Centre for Japanese Studies E-Newsletter Spring 2015 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 1 May 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
We hope that the Year of the Sheep is shaping up well for you. We have some exciting developments in Japanese studies to report to you. The University has identified Japan as one of five countries around the world as a focus for international engagement. Pro-Vice Chancellor Professor David Petley visited Japan in the autumn, and we are looking forward to contributing further to the University’s profile in Japan. If you have ideas about how to enhance our Japan-related activity further, please contact us at CJS. The University has once again been invited to put forward good candidates for Sasakawa Postgraduate Studentships in Japanese Studies. Each studentship is worth £10,000 towards tuition fees and living costs. Any field is eligible, as long as the research/studies to be undertaken relate to Japan. Contact CJS for an informal discussion. Applications must be submitted through CJS – and the deadline is 28 February 2015. These studentships, funded by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, are designed to encourage new generations of MA students working on Japan. Further details are available at the CJS website http://www.uea.ac.uk/documents/3355246/0/2015Sasakawa_Studentship_Programme_Backg round_and_Guidlines.pdf/5d922ffc-b5e0-4fbb-9d51-6b4f77e488bd. Come and find out about working in Japan, and hear from UEA graduates either who have, or are working there at the UEA Career Central Global Opportunities will take place during the week of 9 February. Japan-related activities will be held on Monday 9 February for Japanese students and non-Japanese students who wish to work in Japan. Seminars and workshops, meeting with delegates from JSPS, Daiwa, UKTI, JETRO and some other organisations. See below for more details.
Japanese Studies International Summer School: Following the success of the inaugural year of our new summer course ‘Japan Orientation: New Directions in Japanese Studies’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Z8h6OU-UQ the programme will run again in 2015 with support from the Toshiba International Foundation and the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. We are pleased to announce that the programme has also received full university accreditation and will now run as a 4-week course as part of UEA’s International Summer School. Further details, including bursaries available, can be found at www.uea.ac.uk/summerstudyabroad/japan. For a flyer: http://www.uea.ac.uk/documents/3355246/0/UEA+ISS+Japan+Orientation+2015+leaflet.pdf/ 998dc169-ccaf-496d-91cc-7b3cf7a4bbfe. The Niigata University of Health and Welfare will be sending nine student nurses and two members of faculty to UEA this spring (March 2015). This visit is the fourth occasion that students and staff from Niigata will be visiting and it builds on the success of previous visits. The group will be mentored by Gibson D’Cruz, School of Health Sciences (HSC) and Susanne Lindqvist, Centre for Interprofessional Practice (CIPP). The visit will consist of seminars on health, nursing and inter-professional learning as well as visits to hospitals and other health-related organisations in Norwich. Dates for your diary
MONDAY 9 FEBRUARY: Global Opportunities Week Japan-related events by CareerCentral. For a programme: https://www.uea.ac.uk/documents/3355246/0/Global+Opportunities+Week+Program me+VI_FINAL.pdf/6e571916-2210-44c6-9e3f-6a21f87f947b.
MONDAY 16 FEBRUARY: A talk by Ulrich Heinze on ‘Graphic Novels and Manga Culture’ at 11.00, MUS 0.28. This is part of a Literature and Humanities Module, organised by Dr Jenna Pitchford-Hyde.
THURSDAY 19 FEBRUARY: ‘Rediscovering Forgotten Modern Japanese Painters: The Charles Stewart Smith Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’, by Dr Eriko Tomizawa-Kay (Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow). Third Thursday Lecture. 18.00 at the Norwich Cathedral Hostry. http://sainsbury-institute.org/newsevents/third-thursday-lectures/. Free and all welcome.
