CJS Summer 2014 Newsletter

Centre for Japanese Studies E-Newsletter Summer 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 30 July 2014.

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 Sign up to become a CJS Volunteer and help out at our events. Email cjs@uea.ac.uk with your reasons for wanting to become a CJS volunteer.

As spring turns to summer, we continue to welcome Japanese visitors to Norwich and organise and take part in a wide variety of activities in here, elsewhere in the UK, in Europe, the US and in Japan.

Japanese Prime Minister Abe recently visited London and confirmed a major initiative to increase the numbers of students going from the UK to Japan and vice-versa, creating enhanced opportunities for study abroad. We are working closely with the UEAs Study Abroad and International Offices to ensure that UEA benefits as much as possible from such opportunities.

One such new opportunity is a special Summer Programme in Japanese Archaeology and Heritage being offered by Tokyo University, in conjunction with the SISJAC. The programme will be led by Dr Akira Matsuda, Lecturer in Japanese Artistic Heritage in ART, and will provide an introduction to Japanese museums and archaeological excavations. The programme runs from 30 July – 13 August and is based in Tokyo and Hokkaido. Applications are invited from interested undergraduates.

Costs in Japan are covered. Deadline is 30 May 2014. Full details available from http://sainsburyinstitute.org/news-events/news/university-of-tokyo-summer-programme/.

We are also developing connections in the world of school education in Norfolk and beyond. Natsue Hayward and UEA Alumnus Sam Laws attended the ‘Japan Conference for Schools’ at the Japanese Embassy. Sam holds Afterschool Japan Club at the Sheringham High School, while Natsue has linked Notre Dame Schools in Norwich and Kyoto. A group of pupils will come to Norwich on a new language programme this August. Natsue also organised a visit to a Norwich primary school in March to demonstrate Japanese cultures along with and Japanese ladies and Japanese students at UEA (Inagaki Shoko and Kojima Miki from DEV, and Yamamoto Miho from FTM), as part of the

school’s International Day, using Go Global Development Annual Fund (Dean of Students Office) which Shoko was awarded. CJS also continues to foster links between Thetford and Nagawa in Nagano prefecture, and we hope to see an exchange of high school students from 2015. Later in 2014 the new English Language Online Resource on Japanese Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, funded

by Hitachi Europe Ltd and Hitachi Solutions Ltd, developed by a team based at SISJAC and designed for use in schools, will be launched.

Dates for your diary: FRIDAY 23 MAY: ‘Ceramics, art and cultural production in modern Japan’. A one-day research workshop at SISJAC organised by Dr Meghen Jones, Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow. Ceramics in modern Japan, as in other parts of the world, developed within three main ontological trajectories—as art, craft and design. Yet no other modern nation was engaged with ceramics as much as Japan -a "potter's paradise"- in terms of creation, exhibition, and discourse. As forms of modernist art, ceramics in Japan developed within the genres of bijutsu kōgei and obuje, but throughout the modern period ceramics also asserted meanings as material embodiments of tradition, preservations of folk culture, and commodities signifying the technical acumen of the nation. This is the first international workshop dedicated to expanding critical inquiry on ceramics in modern Japan. Fully booked. (http://www.sainsbury-institute.org/news-events/international-ceramic-art-workshop/).

MONDAY 2 JUNE: ‘Murasaki: A Man Fascinated by Colour’. SISJAC Friends’ film screening at 18.00 at the Cinema City (Screen 2) in Norwich. Screening followed by a Q&A with Sachio Yoshioka, the head of the natural dying studio Sometsukasa Yoshioka featured in the documentary. (http://sainsbury-institute.org/support-us/film-screening/).

SATURDAY 7 JUNE: ‘Distributors’ Choice. A festival of the best of Japanese cinema in the UK selected by major film distributors’. Organised by Dr Rayna Denison (FTM). One-day free film screening event. 12-noon until late. Venue: The Curve, downstairs at the Forum, Norwich. See http://www.mangamoviesproject.com/about, and for venue information: http://www.theforumnorwich.co.uk/.

MONDAY 16-FRIDAY 20 JUNE: Renowned Japanese author Ono Masatsugu will be taking part in the Worlds Literary Festival organised by Writers' Centre Norwich (http://www.writerscentrenorwich.org.uk).

THURSDAY 19 JUNE: ‘From Green to Black and Brown to Green: How Black Tea Conquered the US and Britain, and Green Tea Japan’. SISJAC Third Thursday Lecture by Dr Robert Hellyer (Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellow). 18.00 at the Norwich Cathedral Hostry. (http://sainsbury-institute.org/news-events/third-thursday-lectures/).

THURSDAY 3 JULY: ‘Manga-anime vs Japanese art’. 18:00-19:00 at SISJAC, 64 The Close.

Join renowned manga artist Hayashi Seiichi for a discussion as part of his visit to the UK organised by SISJAC Fellow Dr Ryan Holmberg. Supported by the Japan Foundation, Takara and ANA. Further details at www.sainsbury-institute.org.

THURSDAY 17 JULY: ‘Tsushima. Japan viewed from the margins: archives, books, ginseng’. SISJAC Carmen Blacker Lecture by Professor Peter Kornicki. University of Cambridge. 18.00 at the Norwich Cathedral Hostry. (http://sainsbury-institute.org/newsevents/third-thursday-lectures/).

THURSDAY 21 AUGUST: SISJAC Third Thursday Lecture by Paul Greenhalgh (Director, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts). Title to be confirmed. 18.00 at the Norwich Cathedral Hostry. (http://sainsbury-institute.org/news-events/third-thursday-lectures/).

