Job Opening: East Asian Religion, Assistant Professor (tenure-track)

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Paula

Institution: Florida State University, Religion
Location:   Florida, United States
Position:   East Asian Religion/American Religious History

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

Assistant Professor in East Asian Religions

The Florida State University Department of Religion invites applications for a position in East Asian Religions with specialization in the religions of Japan and Japanese Buddhism.  This will be a tenure-track appointment at the assistant professor level; it will begin in August 2013, by which time the Ph.D. must be in hand. The candidate must have broad training in the study of religion and advanced facility in the textual traditions of Buddhism in Japan. Expertise in both modern and classical Japanese (Bungo and Kanbun) is required. Competence in classical Chinese and/or Korean is also preferred. The successful candidate will be expected to carry out an independent program of scholarly research yielding significant
peer-reviewed publications, and to demonstrate promise of a strong teaching contribution in the context of a comprehensive program (B.A. through Ph.D.). For more information about our department and programs, please consult http://religion.fsu.edu. For full consideration, applicants should submit a vita and supporting materials (transcripts, course outlines, samples of written work, and at least three letters of recommendation) by Wednesday, October 31, 2012.

Materials may be submitted via email to sstetson@fsu.edu or by mail to

East Asian Religions Search,

Florida State University,

Department of Religion,

Dodd Hall M05,

Tallahassee, FL 32306-1520.

The Florida State University is a Public Records Agency and an Equal Opportunity/Access/Affirmative Action Employer.

Contact: Susan Stetson
Florida State University Religion
M02 Dodd Hall
641 University Way
P.O. Box 3061520
Tallahassee, FL  32306-1520

850-644-1021
sstetson@fsu.edu
Website: http://religion.fsu.edu

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Funding: 1 Postdoctoral Fellowship or 3 PhD Scholarships in Art HIstory

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Paula

Heidelberg University is offering 1 Postdoctoral Fellowship or 3 PhD Scholarships in the Art Histories of China, Japan, and Europe, respectively, within the Cluster “Asia and Europe in a Global Context,” funded by the German Federal Excellence Initiative. The position/s shall begin from 1 January 2013, but a later appointment may be considered.

The three-year position/s are situated within the research group MC4 ‘Frames and Framing in Transcultural Interactions’ and shall take a new look at the processes of material and textual “en-framings” (mountings, texts, pictorial additions and adaptations) of specific paintings and objects as they travel from one cultural environment to another. The successful applicants are expected to contribute to the research group’s objectives in close collaboration with colleagues in European and East Asian art history, Chinese intellectual history, and South Asian literary history. A brief outline of the project can be found here: http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/frames/.

Requirements include relevant disciplinary qualifications in East Asian or European Art Histories at the time of appointment. Applicants should show evidence of intellectual involvement beyond one cultural focus and demonstrate scholarly promise in the form of published research or other achievements. Fluency in English is essential. For applicants in East Asian art history at least one East Asian language is required. Research experience in Asia is desirable. German is not mandatory but German language classes are available upon request.

Continue reading →

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Job Opening: Executive Secretary, Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan

Posted on September 24, 2012 by LM

Institution: University of Michigan
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Deadline: Sept. 30, 2012
Education: Bachelor’s preferred

Job Summary

This position is 40 hours per week during the academic year (August through May) and 32 hours per week during the months of June and July. Specific schedule and hours may be discussed during the interview process and finalized in an offer made to the successful candidate.

This position provides administrative support to the Chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures as well as general secretarial/administrative support to the department. The successful candidate is expected to carry out advanced, diversified, and confidential secretarial and administrative duties requiring broad and comprehensive experience, a highly developed skill set, and knowledge of organizational policies and practices.

Compose and initiate routine correspondence; Screen telephone calls, e-mail, and visitors, resolving both routine and complex inquiries; Schedule appointments and meetings; Create travel itineraries and coordinate all travel-related arrangements; Effectively maintain Chair’s calendar and avoid conflicts in the schedule.

Develop and maintain a high level of understanding of all LSA procedures for faculty hiring, review and promotion. Manage applicant files for tenure-track and LEO lecturer searches and recruitment. Prepare reports and correspondence with a high degree of accuracy. Make travel arrangements for invited candidates and schedule job talks. Manage applicant dossiers and submit to LSA in a timely manner. Maintain organized promotion files. Oversee promotions timeline and ensure that deadlines are met. Submit complete promotion packets accurately and in a timely manner. Oversee the LEO lecturer review cycle. Manage the review timeline and ensure that review dossiers are submitted accurately and in a timely manner to the ALC and LSA Executive Committees.