MONDAY 23 FEBRUARY: An evening of Ainu art and archaeology at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Culture, followed by a drinks reception. 18.00-19.30, 64 The Close, Norwich. Speakers: Professor Hirofumi Kato (Hokkaido University Centre for Ainu and Indigenous Studies) and award-winning artist Mr Toru Kaizawa, introduced by Simon Kaner. Admission free for Friends/ £5 for non-Friends / £3 for students. Booking: k.nishioka@sainsbury-institute.org. The new issue of the Friends’ of the Sainsbury Institute e-Magazine is now available at http://sainsbury-institute.org/support-us/e-magazine-issue-10/
MONDAY 26-FRIDAY 27 FEBRUARY: Global Virtual Careers Fair. For details log into MyCareerCentral.
THURSDAY 19 MARCH: ‘Things that matter: Japanese poetry and material culture’. Sainsbury Institute Third Thursday Lecture by Professor Edward Kamens, Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow and Yale University.18:00 Norwich Cathedral Hostry. Entry Free. All welcome. http://sainsbury-institute.org/news-events/third-thursday-lectures/.
THURSDAY 16 APRIL: ‘Converting women into men: Japanese images that promote salvation from being female’. Sainsbury Institute Third Thursday Lecture by Professor Caroline Hirasawa, Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow and Sophia University.18:00 Norwich Cathedral Hostry. Entry Free. All welcome. http://sainsbury-institute.org/news-events/third-thursday-lectures/.
What else are CJS members up to?
Simon Kaner was in Japan in October to give the 2nd Ishibashi Foundation Lectures at the Tokyo National Museum, along with Dr Oliver Craig of the University of York. These lectures can now be seen at http://youtu.be/nKDGYLeqxjU, http://youtu.be/xKR3q-VivI8 and http://youtu.be/k7_YbfUl9-c. We are collaborating on an AHRC-funded project investigating the food residues on some of the oldest pottery in the world. While there, Simon visited Fukushima and archaeological sites affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and has just published a report on this in the journal British Archaeology http://www.britisharchaeology.org/current#After_Fukushima. Looking forward to 2020 he also gave a lecture in Nagaoka, Niigata, on the ‘Archaeology of the Olympics’, in support of the campaign to have the 2020 Olympic Cauldron in a form inspired by Jomon period Flame pots (we have an excellent example in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts). Simon returned to Japan in January to undertake research on small-scale farming in rural areas, part of a major research project based at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto, http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/fooddiversity/en/. On February 10, Simon will demonstrate the new Online Resource for Japanese Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (ORJACH) for use in schools at the Teachers’ INSET Day at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. It is aimed at 14-18 year-olds and funded by Hitachi Europe plc and Hitachi Solutions plc. For further details and to see the resource for yourself see www.orjach.org. In mid-February Simon will be in Budapest giving lectures at the ‘Building Connections in Japanese Studies in Eastern and Central Europe’ conference organised by the Japan Foundation in Budapest http://www.jfbp.org.hu/en/news/japanesestudies-conference-for-building-connections-among-researchers-in-central-andeastern-europe-2015/377 , and at the Central European University http://www.jfbp.org.hu/en/events/medieval-japans-urban-archaeological-heritagecomparative-perspectives/402
Rayna Denison organised a discussion with renowned Japanese film director Shinobu Yaguchi on 4 February, and a special screening of his film Swing Girls (2004). These events were organised in conjunction with the Japan Foundation. http://www.uea.ac.uk/documents/3355246/0/Shinobu+Yaguchi+Talk+poster+and+inf ormation.pdf/7c4f9276-9941-4479-8f35-e53064e9451a.
Martin Doherty (PSY) will give a ‘Kyoto International Seminar in Psychology’ at University of Kyoto in mid-February, titled ‘Developmentally Distinct Systems for Processing Gaze and Theory of Mind’.
Steven Hayward (CMP) is spending six weeks in Japan with JSPS Bridge Fellowship this spring. He will be based at University of Tokyo and visit several universities and research institutes to demonstrate a biomolecular haptics (force-feedback) software developed with colleagues in CMP and strengthen ties with Japanese colleagues.
