Job Opening: Visiting Assistant Professor of Japanese History

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Paula

job opening - 5Institution: Oberlin College
Location: Ohio, United States
Position: Visiting Assistant Professor

The East Asian Studies Program and the Department of History at Oberlin College invite applications for a full-time non-continuing faculty position in the College of Arts and Sciences.  Appointment to this position will be for a term of two semesters, beginning fall semester of 2015-16 academic year and will carry the rank of Visiting Assistant Professor.

The incumbent will teach a total of five courses in the general area of Japanese history, including a two-semester introductory Japanese history survey and three other courses, comprising topical courses and seminars.  Ability to teach a course taking a Northeast Asia perspective is welcome.

Among the qualifications required for appointment is the Ph.D. degree in hand or expected by first semester of academic year 2015-16.  Candidates must demonstrate interest and potential excellence in undergraduate teaching.  Successful teaching experience at the college level is desirable.

For information on the Program in East Asian Studies, go to: http://new.oberlin.edu/arts-and-sciences/departments/east_asian/; and for the History Department, go to: http://new.oberlin.edu/arts-and-sciences/departments/history/.

Oberlin is a four-year, selective liberal arts college in northern Ohio that is also home to an outstanding Conservatory of Music. Together, the two divisions enroll approximately 2900 students. Oberlin College was founded in 1833. It was the first college in America to make interracial education and coeducation central to its mission – traditions that live today within a commitment to positive social engagement. Oberlin College has earned a reputation of excellence based on the quality of its richly diverse student body, outstanding faculty, and excellent facilities and academic and technological resources. For more information, go to http://new.oberlin.edu.

Oberlin College is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to creating an institutional environment free from discrimination and harassment based on race, color, sex, marital status, religion, creed, national origin, disability, age, military or veteran status, sexual orientation, family relationship to an employee of Oberlin College, and gender identity and expression.

To be assured of consideration, a letter of application, a curriculum vitae, graduate academic transcripts, and at least three recent letters of reference* should be sent to David E. Kelley, Director, Program in East Asian Studies, Oberlin College, Peters Hall 316, 50 North Professor Street, Oberlin, OH 44074 by March 6, 2015.  Salary will depend on qualifications and experience.  *By providing these letters, you agree that we may contact your references.

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Fun Link Friday: “Ghibli Land”

Posted on February 20, 2015 by LM
Copyright TAKUMI. Via Spoon & Tamago.

Copyright TAKUMI. Via Spoon & Tamago.

As much as I’m against Disneyfication and as much as I love Baudrillard’s work on simulacra and theme parks, I would totally visit “Ghibli Land” as imagined by artist TAKUMI.

Check out his Facebook page here and the Spoon & Tamago article here.

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Call for Papers: Beyond Eurocentricism: Rethinking Spatial Representation – 2015

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Paula

call for papers [150-2]19 June 2015

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London

Beyond Eurocentricism: Rethinking Spatial Representation

 

Non-European space is almost always represented through an East-West hegemonic binary in Eurocentric thinking, which upholds and perpetuates uneven geographical discourse and power, and subjugates the Eastern ‘Other’. This binary neglects the multidimensionality of spatial representation and representational responses in Asian, African and Middle Eastern cultural texts and discourses. The 2015 CCLPS Postgraduate Conference aims to examine these alternative representational spaces from historical and contemporary, local and global, as well as national and international contexts. In so doing, this conference on the one hand challenges European theories and practices of spatial representation that are almost always unchallenged, and on the other examines and explores theories, practices, and discourses of space from non-European perspectives.

We invite papers that investigate spatial representation as a cultural practice and a discourse in the broadest possible sense from an interdisciplinary perspective. We seek papers that question and encourage discussions on the implications, limitations and new trajectories of rethinking representations of space beyond a Eurocentric prism and European theory in Asian, African and Middle Eastern culture.

Topics could include, for example: imperialism and geography; borders and the nation state; ideological spaces; national and/or communal borders; the city and the country; metropolitanism; cosmopolitanism; formations of spatial identity and ‘Otherness’; intercultural and interlinguistic space; diaspora narratives; local cosmologies; mythical and/or spiritual representational spaces; imagined spaces; alternative histories of landscape, environment and architecture; ecologies; parallel universes; the wilderness, the unseen, the underground; spaces occupied by non-humans; interrogations of space as a gendered entity; space and sexuality; the public and the private; areas of safety; sites of violence.