Plan and coordinate meetings, receptions, programs and events including the use of facilities, services and equipment. Answer the main phone line, triage phone calls and interact with walk-in customers. Maintain supply inventory and place orders as necessary. Enter overrides for ALC classes and develop a working knowledge of the undergraduate concentration and minors. Perform other duties as assigned in order to support the goals and objectives of the department. Work as a team with highly-skilled staff in a fast-paced environment.

Required Qualifications

This position requires an extremely high level of organizational skills and high degree of confidentiality. Outstanding interpersonal as well as communication skills (written and verbal) are required. The candidate must have the ability to prioritize tasks, work independently, handle multiple tasks simultaneously and be able to synthesize the big picture/goals of the Department in to the specific tasks required to reach the objectives.

The successful candidate will be proactive in all aspects of the position, be imaginative and think outside the box. At least 5 years of administrative support to an upper level manager/executive, preferably in an academic setting. A Bachelor’s degree is highly desired. High level of MS Word proficiency with working knowledge of Excel and Outlook.

Desired Qualifications*

Bachelor’s degree with experience at UM handling tenure and promotion cases as well as faculty recruitment. Working knowledge of LSA tenure and promotion policies and procedures. Experience working with LSA’s Management Reporting System (MRS). Experience in creating and utilizing a Sharepoint site. Experience with CMS/Vignette website management.

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Job Opening: Program Specialist / Asian Programs, Cultural Vistas

Posted on September 23, 2012 by LM

Institution: Cultural Vistas
Location: Columbia, Maryland
Start date: October 1, 2012
Education requirements: 4-year degree
Languages needed: Korean or Japanese
Level of language proficiency: Advanced proficiency with Japanese or Korean (spoken and written) preferred but not required.
Employment type: contract (temp, no benefits)

– Contract Position –

Cultural Vistas is seeking a Program Specialist (contract position) in its Columbia, Md. office to support in the administration of its Exchange Visitor Programs. More specifically, this individual will assist our staff in the daily operations and provide administrative support to our Korea WEST (South Korea) and Kizuna (Japan) programs.

Learn more about Korea WEST at www.koreawest.org and on our Tumblr site.

Skills & Abilities Required:

  • Assist in providing guidance, advice and support to Korea WEST and Kizuna participants.
  • Assist in the coordination of placing students in internships
  • Organize materials for orientations, meetings, language schools as well as visa documents
  • Daily responses to Korea WEST and Kizuna participants via emails and phone calls.
  • Assist the application process from data entry to completion of program.
  • Assist the Program Manager with Facebook updates, marketing materials and forms in relation to the Korea WEST and Kizuna programs
  • Assist the Program Manager and the Placement team with internships placements, practice interviews with the participants and update placement status on daily basis.
  • Knowledgeable with social media
  • Be available to conduct site visits of U.S. host companies

This position is contracted for 6-8 month (35 hours per week) with no benefits.

See original posting at idealist.org for details.

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Call for Papers: “Japanese Cities in their Global Context”

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Paula

Special Paper Sessions at the 2013 AAG Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, April 9-13, 2013.

Organizers: David W. Edgington (University of British Columbia) and
Carola Hein (Bryn Mawr College)

Two of the featured themes for the 2013 Annual Meeting of the AAG in Los Angles are “Emerging Asias” and “Global Urbanization”. Accordingly, we invite participants to a special paper session/s on “Japanese Cities in their Global Context”.

The objective of these sessions is to bring together papers that investigate Japanese cities and aspects of contemporary or historical patterns of development, governance, social and environmental issues,
with an eye to exploring their position in a wider global context. We welcome participation from a wide diversity of sub-disciplines, including geographers, GIS specialists, sociologists, urban planners, urban historians and architects who are working at the frontiers of their fields.

Papers on all aspects of research into Japanese cities are welcome.
Topics may include but are not limited to:

-social and economic change
-Japanese city maps
-urban governance and planning
-historical roles
-waterfront design
-transportation and infrastructure
-disaster planning and post-disaster reconstruction
-urban ecology

The sessions will help establish new approaches to comparative studies of Japanese cities by placing historical and present-day developments into wider debates on emerging Asias and global urbanization.

/Instructions for Submissions/

//

Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words by October 1st to both the organizers David W. Edgington (David.Edgington@ubc.ca and Carola Hein (chein@brynmar.edu). We will then finalise the panel sessions by October 8^th . You will then have to submit your participation/registration fee and abstracts online through the AAG’s website (www.aag.org) and send us your PIN (personal identification number) before October 17^th which will give us time to register the sessions.

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Book Announcement: Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in the Modern World

Posted on September 23, 2012 by LM

http://thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1815

Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering: Japan in the Modern World
Author: Dower, John W.
Pub Date: Spring 2012
336 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59558-618-6

Remembering and reconstructing the past inevitably involves forgetting—and nowhere more so than in the complex relationship between the United States and Japan since the end of World War II. In this provocative and probing series of essays, John W. Dower—one of our leading historians of postwar Japan and author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Embracing Defeat—explores the uses and abuses to which this history has been subjected and, with deliberation and insight, affirms the urgent need for scholars to ask the questions that are not being asked.

