEA Alumnus Sam Laws continues his Afterschool Japan Club and has started to teach GCSE Japanese. Japanese is now being taught at several other schools in Norfolk and Suffolk. In August Natsue organised a school exchange event at Notre Dame High School (NDHS) with a school in Kyoto. The event was packed with a variety of activities including games, J-Pop dance, calligraphy, kimono, food and taiko drumming by Norwich Taiko Centre. This was all enjoyed by a group of 15 pupils and two teachers from Japan, along with 40 pupils and teachers including the Headteacher from the Norwich side. A big thank-you to UEA Japanese students and people from the Japanese community in Norwich.
Publications:
Simon Kaner is Co-Editor of the Japanese Journal of Archaeology, a new English-language open access online journal published by the Japanese Archaeological Association that presents the latest cutting-edge research on Japanese archaeology. The first issue has just been published: http://www.jjarchaeology.jp/contents/current.html.
SISJAC has just launched a new English-language Online Resource for Japanese Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (ORJACH) for use in schools aimed at 14-18 year-olds. Funded by Hitachi Europe plc and Hitachi Solutions, the trial version is now available by registering online at www.orjach.org. The resource was written by Oki Nakamura, former Handa Japanese Archaeology Fellow at SISJAC. Don Henson, formerly Education Officer at the Council for British Archaeology was the Project Consultant. Ulrich Heinze published a paper based on advertising materials in the Ritsumeikan digital archive: ‘Pictorial Body-Metaphors in Japanese Advertising. How the bodyeconomy replaces the body-nation in the affluent images of oishisa, bihada, and tan?’. Language and Dialogue 2014 (3).
Mary Redfern just published ‘Getting to Grips with Knives, Forks and Spoons: Guides to Western-Style Dining for Japanese Audiences, c.1800–1875’ in the journal Food and Foodways: Explorations in the History and Culture of Human Nourishment, 22.3 (Now available via Taylor & Francis Online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07409710.2014.940244. CJS People Motoko Akashi has started her doctoral research in PPL, supported by our first Sasakawa Postgraduate Studentship in Japanese Studies. Motoko’s research focuses on the notion of celebrity translators and how their existence problematises our understanding of translator visibility. As Associate Tutor, Motoko also teaches beginner's Japanese to undergraduates. Martin Doherty (PSY) hosted a visit by Dr Kikuno Yuichiro, University of Kyoto, in September, a visit which Martin hopes will lead to the establishment of a new collaborative research project with Japan. Luke Edgington-Brown, PhD candidate (AMA), spent six weeks in Japan this summer, participating in the Training Excavation run by the University of Tokyo at Tokoro in Hokkaido and undertaking field research for his PhD on the archaeology of the late Kofun period (4-6th centuries AD, focused on the William Gowland Collection at the British Museum. While in Japan Luke gave a paper at the Meiji University Museum on the Gowland archives. Luke’s visit to Japan was supported by a grant from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. Mayu Fushimi, a visiting biology student from Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, is being hosted by CMP for a month this autumn. Hiroko Onogi, who spent a month based in Norwich with her husband Professor Kazuo Miyamoto, Professor of Archaeology at Kyushu University, held an exhibition of her sumi-e inspired paintings at Yallops Gallery in September (http://www.nunnsyard.co.uk/yallops.html). These lovely paintings were full of character and personality, reflecting Onogi-san’s studies in China as well as Japan. The exhibition was beautifully displayed, hanging as scrolls from lengths of fresh-cut green bamboo that was grown in Norwich. Many thanks to Sarah Beare and Katy Armes for all their support. Dr Eriko Tomizawa-Kay is the first of five Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellows who will spend time at SISJAC this academic year. Eriko completed her PhD at SOAS before spending a year as Art History Research Fellow at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Eriko’s research theme is the ‘Study for New Boundaries in Modern Japanese Art History: Extending Geographical, Temporal and Generic Paradigms’. She will be based at SISJAC from October 2014 to March 2015.
Useful links and opportunities Embassy of Japan and Webmagazine: http://www.uk.emb-japan.go.jp/ Japan Foundation: http://www.jpf.org.uk/ JSPS: http://www.jsps.go.jp/english/
Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation: http://www.dajf.org.uk/ Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation: http://www.gbsf.org.uk/ Japan Society: http://www.japansociety.org.uk/ EU-Japan Centre: http://www.eu-japan.eu/ Canon Foundation : www.canonfoundation.org Nichibunken Project for Translation of Basic Books on Japanese Culture: http://publications.nichibun.ac.jp/en/announce/project/index.html Applications for JET Programme : http://www.jetprogramme.org/ Japanese Language Proficiency Exam : http://www.jlpt.jp/e/index.html UEA Japan Society : ueajapansociety@gmail.com Norfolk County Adult Education (for absolute beginner Japanese lessons: https://enrol.norfolk.gov.uk/CourseDetailsView.asp?ID1=1111&ID2=57378&ID3=1 Taiko Centre East: http://www.taikocentre.org.uk/ Career Forums: http://www.careerforum.net/event/?lang=E