We hope to establish comparative critical perspectives informed by, but not limited to, cultural studies, literary studies, postcolonial studies, area studies, architecture, gender studies, urban studies, urban cultural studies, animal studies and ecocriticism.

Abstract proposals should be no longer than 200-250 words, and Panel proposals no longer than 400 words, with very short bios of no more than 50 words, and be sent by 15 March 2015 tocclps.conference@soas.ac.uk

Notification of acceptance will be announced no later than end of March.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions.

CCLPS Postgraduate Conference Organising Committee:

Sefik Huseyin: sefik_huseyin@soas.ac.uk

Poonkulaly Gunaseelan: p_gunaseelan@soas.ac.uk

Charis Bredin: charis_bredin@soas.ac.uk

Nadeschda Lisa Bachem: nadeschda_bachem@soas.ac.uk

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Place-Name Readings with Memorva

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Paula

Need to find out how to read a place name kanji? Check out this neat resource originally posted over at the Ishikawa JET blog!

LM's avatarIshikawa JET

I live in a 郡 (gun, county) that has a name so strange that my home computer can’t recognize it when I type it in. At work, the computer is set to know that ほうすぐん (Housu-gun, the county created out of the towns of the 奥能登, the inner-Noto) is written as 鳳珠郡. At home, I have to manually input the kanji by typing 鳳 (ootori), one of the many kanji for phoenix and 珠 , the su of Suzu 珠洲 and an alternate kanji for tama, ball, sphere.

Typing it is bad enough, but have you ever seen someone try to read 鳳珠郡? Anyone who doesn’t live here, Japanese or otherwise, will just give you a blank look as you fill out your address.

Fortunately, while searching for the correct reading of some small towns’ kanji during the Summer Festival Season project for this blog…

View original post 262 more words

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Call for Papers: Kinema Club Conference on Film and Moving Images from Japan

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Paula

Kinema Club XV
at Nippon Connection Film Festival in Frankfurt, Germany

Film and Moving Images From Japan NOW – 
Film in the New Media Ecology

Dates: June 5 & 6 
Goethe University Frankfurt / Nippon Connection Film Festival
Deadline for submissions: March 15, 2015

We welcome submissions for the 15th Kinema Club Conference on Film and Moving Images from Japan!

This edition of Kinema Club will be held in conjunction with the Nippon Connection Film Festival, the largest festival for Japanese film, and in cooperation with the Goethe University Frankfurt. Take the opportunity to see over 100 hundred films from Japan and engage with the attending dozens of filmmakers.

This Kinema Club will focus on current film and moving images from Japan. The critical and academic attention paid to current film from Japan has receded since the late 1990s, even as domestic film regained the greater part of the box office in Japan. Meanwhile the environment for film production and distribution has changed dramatically.

In comparison with previous times things may look dark: Arthouse-type theaters such as minitheaters and meigaza are closing by the dozens. Film production in Japan is divided between TV-financed blockbusters and low- to no-budget films, with little middle ground in between. On a global level, Korean drama and cinema have eclipsed the popularity of contemporary Japanese film. But does this perspective really hold?

What kind of approaches do film and other forms of moving images from Japan need today? Do media mix and a transformed media ecology demand new conceptual frameworks and new methodologies? Does it open us up to new periodizations? What are the stakes in thinking about current film and moving images from Japan?

But also more concretely: What kind of films are being made today, what (and how) do they mean? What are the significant works of today, what is it that makes them significant?

We welcome both individual and panel submissions. Generally papers should broadly address at least one of two different themes:

  1. The state of film from Japan today
  2. The state of research on film from Japan today

Dates:

The conference will be held on June 5 & 6 at the Goethe University Frankfurt

Keynote panel:

A keynote panel will discuss issues concerning current film and moving images from Japan.

Participants:

Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano (Carleton University), Hikari Hori (Columbia University), Phil Kaffen (New York University), Yuka Kanno (Doshisha University), Alexander Zahlten (Harvard University)

Nippon Connection Film Festival Perks:

Panel participants will have access to a limited number of free tickets for screenings. The festival will assist in setting up interviews with the filmmakers attending Nippon Connection.

Watch films from a selection of over 100 current films from all corners of the Japanese film industry.

Mingle with the dozens of filmmakers from Japan attending the festival.

Attend this year’s retrospective of Somai Shinji films, held in conjunction with the German Film Museum.