Taking as a starting point the work of E.H. Norman, the unjustly neglected historian of prewar Japan, Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering sets out both to challenge historiographical orthodoxy and reveal the configurations of power inherent in scholarly and popular discourse in Japan and America. Dower’s fascination with capturing popular experience leads to sources as far ranging as textiles adorned with wartime propaganda and the satirical cartoon panels that decorate traditional karuta playing cards. Dower, who is rightly known as one of the most perceptive critics of American foreign policy, also offers a blistering critique of the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the misuse of postwar Japan as an example of success.

Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering is a profound look at American and Japanese perceptions—past and present—of key moments in their shared history. An incisive investigation of the problems of public history and its role in a modern democracy, these essays are essential reading for anyone interested in postwar U.S.-Japan relations, as well as the broader discipline of history.

John W. Dower is Professor Emeritus of History at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His interests lie in modern Japanese history and U.S.-Japan relations. He is the author of several books, including War Without Mercy and Embracing Defeat, which was the recipient of numerous honors, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Bancroft Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History, and the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Prize. He lives in Boston.

See Jeff Kingston’s review in the The Japan Times here.

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Job Opening: Content Editor, Booking.com

Posted on September 22, 2012 by LM

Company: Booking.com
Location: Tokyo
Type: Full-Time/Regular
Education: not listed; experience/language skills

Description
Booking.com is the market leader of online hotel reservations.

As a Content Editor, your main task will be to create commercial content for hotels’ pages on Booking.com, maintain up-to-date information and monitor content quality.

You will be in contact with hotels and our Hotels Department on a daily basis in order to validate information and acquire content essentials (photos, room features etc). It is crucial that you can communicate in Japanese and are able to convince hotels of the importance of content for increased bookings.

Your goal will be to promote each hotel in the most attractive – yet objective and concise – way, in order to persuade people to book hotel rooms through our website.

You will also analyse customer reviews and have to adapt quickly to the latest content guidelines.

We are looking for enthusiastic candidates with a good understanding of the hotel industry, a customer mindset and a passion for e-commerce.

This is a full-time position based at our Tokyo office.

Main responsibilities:

  • Create, review and continually improve commercial web-copy that accurately reflects the character and facilities of the hotel, resulting in maximum reservations
  • Ensure web page content is maintained to the highest quality standards
  • Collect essential hotel content by contacting hotels and the hotels department directly and convincing them of the commercial importance of content
  • Day-to-day commercial communication with hotels by telephone and e-mail

Requirements:

  • Experience of creating commercial content and writing/editing
  • Good face-to-face and telephone communication skills
  • Fluent English and Japanese speaker and writer
  • Experience within e-travel and/or hotel/travel industry is a plus
  • Excellent computer skills (Word, Excel, basic photo editing and Internet)
  • Quick and resourceful desktop researcher
  • Flexibility, accuracy, strong analytical skills and an eye for detail
  • Customer focused
  • Pro-active and positive attitude

For full details and to apply, see original posting on booking.com.

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Call for papers/panels: 2013 Association for Asian American Studies National Conference

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Paula

The 2013 Association for Asian American Studies National Conference in
Seattle, Washington April 17-21, 2013

Program Co-Chairs Rick Bonus and Moon-Ho Jung
Call for Papers
Deadline for Submission: October 15, 2012

THE AFTERLIVES OF EMPIRE

Claimed by multiple empires for hundreds of years and proclaimed a gateway to Asia and the Pacific over the last century, Seattle and the Pacific Northwest afford a fitting backdrop to reflect collectively on the histories of empire and their enduring impact on Asian American, Pacific Islander, and other communities. We wish especially to explore the breadth and depth of historical and contemporary imperial formations and practices, to map what we might call imperial fields the nodes and circuits of power, capital, and desire generated by colonization, commerce, and migrations around the world. Particularly on the tenth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the so-called war on terror, we invite submissions that grapple with the meanings of empire, in the past and in the present.

The political urge and urgency to challenge the U.S. empire, most expressly in the movement against the Vietnam War, helped to define Asian American Studies in its founding. That urge, however, has
perhaps faded over the past four decades, even as our current political moment demands that we comprehend and critique empire from and across multiple disciplines. How might we theorize or define
empire in the twenty-first century? How have public policies, political and academic discourses, social practices, health services, research, teaching, and cultural productions made empire visible and
invisible in the United States and beyond?

* We encourage submissions from a range of disciplines covered in Asian American Studies as well as from individuals and groups engaged in political and intellectual work outside the academy, including
politicians, artists, and community activists.