Mami Mizutori, Executive Director at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, recently took part in a panel on Womenomics at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation: http://www.allaboutshipping.co.uk/2015/02/05/womenomics-japan-needs-action-notpr-on-womens-advancement/.
Nicole Rousmaniere, Professor of Japanese Arts and Cultures at UEA and Handa IFAC Curator in Japanese Art at the British Museum, gaves talks at the the Gardiner Museum, Toronto on ‘The importance of being Kakiemon: the origin and international impact of Japanese Kakeimon style porcelain’ on 26 November, and on ‘Beauty and the potters art: the first one hundred years of Japanese porcelain’ at the Northern Ceramics Society Winter Weekend Seminar in Manchester at the end of January.
Publications
Ulrich Heinze and Dr Louella Matsunaga are currently editing a special issue of the journal Contemporary Japan (27/1) with the tentative title, ‘Body Concepts: Changing Discourses of the Body in Contemporary Japanese Society’. Among the contributors is PPL’s Fusako Innami, whose paper is entitled ‘Co-sleeping: Engaging with the Capitalized Dozing’.
Simon Kaner’s interview on the concept of design from an archaeological perspective can be found in the latest Newsletter of the Research Institute for Humanities and Nature (RIHN). Please see: http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/publicity/publications/newsletter/img/newsletter_51.pdf. (pp 12-14, in Japanese).
People
Nozomi Abe (PhD candidate, LDC) has been helping since last summer with Kentaro Kobayashi’s performances at Leicester Square in London on 3 and 4 February.
Nozomi’s translation of Charles Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’ has also been used for plays by Studio-Life in Tokyo recently. http://www.studiolife.com/stage/great_expectations/.
Dr Susan K Burton (Research Student, LDC). Having worked for a decade as an associate professor in various Japanese universities, she is now writing a creative nonfiction book on the interesting lives and odd careers of foreigners in Japan. In her spare time, she is also trying to write the great Japan expatriate novel. An oral historian, her research interests include expatriate and third culture studies. She can be contacted via her website: www.drskburton.com.
Luke Edgington-Brown, PhD candidate (AMA) gave a talk at a workshop organised by the Department of Archaeology at Kyoto University in January, on the archaeology of the later Kofun period (4-6th centuries AD), about his research into the William Gowland Collection at the British Museum.
The Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures welcomes four new Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellows this semester, joining Dr Eriko TomizawaKay. Professor Edward Kamens and Dr Iza Kavedzija have already arrived and their details are below. Applications for the 2015-16 Fellowships are now open, and the deadline is 1 March. Full details are at the Sainsbury Institute website: www.sainsbury-institute.org.
Edward Kamens is Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Yale University. His research topic for his Fellowship is on ‘Things that Matter: Japanese Poetry and Material Culture’. Professor Kamens will stay in Norwich from January to April. http://sainsburyinstitute.org/fellowships/robert-and-lisa-sainsbury-fellowship/edward-kamens/
Iza Kavedzija is a Postdoctoral Associate, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford. Her research topic: The Work of Art: an Ethnography of Contemporary Art Production in Osaka; Dr Kavedzija will stay in Norwich from January to July. http://sainsbury-institute.org/fellowships/robert-andlisa-sainsbury-fellowship/iza-kavedzija/
We welcome two new lecturers in Japanese who join Mika Brown and Akiko Toimatsuri in PPL: Dr Fusako Innami and Dr Kaoru Umezawa. Mika was in Japan over the New Year, visiting universities and our first cohort of UEA Japanese language students who are currently spending a year abroad in Japan.
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
Applications for JET Programme : http://www.jetprogramme.org/ Japanese Language Proficiency Exam : http://www.jlpt.jp/e/index.html UEA Japan Society (Meetings on Monday evenings): ueajapansociety@gmail.com Taiko Centre East: http://www.taikocentre.org.uk/ Taiko Centre East has been relocated recently. No charge for the first lesson. info@taikocentre.org.uk Career Forums: http://www.careerforum.net/event/?lang=E