Submissions:

Please send abstracts of up to 200 words or any questions to: kinemaclub15@gmail.com

Panel submissions should consist of a panel abstract and the respective paper proposals – all of these around 100 words.

Deadline for submissions is March 15, 2015

******************************************************************

What is Kinema Club? 

Kinema Club is an informal community of scholars, artists, and fans interested in Japanese moving image media established in the early 1990s. A group that Initially formed for informally swapping Xeroxes of tables of content from Japanese film journals eventually established a newsgroup called KineJapan, which instantly grew to 50 names. KineJapan now has over 600 participants from every part of the world.

From this description you might gather than Kinema Club is more an idea than a group. The idea is that Kinema Club provides a rubric within which anything is possible. No one owns it. Anyone can take it and do something creative with it. We have no dues (and no budget or bank account). No system of introductions. No office. It is amorphous, even anarchic, but it has definitely played an important role in networking all the scholars, programmers and fans interested in Japanese cinema.

One of the most important activities has been our workshops and conferences. At the end of the 1990s, the study of Japanese cinema was undergoing some interesting transformations. Most notably, it was becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. To confront these changes head-on, an intimate workshop was held at the University of Michigan in 1999. One thing became immediately evident: although there were many students and professors studying Japanese film and television, no one really knew each other. KineJapan already had over 200 members at that point, but few people had met face to face. So subsequent workshops and conferences were held in Hawai’i (2003), NYU (2004), McGill (2004), Tokyo (2005), NYU (2005), Yale (2006), Frankfurt (2007), Harvard (2009), Hawai’i (2010), Vienna (2011), Yale (2013), Harvard (2014) and Meiji University (2014). The programs for many of these conferences are on the archives section of the Kinema Club website.

****************************************************************************

What is Nippon Connection?

Nippon Connection is the largest festival of film from Japan in the world. It was founded in 2000 and launched as an annual festival in 2002 and is organized entirely by volunteers. In 2014 it showed over 100 films with over 80 guests from Japan in attendance.

Different from many other festivals the main objective of Nippon Connection is not to show one type of film, but to showcase the best, most interesting, and most relevant from the entire range of contemporary film production in Japan. Nippon Connection therefore shows a great variety of film forms – blockbusters and indy films, experimental film, documentary film, art animation and anime, Pink Film and V-Cinema. Additionally it organizes a retrospective in cooperation with the German Film Museum in Frankfurt.

With its focus on the most exciting and important streams in film from Japan today the festival attracts around 16.000 attendees. Hundreds of filmmakers, producers, scriptwriters, actors and distributors have attended the festival in the past, among them Yamashita Nobuhiro, Hiroki Ryuichi, Momoi Kaori, Tsutsumi Yukihiko, Tanada Yuki, Wakamatsu Koji, Imaoka Shinji, Asato Mari, Arai Haruhiko, Ishibashi Yoshimasa, Miura Daisuke, Mukai Kosuke, Kumakiri Kazuyoshi, Yamamura Koji, Kamanaka Hitomi, Matsue Tetsuaki, and many others.

 

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Workshop: Theatre Nohgaku

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Paula

The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at North Carolina State University, in cooperation with Theatre Nohgaku, is delighted to announce “Welcome to the World of Noh,” a four-day program of workshops and a lecture-demonstration on noh that will take place on the NCSU campus, April 9-12, 2015.

 

The program will include a two-hour performance workshop, a two-hour lecture-demonstration, and a three-day writing workshop devoted to creating noh-styled performance scripts (including music). These events should be of interest to anyone wishing to gain greater familiarity with noh. The writing workshop especially will provide a unique opportunity to explore the inner world of noh, offering invaluable insight into the aesthetic roots of the art form grounded in Zen. Despite its practical focus, it will have much to offer scholars of Japan across the disciplines.

 

The program will be will be led by composer/playwright and former Hosho-school noh professional David Crandall, a founding member of Theatre Nohgaku.