WEDNESDAY 27 – SATURDAY 30 AUGUST: European Association for Asian Studies Triennial Conference, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (http://www. http://aas.ff.unilj.si/eajs).

SATURDAY 30 AUGUST – TUESDAY 9 SEPTEMBER: ‘Japan orientation: an introduction to new directions in Japanese studies’. International Summer School organised by the International Programmes Office at UEA and CJS, sponsored by the Toshiba International Foundation and supported by the Japan Foundation, the European Association of Japanese Studies. Part of V4+Japan Exchange Year 2014 promoted by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Further details available at http://www.uea.ac.uk/cipo/japan.

TUESDAY 9 SEPTEMBER: ‘Hokusai and Book Illustration’ SISJAC Friends’ Lecture: by Ellis Tinios (Honorary Lecturer in History, University of Leeds and Visiting Researcher, Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto). 18.00-19.30 at SISJAC. Lecture followed by a drinks reception. (http://sainsbury-institute.org/support-us/friends-event-hokusai-andbook-illustration/).

THURSDAY 25 – SATURDAY 27 SEPTEMBER: Inaugural conference of the European Association for Asian Art and Archaeology. Olomouc, Czech Republic. (http://www.eaaaa.eu/news/2014/04/first-eaaa-conference-september-25-27-olomouc-czech-republic/ ).

What else are CJS members up to?

Simon Kaner travelled to Budapest in February to attend a special symposium on Japanese Studies in Eastern and Central Europe, organised by the Japan Foundation Budapest Office, to help promote our Summer School ‘Japanese Orientation’ (see above). He was back in Norwich in time to give a talk on ‘Dragons in Japanese art’ for the Norwich Dragon Festival.

In early March we welcomed a delegation from the new international Cultural Resource Studies programme at Kanazawa University led by Dr Yoshida Yasuyuki, and continued our survey of the Gowland Collection of ancient Japanese materials at the British Museum, in conjunction with the Japanese Section at the British Museum. The Japanese research team is led by Professor Ichinose Kazuo of Kyoto Tachibana University and Professor Hishida Tetsuo of Kyoto Prefectural University. In March Simon was in Tokyo for the International Jomon Culture Conference, which will once again be sponsoring a Handa Japanese Archaeology Fellow based in Norwich later this year. He then went on to Philadelphia for the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies, where he promoted Japanese Studies at UEA and met with many former Robert and Sainsbury Fellows. He is back in Japan in May, in Tokyo, Niigata, Hokkaido and Kyushu, exploring new projects and visiting universities and museums.

Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere gave a talk on ‘Repositioning the importance of things: Medieval and Early Modern assemblages seen through the archaeological record at Ichijodani and other related sites’ in April at a conference on Materiality in Japan: Making, Breaking and Conserving Works of Art and Architecture at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York

University (http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/research/mellon/mellon-materialityjapan.htm), before heading to Japan to judge the 10th International Ceramics Festival at Mino.

Nicole’s secondment to the British Museum continues where her title from the beginning of May is the IFAC Handa Curator in Japanese Arts. Nicole continues as Research Director at SISJAC and Professor in Japanese Arts and Cultures at UEA. In June Ulrich Heinze heads to Kyushu University to deliver a course on Mangamania in Japan for their Summer Programme. Full details at http://www.isc.kyushuu.ac.jp/atw/courses.htm. This semester, as well as his usual teaching, Ulrich has been arranging screenings of the medical drama anime ‘Black Jack’, at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and at Cinema City, supported by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.

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 CJS people Gibson D’Cruz (NSC) received students and staff members again from the Niigata University of Nursing and Welfare in March. Niigata University will continue the partnership with NSC for at least for two more years.

BCLT (British Centre for Literary Translation) is offering a mentorship between 1st January and 30 June. (Geraint Howells mentored by Michael Emmerich) and held a Japanese-English Translation Masterclass as part of the Tokyo Literature Festival in March in Tokyo. (http://www.bclt.org.uk/events/).

Robert Hellyer, specialist in the study of the tea trade, joins two other current Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Fellows at SISJAC, Ryan Holmberg and Meghen Jones. View their profiles at http://www.uea.ac.uk/japanese-studies/people.

Ohtani Hiroshi is spending a year based at UEA. Hiroshi is a lecturer at Musashino University in Tokyo. His research interest is in the study of Wittgenstein, especially his conception of philosophical picture in his later period. He is currently working on Japanese translation of Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics with Dr Tetsuya Furuta (Niigata University). For Musashino University, please see: http://www.musashinou.ac.jp/english/.

Steven Hayward (CMP) gave a talk at a MEXT funded symposium at Ochanomizu University in March. Steven plans to go back to University of Tokyo next spring on study leave.

Marie Orise http://rwdb2.mind.meiji.ac.jp/Profiles/23/0002264/prof_e.html will be based with CJS from late May for a second year based at UEA. Marie writes: I was trained in English literature, and have been in recent years conducting research in literature written in English and Japanese with multicultural elements. I have co-authored a book on foreign-born writers of Japanese (a copy can be found in the SISJAC library), and have spoken on the

same subject at various conferences over the past two years. During the coming year, I intend to continue my research in Japanese and British multicultural literature. I also have an interest in the history of the Japanese Empire, especially that of Manchuria. I have published a short story about the ‘Japanese Orphans Left Behind in China’ in a Puffin anthology, and am working on a novel of the same theme’.

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