* We welcome papers and panels that address the topic of empire from the perspective of multiple as well as intersecting disciplines, research areas, and professional fields, including legal or policy analysis, medical/health practice, education, geography, psychology, international studies, and social work.

* We especially encourage panels incorporating a range of institutional and extra-institutional locations, from students to senior scholars, and from artists to policy makers. Co-authored presentations and undergraduate student panels or roundtables will also be seriously considered.

* We will give priority to complete panel submissions (with a minimum of three papers and a maximum of four, with a moderator) that attend to the conference theme, but we will consider individual submissions
as well.
* We accept electronic submissions. Paper and panel applicants must be members of the Association for Asian American Studies and all presenters must submit their conference registration form and fee to
be included in the printed conference program. Additional information, including the membership form and submissions guidelines, is available at the Association for Asian American Studies Web site at
http://www.aaastudies.org/forms

Saengmany Ratsabout, Secretariat

University of Minnesota
214 Social Sciences Building
267 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Email: secretariat@aaastudies.org
Visit the website at http://aaastudies.org

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Fun Link Friday: Japanese street fashion

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Paula

Photo by Dominic’s Pics

Being a girl of neither the height nor shape for clothing in Japan, I have never known much of anything about contemporary fashion there, not even the everyday looks. And the more extreme things? Well, I’m not one for standing around in four inch heels, lace, or neon colors. But over the top fashions are often considered to be the “iconic” looks of modern Japan, and looks like the “lolita” fashion, with full skirts, lacy trims, and doll-like aesthetics are probably what immediately come to mind for many others.

Over at Haikugirl’s blog, Haikugirl Japan, she put up a really neat guide to Japanese street fashion back in June that caught my eye and I had to bookmark for later. A couple months after attending Hyper Japan, a festival in London celebrating Japanese culture (particularly pop culture, it seems, with lots of events on for things like fashion, cosplay, anime, contemporary films, etc.), she put up rough guide to some of the more common fashions today’s Japanese light up the streets with. Honestly, I had no idea there were so many sub-sections of the “Lolita” type fashion (Gothic? Classic Gothic? Punk? Otome Kei? Wa?) with such specific distinguishing characteristics. Even if fashion isn’t your thing, take a quick look through this article and see some of the really interesting outfits people put together. Haikugirl does a great job of giving brief introductions to each distinctive style. More images from her visits to Hyper Japan can be found on her Flickr account. Maybe you’ll start recognizing them the more you wander around Tokyo!

Check it out:

http://haikugirl.me/2012/06/10/a-rough-guide-to-japanese-street-fashion/

Know of any other neat guides to Japanese fashion? Let us know!

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Ninth Annual JAT Contest for New and Aspiring Japanese/English Translators

Posted on September 20, 2012 by LM

Seeking to encourage talented people to enter the translation field, Japan Association of Translators (JAT) is pleased to announce its ninth annual Japanese/English translation contest for new and aspiring translators. The actual passage to be translated is a real-life text—the sort of thing a working commercial translator might well be called upon to do.

Open to: Anyone with less than three years’ experience as a professional translator
JAT membership not required Previous entrants (except winners) are welcome to enter again
Entry fee: Free

Judges:
Japanese-to-English:
Initial screening: George Bourdaniotis, Nora Stevens Heath, Ko Iwata
Final review: Ken Wagner, James Davis, Ruth McCreery

English-to-Japanese:
Initial screening: Takaaki Aono, Mayumi Adachi, Yukihiro Sato
Final review: Yukari Ishihara, Kiyoshi Chimasu, Kiyoshi Fujimura

Prizes:
All Finalists: One-year complimentary JAT membership + Feedback from the judges

2nd Place: One-year complimentary JAT membership + Feedback from the judges + free registration for the 24rd International Japanese/English Translation Conference (IJET-24) to be held on June 1-2, 2013, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

1st Place: One-year complimentary JAT membership + Feedback from the judges + free registration for IJET-24 + transportation to and from IJET-24 + free accommodations during IJET-24 Organized and funded by: NPO Japan Association of Translators (JAT)

Contest Schedule:　　
2012 October 8 (Mon.): Source text and Contest Guidelines available for download
2012 November 12(Mon.): Deadline for accepting first 50 entries for each division (24:00 JST)
2012 Late December: Five finalists announced on the JAT website
2013 Early February: First- and second-place winners announced on the JAT website and by direct e-mail to the winners
2013 June 1-2: Winners invited to IJET-24 in Hawaii and award-giving ceremony

Due to overwhelming number of applicants, only the first 50 entries will be accepted for each division, so get your translation in early!

All entries will be reviewed and judged by experienced professional translators.

All decisions are final. All entries become the property of JAT.

For further information, please check the JAT website after October 8 or contact the contest committee at contest@.jat.org

See original post here.

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