 

Program Schedule:

 

Thursday, April 9:

Performance Workshop, 3:30-5:30 pm, Carmichael Gym Room 1206, Main Campus

Free to All ~ Space Limited, Reserve Early

Lecture-Demonstration, 7:00-9:00 pm, Talley Student Union Room 4280, Main Campus

Free and Open to the Public

 

Friday, April 10 through Sunday, April 12:

Writing Workshop, 10:00 am-5:00 pm daily, NC Japan Center, Centennial Campus

Cost $150, Free to NCSU Faculty/Staff and All Students ~ Space Limited, Reserve Early

 

For more information about the program or to reserve a place please contact:

Gary Mathews/gary_m@ncsu.edu

 

For more information about Theatre Nohgaku please visit:

www.theatrenohgaku.org

 

For more information about NCSU and directions to venues please visit:

www.ncsu.edu

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Book Announcement: License to Play: The Ludic in Japanese Culture

Posted on February 15, 2015 by Paula

LTPLicense to Play: The Ludic in Japanese Culture 

(University of Hawai’i Press, 2014).

Publisher’s summary:

Play is one of the most powerful cultural forces in contemporary Japan and in other late modern societies. In this notable contribution to our understanding of play, Michal Daliot-Bul explores the intricate and dynamic transformations of culture and play (asobi) in Japan. Along the way, she takes readers on a theoretically informed journey to better comprehend what makes play a significant cultural function, asking such questions as “How can we explain the dialectics between play as a biological instinct and play as a culturally specific activity? What defines the best player? How is creativity related to play? What is the difference between play and playfulness? Are some cultures more play-oriented than others, and if so, why?” Daliot-Bul argues that the cultural meaning of play and its influence on sociocultural life are not inherent properties of a fixed, universal behavior called play but rather are conditioned by changing cultural contexts and competing social ideologies.

Spanning Japan’s premodern period to the twenty-first century, the extent and expressions of play described in this book become thought-provoking lenses through which to view Japanese social dynamics and cultural complexities. As she approaches the post-industrialized 1970s in Japan, Daliot-Bul’s narrative also explores urban consumer culture as a system for organizing daily life, the tension between institutional and  contemporary popular cultures, the production of new gender identities, and the cultural construction of urban space.

Readership:

License to Play will appeal to scholars and students specializing in cultural studies, cultural anthropology, and Japanese studies. Given the global fascination with Japanese popular culture and with play-like pleasures in late consumer cultures, the book will also find a readership among those interested in Japan in general and in the universal phenomenon of play.

For more information: http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-9226-9780824839406.aspx

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Program: The University of Tokyo: Summer Program on Media Content Studies in Japan

Posted on February 14, 2015 by Paula

Warmest greeting from Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies (III) of the University of Tokyo.

We would like to inform you that the Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation Media-Content Research Project in conjunction with the University of Tokyo will host a summer program focusing on Japanese pop culture. Each summer, the program will focus on a different aspect of Japanese media and popular culture. The main theme of the program for its second year is “Mediated Worlds: Sociality, Publicness and Celebrity.” The goal of this year’s program is to better understand how media technologies have transformed the category of celebrity and fame in Japan to produce new modes of socially mediated publicness.

The features of the program are as follows:

  1. Two-week program with the opportunity to be deeply engaged in the scene of Japanese pop culture through:
  •  Lectures conducted by leading scholars in the field of media and popular culture.
  • Experiential learning in Tokyo, with access facilitated by the combined networks of Kadokawa and the University of Tokyo.
  •  The opportunity to contribute to a published educational text on Japanese media and popular culture.
  •  Collaborating and networking with scholars, students, and media professionals from Japan and around the world.
  1. The program is aimed at those who are enrolled in a Masters or Ph.D. program, or have recently obtained a Masters or Ph.D. in art, humanities, or the social sciences. Upper-level undergraduates, who intend to pursue graduate study in a related field in the future, are also welcome to apply.
  1. The program has no tuition or registration fees. Instead, we will be offering (1) financial support up to \100,000 yen for travel expenses and (2) a \32,000 subsidy for accommodations during the period of the summer program (two weeks) to all participants.

The program details are available at the website below:

http://kadokawa.iii.u-tokyo.ac.jp/summer_program/

If you have any questions, please contact us at: inquiry@kadokawa.iii.u-tokyo.ac.jp,

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Job Opening: Defense Section Embassy of Japan, Administrative Assistant

Posted on February 14, 2015 by Paula

job opening - 5Embassy of Japan in the United States of America

The Embassy of Japan is seeking a highly motivated, team-oriented individual for the position of Administrative Assistant. This individual is primarily responsible for managing the schedules and activities of diplomats in the Defense Section. Please see below for a detailed listing of responsibilities.

The Embassy offers group health insurance coverage, paid vacation and sick leave. Working hours are 9:00 am – 5:30 pm, Monday through Friday, with lunch time receptionist duty once a month and the occasional weeknight and/or weekend event (paid overtime). Salary is commensurate with experience.

Please note: Candidates must be a U.S. citizen or a U.S. green card holder. Screening will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Only successful candidates will be contacted. All candidates will be subject to background checks and security clearance.

Responsibilities:

  • Manage the schedules and daily activities of diplomats in the Defense Section
  • Make appointments, develop itineraries, coordinate transportation for diplomats and guests, answer phone calls and other administrative duties
  • Draft, proofread, and edit English documents, letters and correspondence
  • Help organize receptions, meetings, and events
  • Conduct research on a number of different topics
  • Other responsibilities as needed and appropriate

Required and Preferred Qualifications:

  • Fluent in English
  • Japanese language skills preferred
  • Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
  • Office experience preferred
  • Associate’s degree or the equivalent from a two-year college or technical school (Bachelor’s degree preferred)

How to apply:

E-mail your resume and cover letter to: defense@ws.mofa.go.jp by February 20th.

*Please no phone calls. Due to the high volume of resumes we receive, we cannot guarantee consideration of your application if the submission instructions are not properly followed.

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Job Opening: Lecturer of Japanese: University of Denver

Posted on February 14, 2015 by Paula

job opening - 5Institution:   University of Denver, Languages and Literatures
Location:   Colorado, United States
Position:   Lecturer of Japanese

The Department of Languages and Literatures at the University of Denver will hire a Lecturer of Japanese for appointment. This is a full-time, renewable lectureship with full benefits beginning September 1, 2015.

Website: https://dujobs.silkroad.com/

Job Description

The Department of Languages and Literatures offers the following undergraduate programs: majors and minors in French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish; minors in Classics, Japanese, and Chinese; beginning levels of study in Hebrew and Arabic. Study of Greek is also available on an individual basis.

The Department of Languages and Literatures at the University of Denver will hire a Lecturer of Japanese for appointment. This is a full-time, renewable lectureship with full benefits beginning September 1, 2015.

The right candidate will be responsible for the following:

  • Teaching load eight classes over three academic quarters, which are typically one-hour block courses taught four days per week.
  • The lecturer will teach all levels of Japanese, though mainly beginning and intermediate level classes.
  • Some advising of declared or prospective minors and of students planning to study in Japan is expected, some program-promotion activities such as student club advising are also expected.
  • Research/ Scholarship not a job requirement for this position, although active scholarship is desirable and supported.
  • Contribution to student advising and extracurricular activities expected.
  • Participation in department meetings and collaboration with the team in Japanese.
  • Limited committee or other departmental service.

Required Qualifications:

  • ABD in Japanese or closely related field (e.g., omparative literature or linguistics with a clear Japanese emphasis) at the time of appointment in September 2015
  • Experience teaching Japanese language to Anglophone students in the US at college or university level, with proven, professionally attested excellence and effectiveness.
  • Excellent command of Japanese and English language required in all their aspects: lexicon and idiom, grammar, phonology, and writing system.

Preferred Qualifications:

  • PhD in Japanese language and literature, Japanese linguistics, or a closely related field at time of application.
  • Formal study of second language acquisition and experience in assessment of language learning desired.
  • Experience teaching 2nd and 3rd year Japanese desired.
  • Extended residence and extensive travel in Japan desired.

Special instructions to applicants:

Candidates must apply online through http://www.dujobs.org to be considered. Only applications submitted online will be accepted. Once within the job description online, please click New Resume/CV at the bottom of the page to begin application. In addition to the application, please upload a cover letter, official transcripts of graduate studies, and a document which conveys evidence of outstanding teaching. Please combine documents to avoid the 5 document upload limit.

Three letters of recommendation are also required. Please email, or send via Interfolio the letters of recommendation to the following contact: Colleen Lucero, Assistant to the Chair – colleen.lucero@du.edu or if they must be mailed: Chinese Search Committee, Department of Languages and Literatures, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208.

If you have questions regarding this position please contact: Colleen Lucero at colleen.lucero@du.edu Deadline for submissions is February 20, 2015. We will be conducting semi-finalist interviews at AAS Annual Conference in Chicago, March 26-29, 2015 (other arrangements can be made if necessary).

The University of Denver is committed to enhancing the diversity of its faculty and staff and encourages applications from women, minorities, members of the LBGT community, people with disabilities and veterans. The University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

 

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